The Mountain States Cup Chalk Creek Stampede in Nathrop took place on May 1-3. Once again, Jinji Cycles was on site to provide neutral support. As seems to be a tradition, we left in less than perfect weather. The fog cleared up on the other side of Kenosha and we enjoyed a weekend of great weather.
We had the chance of staying at some friends house in Beuna Vista and Friday night we were greeted with burgers and the gorgeous views of Mt. Princeton.
The weather people threatened us with rain for Saturday and though the clouds definitely supported those claims, we saw only a few sprinkles. Those sprinkles were, in fact, just what we needed to keep the dust down and provide a perfect situation for mountain bike racing.
The Chalk Creek race provided us with a much larger expo area with several more support and team trucks on hand. It's nice to have some other people to hang out with. Shimano sent a couple of guys and several team trailers filled the expo along with a local couple cooking hot dogs and hamburgers. The Yet RPM group spent two weeks building the courses and setting up for the race. I give a lot of credit to those guys; teen age boys running all over, keeping the race running was pretty cool. I'm happy to see Yeti getting the youth involved in both racing and race production.
Some of the slalom kids airing it out.
A better view of the larger expo area.
My booth always seems to be within a stone's throw of the porta potties. It was, however, right near the race start. So, I got all the last minute "my race starts now" repairs. All good though.
A few of the guys from Body Sync Westside.
Great one here. 4 cross kid comes over with a broken derailleur hanger. Derailluer is shot too. We set the bike as a single speed with some spacers he found in is stuff. The problem was that the part of the hanger that the QR skewer affixes to was broken off. Solution: run the axle through the hole for the derailleur and clamp it all down. It worked and got him through the weekend. The other big fix of the trip was fixing a "stuck down" Fox rear shock on site.
Sunday proved to be much more sunny but the wind kept the dust kicked up all day. I'll take the cold, off and on drizzle over the wind and dust.
I had to find a way to get some good coffee out there. Camp stove plus French press equals score.
A little dual slalom.
Wednesday, June 24th was Bike To Work Day here in Colorado. It takes place every year on the 4th Wednesday of June. Bike Denver, the local bicycle advocacy group, hosted "Ride to Work Peletons." These peletons consisted of ride leaders and helpers with their small to medium size groups beginning in different parts of town and converging on Civic Center Park. Jinji Cycles, being committed to both bicycle transportation and advocacy, assisted Bike Denver in the peleton beginning at Stella's coffee shop in Platte Park. We were assisted by Parry Burnap of the Mayor's office and Councilman Chris Nevitt.
