The first weekend of May had a couple of good races that help out Prado’s training towards the Costa Rica National Championships as well as the Bump and Grind Pro XCT in Alabama.

The Idyllwild Spring Challenge is considered by many a real MTB Epic race it is a 30-mile big loop with about 6000 feet elevation gain and about 80% Single-track. This weekend was Sid Taberlay and Manuel Prado the ones representing Sho-Air/Specialized, at first it was Prado getting to the lead on the first single-track, shortly after former Saunier-Duval team rider Aaron Olson made his way to the front on the flatter sections of the course, by the first quarter of the race it was the Sho-Air/Specialized duo, Olson and Dana Weber the ones at the front of the race this 4 riders will battle all the way to the bottom of the hardest climb of the day, by this point Sid Taberlay had a 45 second advantage over the 3 riders behind. Prado knew that this was the best part for him to attack so he went ahead and did just that, by the time Prado reached the top he was about 1 minute behind Sid and about 45 seconds in front of the rest of the chasers, Sid will continue to grow his advantage over the rest. While Dana Weber will eventually close the gap on the Costa Rican rider, but Prado was able to edge him on the last mile of the race for a 1-2 Sho-Air Specialized finish.

Prado felt like he could still get some good quality training before the weekend was over, so the next challenge was the San Luis Rey road race in San Diego. 90 Miles and about 4000 feet elevation was a great training day for Prado, so he line up right at the front of the pack of Pro roadies and took off to a great top 30 finish with an average speed of 38.6KPH for Prado the challenge turned out to be the lack of support at the road race, with no one to hand him a feed the Costa Rican rode the 90 mile race on 2 bottles of E2-Hydro and a couple of gels but Prado doesn’t like excuses so he went ahead and got involve in 2 of the major breakaways of the day, unfortunately both breakaways will eventually get caught by the peloton and a group of about 10 riders got away as the second breakaway containing Prado got caught, this group of riders manage to stay away and from there came the eventual winner. Prado finished on the chasing group inside the Peloton.

The following week will have some more training and a local race called the Traverse witch Prado won in 2007, after the Traverse Prado will have a short break from racing to get ready for back to back race weekends at the Costa Rica National Championships and the Bump and Grind Pro XCT in Alabama.

Thanks for reading.