Utah Summer Games

Dave says: We just got back tonight from an exciting weekend of racing at the Utah Summer Games. It was a fun trip to Cedar City to see family and friends while competing in four cycling events. Thursday morning was the hill climb where Alisha pulled out the fastest women's time of the day up Right Hand Canyon with a 26:27 while I won my category but placed third overall with just an average time for me. Thursday night was a time trial where Alisha looked so fast that she got her picture taken by the local newspaper and finished second overall.

Friday morning was a fast-paced criterium race. Alisha split up the women's group early with some fast lap times. Two girls sat on her wheel for basically the entire race. Despite doing most of the work and being at a disadvantage from having to lead out the final sprint, Alisha put down a huge last effort and flew across the line less than a foot in front of the second place girl. My race also had some hot action with a solid group of core riders that stuck together the entire race. Brian Jeppson gave me an amazing lead out on the final lap and I attacked going into the final corner to win a close sprint. Behind me, a rider had taken the final corner too hot and slid out into another rider breaking some expensive bikes but fortunately not hurting anyone too bad (however the same thing happened in the older men's race and there were some broken bones and major injuries in that). When we weren't racing, we sat by the finish line using umbrellas to keep off the sun.

Saturday morning was the road race out from Cedar City to Newcastle and back. It was 60 miles for me and 40 for Alisha. She handled herself no problem staying with the fast men for a good portion of the race and winning the women's overall. My race split up in the steep mountains on the way back in from Newcastle but despite Brian's incredibly long and hard pulls up front and a couple fast accelerations from me, we came into the finishing straight with a group of about seven riders. Once again, I got an amazing lead out from Brian and had a solid sprint to win the overall.

Hard to believe, but we also did some things other than biking on our trip. When we weren't racing bikes, we were racing Mario Kart on the Wii. No gold medals for us in that though because Mandy and Shane have some serious skills. We also enjoyed some of Debbie's wonderful cooking and a fun outing with my mom up Cedar mountain to pick up Daniel and Katie from camp.