Went to the nearest race to me. Dicecycling series in the Quad Cities. Despite a lot of saturated grass, it was a very, very fast non-technical course on mostly hardpack, with one hard hill and a hellishly steep and long runup. Higher tire pressures than normal were in order.

My tires were fine when I took to the start line. 3 mins later when we started my rear was flat. Can't figure out exactly what happened. It was a single pit and I was twenty yards past it when I figured out something was wrong. I was tempted to cut back, change the wheel and start again but that would probably be a DQ and there were still series points to be gained. Had to pull off the course to get out of the way of the waves starting after me, then nursed the bike around for a full lap at about 6 mph, executed the world's slowest wheel change and settled into TT mode. Couldn't figure out until afterwards why my gears kept spontaneously shifting , somehow I had a 10-speed cassette on the pit wheels (I run 9-speed on my CX bike).

Well DFL is better than DNF or DQ. Anyway, I hunhg in there and must have passed more people than I remember because I won $10 for my trouble. Also got enough points to hold on to 2nd in my cat in the series.

My legs weren't great, a bit flat, but Brian Eppen still only lapped me once - which means I must not be doing too bad.