The Recap
I get to Stewart at 7:00. I feel pretty good at this point, the ride Saturday felt like it was the right thing to do. I don't know what that means but it seems to make sense. A few hard efforts but not too much. I had slept enough the previous 2 nights, and I had a big breakfast. The only problem is the drive and my bladder's lack of being able to go 1:20 without emptying itself.
Rob and I warmed up with TJ, Roger, and some guy Gordon. It was a pretty hot warmup, but very short. We did the first part of the course which was the same as the start of the course last year (not the prologue). My aim was to come out of the gate comfortable and work my way up from there.
So much for that. I saw that the prologue this race was a hill out of the gate. This is good, because it removes the posers before the race even starts. Last year there were no hills to start the Stewart race and everyone went out like a bat out of hell. Today the race thinned out fast, and I was 3rd at the top of the hill where I just coasted down and let 2 more people pass me. Jay was in front of me. As the road rounded, I took out 2 guys and Jay was out front. Some Cycle Craft guy was between us. I should also mention that before the race, Mike the promotor points to me and tells everyone, "This is the guy you want to keep in sight." So much for playing it low-key.
The "Major Mike" climb starts the race, so I was fine at 3rd. I've ridden with Jay a few times this year, most recently on Fred's wedding day. I was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to hold this. The guy in second was also huffing pretty hard. So I stuck in third, Jay more or less led the charge passing the NY Sport group (which had been let go 3 minutes ahead of us). Jay would ring his bell, say "on your left" then I would yell out, "There's three of us." Then I would count out "One! Two! Three!" as we passed.
After mile 3 I could tell Jay was losing that torrid pace, and the Cycle Craft guy was doing nothing to move in front. The pace had slowed down and I knew it was only a matter of time before the pack would reel us in. Shortly after I made my move. I jumped past the CC guy on a hill then it was Jay and I in 1-2. On the crest of a hill I passed him, and said, "We need to press these guys" or something to that effect. I would like to say that was the end of the story, but I can't.
About 100 yards later a stick got caught in between my spokes, and it was bang-bang-banging away on every revolution. I was hoping it would go away but it didn't. So I stopped, took it out, and Jay passed me. I hopped back on, passed him back, and *then* that was the end of the story. This was somewhere around mile 5 I think. The next 16 miles was me trying to more or less remove any and all doubt that I would be caught. I just turned the motor on, and tried to keep my pace steady and brake as little as possible.
At the end of lap 1 I passed Ellen, and heard Mike the promoter yell, "That was the first woman!" So now I was passed all the NJ Sport racers and the women. I passed a pack of maybe 4-5 NY Sport guys and then it was a lot of solo riding for quite a while. Nothing exciting happened other than me gaining more and more confidence. If I saw someone, I caught them, and passed them. Nobody once threatened to stick on my wheel and nobody ever came up and passed, or tried to pass. The only exception was Art White, who was having mechanical issues. I passed him at some point and he passed me back 5 minutes later. I basically kept him in my sight the rest of the race.
The 1 thing that was in the back of my mind was that TJ said the guy who won Tymor had registered for my class. So I was expecting him to possibly show up and battle it out. But he never did, and it turns out that he either didn't show or never registered. Whatever. I kept pressing because I want to remove all doubt and I knew that if someone was going to take me, they were going to have to earn it. I felt good enough to keep it up, so I kept it up. Then a crazy thing happens. I start to pass some experts. The first one I noticed for sure was Ryan (xc67201). Turns out he did the Mohican 100 the day before, so ok, that's not fair. But then I pass Dan Suhr, the guy that basically won all the sport SS races last year. These guys started 9 minutes ahead of us. At this point I was just on, things were just on.
At the very end of the race I see an MTBNJ jersey and I get a little nervous. WTF? How? What? Turns out it was ChrisG, and I pulled in right behind him at the finish line with Art White. I ended up winning the NJ class by 4+ minutes and the over all Sport class by 1+ minute.
Loot
I won:
The Salsa front ring (part of the trophy)
The Niner 20t cog (trophy)
A Salsa 17 degree bar
A pair of Specialized Divide glasses
A big Ommegang beer.
Here's the thing that makes this really special (for lack of a better word). Obviously, winning my first race is huge. But I went up to NY and took the locals in their own park. Aside from the advantage of knowing the trails, they got to start first and didn't have a huge class ahead of them to deal with. Our class started last, and had to pick off the 60+ riders in the NY Sport class. This is like having a race at Allaire, and a NY class starting after Fred's class and having some guy from NY post a better lap.
As Kirt mentioned, it would have been really interesting if Fred had been here. No idea how it would have played out, and speculating is fun but probably useless.
Monday I rest.
I get to Stewart at 7:00. I feel pretty good at this point, the ride Saturday felt like it was the right thing to do. I don't know what that means but it seems to make sense. A few hard efforts but not too much. I had slept enough the previous 2 nights, and I had a big breakfast. The only problem is the drive and my bladder's lack of being able to go 1:20 without emptying itself.
Rob and I warmed up with TJ, Roger, and some guy Gordon. It was a pretty hot warmup, but very short. We did the first part of the course which was the same as the start of the course last year (not the prologue). My aim was to come out of the gate comfortable and work my way up from there.
So much for that. I saw that the prologue this race was a hill out of the gate. This is good, because it removes the posers before the race even starts. Last year there were no hills to start the Stewart race and everyone went out like a bat out of hell. Today the race thinned out fast, and I was 3rd at the top of the hill where I just coasted down and let 2 more people pass me. Jay was in front of me. As the road rounded, I took out 2 guys and Jay was out front. Some Cycle Craft guy was between us. I should also mention that before the race, Mike the promotor points to me and tells everyone, "This is the guy you want to keep in sight." So much for playing it low-key.
The "Major Mike" climb starts the race, so I was fine at 3rd. I've ridden with Jay a few times this year, most recently on Fred's wedding day. I was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to hold this. The guy in second was also huffing pretty hard. So I stuck in third, Jay more or less led the charge passing the NY Sport group (which had been let go 3 minutes ahead of us). Jay would ring his bell, say "on your left" then I would yell out, "There's three of us." Then I would count out "One! Two! Three!" as we passed.
After mile 3 I could tell Jay was losing that torrid pace, and the Cycle Craft guy was doing nothing to move in front. The pace had slowed down and I knew it was only a matter of time before the pack would reel us in. Shortly after I made my move. I jumped past the CC guy on a hill then it was Jay and I in 1-2. On the crest of a hill I passed him, and said, "We need to press these guys" or something to that effect. I would like to say that was the end of the story, but I can't.
About 100 yards later a stick got caught in between my spokes, and it was bang-bang-banging away on every revolution. I was hoping it would go away but it didn't. So I stopped, took it out, and Jay passed me. I hopped back on, passed him back, and *then* that was the end of the story. This was somewhere around mile 5 I think. The next 16 miles was me trying to more or less remove any and all doubt that I would be caught. I just turned the motor on, and tried to keep my pace steady and brake as little as possible.
At the end of lap 1 I passed Ellen, and heard Mike the promoter yell, "That was the first woman!" So now I was passed all the NJ Sport racers and the women. I passed a pack of maybe 4-5 NY Sport guys and then it was a lot of solo riding for quite a while. Nothing exciting happened other than me gaining more and more confidence. If I saw someone, I caught them, and passed them. Nobody once threatened to stick on my wheel and nobody ever came up and passed, or tried to pass. The only exception was Art White, who was having mechanical issues. I passed him at some point and he passed me back 5 minutes later. I basically kept him in my sight the rest of the race.
The 1 thing that was in the back of my mind was that TJ said the guy who won Tymor had registered for my class. So I was expecting him to possibly show up and battle it out. But he never did, and it turns out that he either didn't show or never registered. Whatever. I kept pressing because I want to remove all doubt and I knew that if someone was going to take me, they were going to have to earn it. I felt good enough to keep it up, so I kept it up. Then a crazy thing happens. I start to pass some experts. The first one I noticed for sure was Ryan (xc67201). Turns out he did the Mohican 100 the day before, so ok, that's not fair. But then I pass Dan Suhr, the guy that basically won all the sport SS races last year. These guys started 9 minutes ahead of us. At this point I was just on, things were just on.
At the very end of the race I see an MTBNJ jersey and I get a little nervous. WTF? How? What? Turns out it was ChrisG, and I pulled in right behind him at the finish line with Art White. I ended up winning the NJ class by 4+ minutes and the over all Sport class by 1+ minute.
Loot
I won:
The Salsa front ring (part of the trophy)
The Niner 20t cog (trophy)
A Salsa 17 degree bar
A pair of Specialized Divide glasses
A big Ommegang beer.
Here's the thing that makes this really special (for lack of a better word). Obviously, winning my first race is huge. But I went up to NY and took the locals in their own park. Aside from the advantage of knowing the trails, they got to start first and didn't have a huge class ahead of them to deal with. Our class started last, and had to pick off the 60+ riders in the NY Sport class. This is like having a race at Allaire, and a NY class starting after Fred's class and having some guy from NY post a better lap.
As Kirt mentioned, it would have been really interesting if Fred had been here. No idea how it would have played out, and speculating is fun but probably useless.
Monday I rest.
