Overdue Paranormal Report

Well, I am sure most that care about the results have seen them now. They are up and linked to from the CAMBC web page. (www.cambc.org) Our team did incredible. We started nine racers, and all nine earned places on podiums by the end of the night.

Denelle Grant 1st place Women's Solo (6 laps)
Kevin Murray 1st Place Men's Single Speed (8 Laps)
Ted Gayle and Jeremy Senn 1st Place Men's duo (11 laps)
Chris Shelley and Mark Gordon 3rd Place Duo Clydesdale (6 laps)
Nolan Lavoie 2nd Place Solo Clydesdale (7 laps)
Shawn Tevendale 2nd Place Men's Solo (10 laps)
David Tevendale 4th Place Men's Solo (9 laps)

Perhaps most impressive was that in this field of 90 plus riders, with both solo and teams included in the placings: Jeremy and Ted had the most laps overall and took 1st place, Shawn was 4th, and Dave was 9th overall. When Solos get mixed in with the Duos on the results, you know they raced hard.

My race started well, from the beginning Charles Clarkson and I were head to head. We both started in the non-costume group and as such, opened with a 4 minute deficit on Mike Walling (the eventual winner of the race). Charles and I held a high pace for the first several laps, trading off who was in front and who was following. He finally came around and put in an attack that held. I watched him ride off ahead, hoping that over the next 4 hours remaining, I would be able to pull him back. He never quite got out of sight though, and by lap 5 or 6 we were back together, and I managed to push past him. All of that effort though on Charles' and my part had taken a toll. I needed a bit to recover and my next two laps slowed perceptibly. Mike pulled away further at this time, as he had apparently seen us behind him at one point, and launched a few really hard laps. By the time I came through on my 7th lap, I was back on track, and started to really go to work. Charles, I learned later, never felt great again and continued to cramp behind me. I started dropping my laps times and even despite a lights out time on the trail, managed to pull some time back on Mike, with my last two laps both being faster than his by a fair margin. Mike never let go of those four minutes he got for his costume though through the entire time and added two minutes by the end of the race to beat me by a total of six minutes. So the margin of victory for Mike by the end was slim, but man, he rode awesome, never letting up and by the end, he really deserved the win. In my mind though, he got me by two minutes only, after racing for six hours!!! (guess what is fueling my interval sessions for the next year)

Thanks to everyone who came out and rode, I had a blast....

Shawn