IT WAS AWESOME!!!
So good that I will definitely be back next year. It featured the most slightly rocky, very flowy, ridgetop singletrack that I have ever seen in a race. Given my love of ridgetop singletrack the course gets a 10.
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| Only at a bike race... |
The race went pretty well from the start. We had a nice neutral roll out from town, then hit the Virginia Creeper Trail (a rail trail) for the start of the racing. Almost immediately a Trek 29er Crew rider slipped off the front. No one noticed. No one even picked up the pace. We rolled along for about 10 minutes just chattin' and having a grand old time until someone spoke up with "Hey, where'd Kyle go?" It was quickly followed by "Oh, I guess he's off the front." Conversation ensued basically like this:
Person #1: "Should we go get him"
Person #2 (last year's winner): "No hurry. We'll give it a few minutes."
Person #3: "He must be pretty far ahead, I can't even see him."
Person #2 (still last year's winner): "Whatever, let him do his roadie thing."
So we chilled and talked for another five minutes or so. Then Person #2 went to the front and pulled hard. I managed to stay on the train until the bottom of the first climb, at which point we had caught this "Kyle" who was off the front, and I could not hold the pace up the climb. I settled into the second group. It was good. I gained a few positions on the descents, and lost a few on the climbs. When we hit the longest climb of the day (9 miles maybe?) I found a rhythm for about the middle third of the climb, clawed back a few spots, then lost it when it kept going and going. There's nothing that consistently up hill near the Harbor of Grace, so my "training" was missing that element...
3 miles from the finish I got a flat. I was running a tube in my rear wheel (regular race wheel still awaiting new hub... see previous post) at 24 psi so it was bound to happen eventually. I was frankly surprised it lasted that long. A new tube went in, the CO2 came out, and the CO2 inflator didn't work. The little pin that punctures the cartridge was completely missing. I stood there staring at my wheel until some nice guy gave me a pump. Twenty minutes later I was back on my bike and riding on. Finished in 6:35. I probably could have snuck in under 6 hrs if I hadn't flatted and had let it all hang out on the descent. It was pretty much all downhill from where I flatted... still, that race made me happy.
I spent the next weekend kicking it around in Michaux getting my rock crawling on with Zach and Joe, then last weekend headed up to good ol' Coburn for the Wilderness 101. More on that later, because I am le tired.
