Glocester Grind

Now I may not be the most experienced bike racer out there, but one thing I have learned is that typically you don't want to drink margaritas and stay out 'til 3 AM the night before a race. However, knowing something and acting accordingly are two different things.

On the plus side, this immature behavior does add some great excuses to the already stellar cache I had this week. The pre-existing to the night-before-the-race-shenanigans excuses were: I had a cold this week which just started to clear up Saturday; I only rode 3 days; I decided the morning of that I was racing; my bike’s front brake decided it didn’t want to work; and I had a slow leak with left me with just enough air to get across the finish line. Whew, I think that’s everything. Oh, and, does, ‘I didn’t have a 29er’ count as a valid excuse?

Seriously though, I had a lot of fun in this race. The weather was perfect for a change, and after a week of half-ass wussy riding, I was more than ready to go deep into the pain zone. Glocester is a bike-handlers’ course, make no mistake about it. While I consider myself a proficient bike handler, I’ll be the first to say there’s some guys way more talented than I at riding in the really rough stuff. That, coupled with the fact that there’s basically no climbing, makes this race not really one I’ll probably ever get a really good result at. I’ve never been especially good at rock gardens, and man-alive does Glocester have rock gardens -- huge, dangerous, muddy, long sections of rock gardens. After attempting to ride some of the more outrageous ones on the first lap, I realized that it was faster or just as fast to just jump off the bike and run. Due to not really having any warm-up, the first lap I was huffing and puffing and had no chance of jumping on the leaders. I don’t know for sure, but I’m fairly confident my second lap was my fastest; I was able to follow the wheel of a couple good riders which on this course made a huge difference; plus after having one go-around I knew what was coming better. Third lap I started to run a bit low on gas and sure enough, and I noticed my rear tire was getting soft. Perfect. I just hoped and prayed it held together enough to make it the next few miles to the finish, and focused on keeping as much weight off of it as possible. Luckily I was able to finish on it. Oh, the finish – yeah, that’s another thing….because I was so smoked by the end, I forgot the sharp LEFT up the hill to go to the finish line. So I stopped, and casually rode for a few seconds before I realized this and then nailed it up the hill to the line. Definitely lost probably close to a minute because of that – oh well. I was good enough for a time of 1:34:56 and 7th out of I believe 10 Senior II riders - overall mid-pack for the Experts.

I also did the Sterling Road Race last weekend in the rain, which was a really fun course – rolling hills, and one steep short hill right at the finish/start line. I was at the front most of the race, but of course I wasn’t there at the deciding time, right at the start of the final lap after the hill, 3 riders attacked when everyone was recovering and got a gap. I missed this happening because I wasn’t on the front, and when I went back to the front had no idea there was a break. No one seemed to be in the mood to really chase them, so by the time we came to the finish they had put a minute into the peloton. I was third in the group sprint up the hill for the finish, passing a lot of guys, so I’m OK with 7th out of 30.

Massasoit Lung Opener - man, it’s been too long since I updated this! This race in a word: awesome. Seriously, this was like, the best race ever - a total blast. Probably my favorite race course ever, and perfect weather to boot. I had a crash on the first lap on a downhill because there was a sharp turn with a tree right there, and of course, my front brake decided it didn’t want to work. I was at the lead group until the crash, then it was just a matter of trying to get my mojo back – which I gradually did. Believe it or not, I think one of the things I need to work on most is going down the hills...some guys just blow past me on technical downhills – the same guys I drop going up.

But anyway, lots of great riding lately; including the Fells opening day/Trek demo day event with Gary Fisher - had a blast with Thom Parsons and his hammer ride. He took us on a bunch of trails I never even knew existed – pretty exciting stuff. Next week is EFTA NECS# 2 – the Weeping Willow at Willowdale Park in Ipswich. I'll start getting the excuses ready!

Wampatuck Race Report

After my terrible luck at Treasure Valley (double flatted, threw bike into a tree at one point….in Team Breakheart we call that pulling a Kevin Scott), I was hoping I had gotten all my bad luck behind me. I really wanted to do well at Landmine because the last time I raced here was ’05, and I was a DNF due to…yes you guessed it, getting a flat and not having a spare. I needed to get my revenge on Wampatuck. Of course, in typical New England fashion we got 4.5 inches of rain the day before the race, and according to all the radar reports, it was centralized right over the Hingham area. So much for the prospect of this season’s first dry MTB race…

While going over the Anthem getting it ready for battle, I was having trouble getting my rear Crossmax SLR to seal up with my Maxxis Crossmark tubeless, but luckily I dropped by Nate’s house Saturday night and with some help from ‘Stan’, we were able to get it set up. Let me just say…THANK GOD I was running full tubeless for this race. It was so slippery, rooty, and rocky, that being able to run 25 psi saved my ass, no doubt. I saw multiple guys wipe out on the wooden bridges, -- they were indeed as slippery as ice…I know if I were running higher tire pressure that I would have had to with tubes I would have had nowhere near as much control over the slippery stuff.

Race day arrives and it’s dark and dreary looking as…well, as just about every race this whole season, and the entire month of June and July. Get to the venue with plenty of time, am amazed by the huge turn out, get a good warm-up in, and felt overall felt well-rested and ready to rock.

Due to USA Cycling’s vast bureaucracy and their rule against allowing one-day Cat 1 licenses, I had to race as a Cat 2 (I race in EFTA as a Expert), I plan to submit for an upgrade to Cat 1 for next season, but due to me only a couple USAC races this year, I didn’t have the results to submit for this season. So, call me a sandbagger if you want…

The gun goes off and I’m sitting in the big pack of about thirty Cat 2 19-29 year old riders, not a super fast start, not quite as fast as the Cat 1 starts, probably became there wasn’t really any hole shot. I start picking off guys in the first few minutes – that’s the thing with Cat 2, the fitness/bike handling skills are all-over the place, so you have some guys who will bobble the easiest sections, then some guys that are actually pretty quick. After about 15 minutes in I’ve passed about the whole field except for 3 guys. One really skinny dude keeps spinning his tire out on every root, and I keep trying to get around him but he’s not letting me…finally after 5 or so minutes of frustration I pass him on a downhill section, along with a woman rider who was walking. Now there is just me and one kid left, who doesn’t look that fast, but I quickly realize he is a decent rider. I initially underestimated him because he was wearing baggies, and using a camelback, but the thing was, he had crazy-good technical skills. Any technical downhill, mud bog, or rock garden, he would get a gap on me, but any time there was a pavement section (of which there were quite a few, or a climb (it was a pretty flat course, but there were a few mild climbs), I would gap him. The first time I passed him on a pavement section, I hammered really hard trying to make sure he couldn’t see me, and had left him out of my sights, so I was very shocked to hear him up behind me again about 20 minutes later in the midst of some technical singletrack. I knew it was him because he kept clearing his throat, like every 30 seconds. Weird, mildly annoying, but made it easy to know if he was nearby. And so we danced, passing slower Expert riders, tons of guys out there with flats or mechanicals, and pogo-ing back and forth, trading places. I was obvious ly the roadie, and he having top-notch tech skills, floated over all the rough stuff. I saw a few nasty crashes happen right in front of me; one guy endo-ed on at the bottom of a steep downhill into a mud bog; another guy was flying on a wooden bridge and slid out, with his head hitting one of the support pillars . It was an especially scary-looking crash; I said “Holy shit are you OK man?!” He got right up and said “Yeah thanks for asking”. Yikes, glad it wasn’t me. The slippery bridges were the number two complaint of the race that I heard from fellow racers, the number one complaint was the spare-in-spots arrowing of the extremely circuitous course. I stayed on course the whole time, though.

In the last 3 miles I finally put some good distance between me and throat-clearing dude. The last two miles (they did a great job with mile markers on the trees) were the longest….my handlebar started to slip in the stem, I felt the beginnings of a cramp in my left leg, and I feared the proverbial wheels were going to come off the cart and any minute I’d hear the throat-clearing guy behind me. Luckily I guess I had put enough time into him on the powerline climb, that even though the last few miles were basically all rock gardens (not my strong suit), I never saw him again. Coming up to the finish, I saw them carrying a rider out on a stretcher, and was forewarned to go extremely carefully on the last bridge. I did, and I made it across okay, but then proceeded to make a stupid mistake and slid out on some roots – my only actual wipe-out of the whole race, and it was within about 500 feet of the finish line, gotta love it. I got back on the bike and hammered over the big dirt berm, past the spectator area, and across the line. First place, nice!

So many things have to come together to have a good finish in a mountain bike race, and finally, they came together for me. The Anthem worked flawlessly (except for the handlebar moving right at the end of the race – I’ll need to pick up a 4 bolt stem), I was running the perfect tire and suspension air pressure, I was well-rested, and ate and hydrated right.

It was the first race this season where at no point did I hope for a mechanical to ‘end the suffering’, or ask myself, “why the HELL am I doing this!?” – I actually had fun.

Wampatuck is a great place to ride, this turnout this year was amazing, they said 400+ riders..it was one of the most well-organized bike race I’ve been to. The multiple feed stations were awesome, and although the course definitely could have been arrowed a bit better, I managed to stay on course. It was a pain to wait so long for results to be posted, but I don’ think anyone was expecting the turnout to be as huge as it was.

I think overall it bodes well for the future of our sport to see so many riders on a day when there were multiple other races being held (ESV Topsfield race, the EFTA Millstone Grind in VT). Congratulations go to Kevin Hines for scoring the Golden Bike. His time was freaking amazing…won by 7 minutes. Also, big props to GT Bikes for running such a cool promotion -- we need cheerleaders at races more often!