I must say that I am just pleased as a peach to be in the lead of my first series. Even if there have only been 2 out of 15 races run.
On to the race follow up. (this is mostly for my benefit)
Fenders are a fantastic idea in the mud. I thank the flying spaghetti monster that I used one. Even though my body did get muddy during the race, my eyes stayed clean. Fenderless folks were not so lucky. There were quite a few people in the bike wash using the hose on their eye balls. Literally hosing out their eyes. Ouch.
I really thought about taking the fender off before the race. After all, most people didn't have one. I'm so glad that I didn't follow the crowd. I think that it was a case of form over function gone horribly horribly wrong. Fenders don't look cool, so many chose not to use them. I saw one guy riding a $3500 Jet9 with a cut up milk jug zip tied to his down tube. A good fender costs about $15. Figure that one out. I certainly couldn't.
Rampage+ Crossmark is a surprisingly decent combo in the mud. They didn't pack up, and the grip was as good as I could hope for fast rolling tires.
I need to run lower gear in the mud. 32X18 was much to hard. I was not able to stand much because I lost to much traction, so I had to stay in the saddle and grind away. It hurt a bit. 32X19 or 32X20 would be perfect.
