The Bear Brook Challenge was challenging indeed. Tom Merrill, Jean St. Pierre and I rode out there (Bear Brook is between Manchester and Concord, NH) the week prior to the race and were amazed at how muddy and chewed up some of the trails were. The heavy rains right before the race only made things worse.

It was one of the muddiest races I've been to in a while, and right off the start you were soaked and muddy. Fortunately, it was warm.
Anyway, Crank Racing was represented by myself (Dave Alden), Tom Merrill, Doug Salb, Tim Corning and Nathan Smith.

I didn't get reports from everyone, so here's the short story.

In Novice Senior 2, Tim Corning rolled the "Timmy Train" in for 7th, riding the 14 miles in 1:22:41. Doug Salb rode the Beast in shortly thereafter with a strong 1:28:17, for 15th.

In Novice Vet, Tom Merrill used cruised in with a solid 1:25:40 for 11th.
Nathan (who had slept about 3 hours in his car on Friday night, raced a 12-hr adventure race on Saturday, and then drove 4 hours from NY to get about 4 hours of sleep in his car again) had some trouble… gee, ya think? He still managed to beat a good portion of the Sport Senior 1 field (in his first Sport race) and come in 13th with a 2:47:59 for the 28 mile course.

And me? Well, since I was the first to go off the line, it would be logical to think that I would be the first to get back. It did work out that way, I just wish it hadn't been so soon, and I wish I hadn't been walking my bike… About 15 minutes into the race, my rear derailleur and derailleur hanger decided to abort the mission. The two biggest problems were that this happened on some tight singletrack so I had to stand in the bushes by the side of the trail while all of the other classes passed. The mosquitoes LOVED me. The other problem was that I went a couple of miles in that first 15 minutes… it was a L-O-N-G walk back to the van.

Sigh… that's racing!