It was another beautiful day in Northern Michigan for the 5th annual Peak to Peak mountain bike race at Crystal Mountain. I have enjoyed this race the last few years, and was looking forward to it. The promotor always does a nice job with everything and the race has a good atmosphere. The start time was changed from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. for the elite race this year. It was nice not to be freezing at the start.
My fellow 29er teammate Mike Simonson was the defending champion, and we were planning on keeping the title on Trek 29er side. It was a 5 man race pretty much from the start, with Derek Graham (Bissel) setting the pace for the first half a lap. The fast and flowing single track allowed for a lot of drafting, and made it hard to shatter a group. I took one good dig mid-way through the first lap, whittling the group down to four.(Graham, Simonson, Chad Wells and myself)
Climbing up the back of ski hill I gave one more dig, and only Graham could follow. We traded pulls for the next two laps, I wanted to wait until the ski hill climb to attack Graham. I gave it a good push up the climb, but couldn’t shake Graham. We sprinted for the downhill single track into the finish, and he beat me to it. I wasn’t feeling to confident sprinting from behind, and wanted to make a pass before the sprint. I was able to get a better line through some sand and make the pass. I held him off in the sprint and took the win.
This is a really fun race, and recommend it everyone.
