MSC #3 Race Report

The third race in the Mountain States Cup series took place at Crested Butte last weekend. Will, Lumberg and I drove up into the reaches of Gunnison National Forest, at the base of the Elk Range.
The Elks are the backdrop for many scenes in my life, from my first big risk (Outward Bound, my freshman summer of college), to the transformation between believing everything scholarly I read, to being a full-blown (and therefore skeptical) scholar myself. Three times I climbed in the Elks for extended periods, and for one mountain in the range, it wasn't until my third visit that I was finally able to look down from the summit.
So I found myself in the midst of contradictory feeling; I was both at home in the familiar freshness of the morning frost, and the specific bouquet of the ranges' wildflowers, and yet off-balance to be biking instead of climbing. It was unsettling, to have something so familiar as racing my bike juxtaposed with another portion of my life that has always remained discreet from riding. It was like looking at the Mona Lisa, with the well-known rolling countryside in the background, but the woman herself replaced with Picasso's Woman with a Blue Hat, or some other equally familiar face.
Anyways, this is supposed to be a race write-up, but I'm going to defer to Ryan, who posted a great description of both of our performances here.