Evomo Racer Hits Small Town Colorado

by Walker Thompson on August 14th, 2007

The Escalante Days Mountain Bike Race in Dolores, CO is one part 4-H county fair, arm wrestling competition and bike race. Yes, that’s right, in lieu of racing, I could have joined the arm wrestling competition or paraded my prize winning steer (if I only had one). Instead of opting into hanging with the country folks, I decided to race. The Escalante Days Mountain Bike race is one of those local events that hurts the pros! Travis Brown ended up with the overall win at the race and in second place Zach Shriver, one of the fastest guys I know, took the prize for the first sprint of the day. The race is 75% single track with about 2000 feet of elevation gain/loss. It is mostly flat, fast and way cool!

Evomo, me, took to the starting line like a trapped cockroach staring at a piece of molded cheese. I was hungry for some racing. The gun went off and we all rolled toward the pace car. After 200 yards, the pace car peeled off and away we went up the first steep climb. I tried real hard to hang on to Travis’ wheel, but it was like chasing the sun. I couldn’t catch him. I settled into the second pack and hammered the singletrack. After about fifteen minutes of recovering from threshold pedaling, I started to enjoy the race. This was singletrack I had been on only once before and when we turned the corner to NEW singletrack, I was surprised even more!

I ended up with something like 8th overall. But, what I really liked was learning a new trail to ride during the fall. This was my reward beyond anything else.

–
Walker Thompson
Evomo MTB Team
Durango, CO