My race went pretty well. It was the first race of the year for most of us racing, so it’s always got the potential to be a shit show but I thought everything went pretty smooth. At least in the 1:30PM races.
They had to change the course due to some flooding, so they took out some of the good single track which was unfortunate, but nobody’s fault. The end result was a few more wide open, power sections… similar to the mayhem races from a few years ago.
When we were lining up, it was hard to tell, but there appeared to be a lot of Day Of registrations. There were 25 in my category (Cat 1 40-54), but there ended up being 30 people in the race. I knew a few faces, but the majority did not register with me.
Last year my start went like this: but ended with me going down, dropping a chain, and blowing up trying to catch up. It was miserable, so I focused on avoiding that.
I got lucky and chose a clear path all the way through the start and ended up in the top 10-12 going into the single track. Looking at my numbers, I didn’t even go nuts with the power. Maybe I’m finally learning how to race?
The first half of the course was unchanged from previous races so I knew the best move was to keep my place in the line. You
could pass, but unless you were desperate on catching the leader ASAP, then passing was too sketchy to be worth it. Even then, it takes so much effort to make a pass just to gain 1spot which you could get when it opens up.
I settled into the second group and the pace seemed manageable.…. But every time the course opened up or we went onto a fire road, I’d glance down at my garmin and see my power was sitting at a cool 450-500 watts or so. Over and over and over again. Anytime the course opened up and there was a chance to pass, you had to lay down serious power to make it happen or avoid being passed. And no matter what you did, you just found yourself in the single track .3 seconds in front of the guy you worked so hard to pass. The result was me remaining in the same group of 4-5 guys for most of the race.
This is a really rare occurrence in MTB racing. You’re usually all alone after a half of a lap. But I was never solo, always in a group, either pushing the pace or trying to keep up. It was pretty awesome and I hope this is a sign of things to come this year. Some guys would drop off, some would catch up. Some would drop us and move up, only to be caught again. And if I didn’t mention it already, we were flying. My average speed was over 15 mph which is pretty nuts for a MTB race.
The start of the 3rd lap I ran into a little issue. I started the race with 1 bottle on my bike and 1 in the feed zone. (first bottle had 80g and second had 50g in it… in case you care) The feed zone was a small section of double track immediately after the start /finish line. There are a few cabins with wooden rails and everyone put their bottles on these rails. So when I approached the zone starting the last lap, I dropped my bottle that I started with, and cleanly grabbed my fresh bottle. No small feat when you’re doing 20 mph I might add…. I guess when I grabbed it, it struck a nail that was sticking out of the wood a little and ripped a hole in the bottom of the bottle. I noticed my feet were getting splashed and when I looked down I saw my mix spilling all over the place. I tried to put it into my rear cage upside down to save some and then drink out of the hole, but there was only a few drops left. I don’t think it made a huge difference, but it still kind of sucked.
The third lap I was yo-yo-ing off the back of the group. I had a hard time laying out the power to keep up on the straights, but I was able to catch up in the single track. When we came to the little mud sections near the end, we caught some of the 15-18 Cat 1 kids. I was the last in a group of 6 or 7 and the kid I was following went down kinda hard. Or so I thought. I made sure he was ok, and he was thankfully. He got right back up behind me and we started chasing to catch back up to the group. By the time we caught them, we were hitting the bridge which was right before the finish. I laid down what I had left, but all it did was make it look closer on the results sheet.
I ended up 11th out of 30. I was right there though. These times are pretty telling how close of a race it was. I’ll consider this race a success, and look forward to some rocks and climbing.
