the one where I needed my teammates

DCCX.

Last year, I had magic legs at DCCX and had a blast.  It's one of the only (maybe THE only) MABRA race I'm doing this year - it's the local series, but the competition is deeper elsewhere right now in the Cat 3 women's fields.  That said, this being the biggest race of the series, it was as stacked as it could be with 15 of us in the Cat 3's.

Good start - right where I wanted to be with a rider off the front by a few seconds but catchable.  My goal, have a clean first lap.  I did.  It was fast and clean.  Lap 2 was also pretty solid.  But on lap 3, I was rounding the corner toward team row, an off camber, dusty right hand turn with some roots, when all of the sudden... you guessed it... I was crashing.  Again.  It felt like I was gonna save it.  I clipped out on the inside and almost had it.  Then I hit a bump or something and it all went wrong again.  In a split second that felt like slow motion, I was under my bike, under the tape.  Again.  Sorta like Granogue.

Banged up but fine, when I got up my rear wheel wasn't moving... a quick check, damn, I'd rolled the tire partway off and it was stuck in the frame - I pulled it back on and got going.  Now, I should say that Shea was in the team tent area, about as far away from the pits as you can imagine on this course.  Eric was standing right next to me having watched the whole thing.  He'd put my bike in the pits for me and knew where it was.  By the time I got to the pits at a slightly conservative speed, they were both there having sprinted to help me get the bike change achieved.

A lap later, they were yelling I could have my bike back.  Hmm.... I don't have a spare carbon wheel with a 10speed cassette on it.  Did they know I'd rolled it?

Well, of course they did.  But this is where Charly comes into play.  He'd run to his car to grab his race wheel and had it on my bike that quickly.  After another Becky-is-on-the-ground snafu in the pit (and some accompanying shin bruises to show for it), I was back on my Santa Cruz, which is so much lighter and fits so much better that it was probably worth rolling on the ground to get it back for another lap and a half plus.

But, no magic legs this time.  I'd burned a lot of matches in all that rolling on the ground and trying to get back to where I was.  And it showed on the last lap.  I was closing on a small group, pulling along another rider who'd had a mechanical, but couldn't keep her wheel when it came down to it.  Happy to see that she made it past two in front of us, but I finished 8th on the day.