SM100 '17 ... or "
If You Find Yourself in a Hole, Stop Digging ..."
Back in the first week of July, I ordered a Moots Mooto X RSL frame to replace my Failed Carbon Experiment ™ ... at the time I was assured that the turnaround time was six weeks at the most. But as with pretty much everything else bike-related for me this year ... nope. It's now nine weeks and I'm still waiting. How does that play into an SM100 race report? Well, my much-loved Niner Sir9 has been giving me trouble all season - I keep dropping the chain off the rear cog. And it seems to be random -- it'll happen every ride for two weeks and then not happen at all for a month. I've replaced the whole drivetrain and it still happens. But without my new frame, that's the only bike I had for Shen. So there it was ...
I'll keep this shortish ... I dropped my chain four times before the first climb and then twice more on it. By the time I was able to reach the mini-aid station at the bottom of Tillman and fix it, I was way behind the group I'd started in. I lost a ton more time on the Lynn Trail climb to Wolf's Ridge because I was behind a pretty social group who weren't in a big hurry. It was like a pleasant stroll up the mountain, but that wasn't what I needed at that moment and so I rode like an idiot on the descent to gain back some lost time. I pinned it up Hankey's way harder than I should have, a fact I understood only after pinning it too hard not he road to Braley's Pond, after which my legs started to complain a lot. I then compounded this error by pushing way too hard early on the Death Climb. And if I lit my own fuse somewhere on the road to Braley's, I detonated completely in the endless meadows at the top of Shenandoah. I was crawling up the climbs there and bleeding time. And the thing is I knew when I first reached Braley's that I'd made a mistake but I didn't do anything to fix it -- in fact, I made it worse. By the time I reached the turnoff on Hankey to head back to the campground, even my simplest goal was out of reach and I finished in about 10 hours and 20 minutes.
But I don't want to sound like I was upset -- to the contrary, I was fine with it. Since the bike issues happened so early, I was really happy that my whole day wasn't over early. It was a tough day, but I really love riding in the Shenandoah Valley so it was all worth it. Plus, I got to meet a few more folks from the board in person - I already knew
@David Taylor and
@Jmc (both of whom killed it in their first times out) and
@Rigidnsingle (who of course killed it with a 6th place in a stacked SS field), but I also got to meet
@soundz and
@Bizarro IRL, and got to hang with a bunch of folks I know both before and after the race. For those who were doing it for the first time, HUGE congratulations - the SM100 has a well-deserved rep as one of the hardest races in the east and just sacking up to toe the line is a big deal. Great job and great seeing you all!