Breakfast bonanza
One of the early highlights of last year’s race, for me, was the menu in the Four Corners café in Eureka which promised the ‘Dolly Parton’ breakfast – a whole host of carb and fat-rich food topped, perhaps unsurprisingly, with two fried eggs (it’s a visual gag). More than half of the field has now made it into the USand had the chance to enjoy the feast – and the joke – and clearly this has been beneficial for some.
Take a look at Blaine Nester – what did he have for breakfast? Rocket fuel? He posted a very respectable time last year, so it was something of a surprise to see him apparently languishing in mid-pack in the Flathead yesterday. Now, though, he’s in a clear fourth place and hot on the heels of one of the early pace-setters, Kevin Dean, who in turn is now some distance behind the lead duo of Eric Lobeck and Matthew Lee. Eric appears to have made up some ground on Matthew, though they’re either side of a decent climb at the moment which may foreshorten the distance between them.
The discrepancy with Blaine’s progress could of course be down to the sometimes temperamental functioning of the SPOT trackers the riders are wearing. They render a wonderful service to us spectators but can leave tantalising gaps in coverage (often due to operator error, sometimes due to tree cover etc…). Maybe Blainehad actually been further ahead – I haven’t had a chance to check the time of his SPOT updates to work it out.
Similarly, Christine Domecq has now made up some lost ground, though is still some way behind Cricket Butler (who’ll be being royally entertained thanks to her close proximity to Jacob Johnsrud and Stephen Huddle) and the increasingly impressive – and singlespeed-riding – Heather Dawe. Kent Peterson’s aspirations to regain the singlespeed record taken seem under considerable threat.
Such vagaries may also explain the apparent laggards at the back of the field, indeed, still in Banff. Just because the blue dots of Grant Triplow and Jeff Kerby, for example, haven’t moved doesn’t mean they’ve not actually moved. They might not have, but it’s also possible they’re having SPOT trouble. Time and call-ins will reveal more.
Paul Howard
