2018 San Dimas Stage Race, Stage One Time Trial

After all the prayer, incantations, lighting of candles, burning of incense, and vegetable sacrifices that took place yesterday, and through the night, the cycling gods really came through for everyone today. That is unless you favor one of the extremes of bitter cold or biting heat, because the day of stage one of the 2018 San Dimas Stage Race (SDSR) dawned, and progressed, somewhere right dead in the middle. Comfortable in other words.

Those cycling gods don't always win out over the ones of Rain, and this morning you could still see evidence of the latter's attempts to create some havoc - mud on the verge (with photographers standing in the mud on the verge), a little sand and rock washed across the road, raindrops on grass blades, a deep cloak of fog burning away to a shear veil but, mostly, the evidence was a lingering sensory treat.

don't miss your start time, but wait, does that mean Patrick (PC) raced twice?

While no one sets out to flub their take off, some people are really good

at making the best of things when it happens.

rain forest

rain drops on grass blades

random friendly hiker photo. bet you never thought I would post it?

all fun and games, until someone gets hurt. fortunately no one got hurt.

going Fast

sure the number is upside down, but he DOES have the coffee

Looking over some of the result sheets from the early races I see that Lux / Slideshow, unsurprisingly, is playing for keeps in the Junior 15-16 race where Matthew Ricittello and Jared Scott nailed down the top two spots, Matthew smashing the five-mile uphill course in 15:49, Jared fifty-one seconds back, and Quinn Agnew (El Grupo) third at 1:17 back.

Chase King (unatt) gets to wear the leaders' Yellow Jersey at stage two tomorrow in the Cat 4/5 race, with Scott Palmer (The Local Bikestand) chasing at 0:17 seconds back, and David Mayhew at 0:23. The top eight racers in that group are all within a minute of one another - should be a good one to watch to see how it shakes out over the next couple days.

The Cat 3 women are being ruled, for the time being at least, by Cassidy Hickey (Prestige Imports Junior Development) who has a nineteen second advantage over Makayla Macpherson (Sho-Air Twenty20 Development), and nineteen more seconds over Courtney Wiseman (Go Fast / Incycle). The Cat 4 / 5 women are being led by Katie Thralls (SDBC / Emerald Textiles), ahead of Genevieve Plum and Meade Plum, both of Team California Juniors.

Those are the only results I cast my eyes upon, but competition in the other categories looked just as good; the next two days should show some fierce battles and I, for one, am looking forward to tomorrow's road race around Bonelli Park.

More photos? Of course there are, check the Flickr album for a selection of sixty-three of them.