Mud, rocks, roots,
rain, blood and a beating.
Coz and I left a
rainy Seattle for the long journey south.
We brought extra provisions and our passports just in case. Grey skies
and off and on rain gave us a preview of the race conditions. Amid a sea of fast food restaurants and strip
malls we found the wooded venue of Frontier Park.
After an
unceremonious warm up and a couple pre-ride laps I concluded that I could ride
ten laps on this course and still not be familiar with it. It was a bit of a dog’s breakfast. It felt
like an endless series of serpentine sharp corners that gave the course a
barrel racing feel. Accelerate, then brake
late and hard into the sharp corner, make the turn at almost a dead stop then
accelerate out of it. Repeat until blown. Once blown continue one more lap.
Loose rocks and
mud in various proportions made the corners very inconsistent from one to the
next. The corners also featured the full
spectrum of cambers and uphill/downhill combinations. There was a corner with a
high berm you could hit fast and bounce off of. Ten seconds later you came upon a sharp left
hand corner that featured an off-camber drop that was a combination of roots
and wet golf ball sized rocks that managed to take me down in my race. Other corners featured water saturated mud bogs
and some had sketchy dry gravel.
In between
corners it was either wet single track with baby heads, lumpy grass or loose
gravel. There was one section of chipped wood just to tick all the boxes. Tree roots
added unnecessary complexity as did the variety of water saturation levels.
There were
sweeping corners where the outside line was fast and smooth and others where it
was a bumpy mess. As the day wore on there were spots where the course
decomposed so the line between loose and firm was moving lap by lap. What worked on lap two didn’t on lap four.
The bottom line
was that for me, it was impossible to find a rhythm. When you can carry speed through corners and keep
the RPMS consistent it is possible to get a feeling of flow on a course. This
isn’t the Cross Revolution way. They
seem to pride themselves on disrupting any hope of a flowing, euro-style
course. The ghost of Seattle Cyclocross and a maze of 180 degree turns is alive
and well.
There was only
one section where you could accelerate for more than ten seconds. My hands
still ache from braking and wrestling the front wheel. The course required no less than five
dismounts per lap. I usually do well at courses that have a lot of running but
this was not my cup of mud.
The race started
hot and heavy and were onto loose gravel in fifty meters travelling at full speed.
If someone had plowed a front wheel the cartwheeling carnage would have been
epic. After the gravel the leading
riders took a wrong turn and headed into the pit at full speed. This moment of
confusion was short-lived and we regrouped at the pit exit. After running a
series of four logs we dipped and ducked into the forest.
Ninety seconds
of racing and my chance to count our group to see my current place was gone
forever. The course would veer in and
out of the trees so you only had visibility of those within ten or fifteen
seconds ahead of, or behind you.
On the third of
five laps I had grown my gap on Marshall but I went down when I washed out my
front wheel on a loose off-camber downhill corner. I popped back up and remounted just ahead of
Marshall and stomped on the pedal. It spun as if the chain was off. It was.
<<Insert
whispered profanity here>>
I assumed the
familiar posture of a man leaned over his bike putting his chain back on. By the time I was rolling again Marshall had
fifty meters on me and I started the chase.
“Not all at once,” I coached myself.
For the fourth
and fifth laps I considered trying to bunny hop the barriers in an attempt to
close the gap on Marshall. Each time,
wisdom prevailed and I behaved like a man with responsibilities. I drew closer and was only one turn back as we
crossed the line with one lap to go. I took momentary comfort that I hadn’t
been lapped by the single speeders or the 45 plus Cat 3 guys.
When I got close
in the corners I kept shouting to Marshall that I was coming for him. This was in good fun and he appreciated the
attention. On the only pavement section he got out of the saddle and drilled
it. Maybe I should have kept quiet. I had to fight to hold the gap. Marshall is a dedicated mountain bike racer
and he used the technical single track sections to build a gap.
I accelerated
hard out of the corners trying to close the gap but traffic was now an issue
and I was forced to wait to pass slower riders from other cats. The loose corners suggested a bit of
discretion as well.
By the time
Marshall finished he had grown the gap back to the size he had when I first
remounted. I rolled in to claim a top ten finish which met my objective but
Marshall had become my target during the race and he beat me fair and square.
When I got back
to the car I washed the mud and blood off my knee and only when I changed
clothes did I realize my hip and shoulder also had some scrapes. This is racing and it is what I had signed up
for. I was cooked and was glad for
company on the long drive back home.
Coz took fourth
in our competitive field and also lamented the aftereffects of the technical,
if not abusive, course.
Tri-geeks get
all excited about transition time and mine came when I pulled into my
driveway. Hottie and I were having
dinner with my daughter and her family which necessitated catching a ferry.
Less than twenty minutes after hitting the driveway in WW2 full of bike and
mud, Hottie and I were pulling out with a freshly washed Evo and a garage full
of muddy stuff awaiting my return.
We made the
ferry and had a great evening.
No comments:
Post a Comment