This was definitely the disappointment of the season for me. The race is on my home trails. They are only about 2 miles from my house and probably 80% or more of my riding is done there. ... so I know the trails and course very well and had prepped for it. I had even worked with the crew to mark the course, marshalled the earlier race etc. The TORC series is lower key than the SCS stuff too, so I knew going in I had a chance to win it. Here is how the race unfolded. I went into the singletrack first after drafting etters and another guy on the doubletrack (I felt a little bad about that... but only a little :) ). I gapped everyone on the first section of singletrack (spyderhole) enough that I didn't hear them anymore after about an mile in. Felt good passed some of the younger guys in the class that started before us. I was rolling a good pace but keeping it in check. Then.... I flatted the rear on the outer loop of neverlands and proceeded to get super atomic pissed (this is where all rational thought ended). Fumbled around changing the tube with my spare and in my haste pumped it to about 20 psi. Lost 4 places during that episode and came around 1st lap in 5th. Check out my rear tire in this pic hehe.
I passed the 4th guy on the doubletrack (although at this point I had no idea where I was in the pack). Dropped into spyderhole and some combo of thinking about how pissed I was instead of concentrating on a line and the loose back tire resulted in a fairly spectacular digger at speed, which included a helmet to tree connection. Hop back on and roll onto wormhole and pinch flat about a 1/4 mile in. No other tubes. So I walked/jogged it back out. Since this isn't USAC they would have let me put another tube in from my car and roll on, which I should have done, but my head wasn't right at that point.
Moral of the story... keep a cool head and let yourself calm down. Rational thought good. Oh well lesson learned.
As a side note, these pinch flats pissed me off enough to start running tubeless tires. Have been running them since, they are great have had zero flats since switching.
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