This weeks race was a bit kinder to me. I came in feeling pretty fresh after taking Monday off and I think it helped. Ryan was there taking pictures and all the ones in this post are his.
The number of racers in both the beginner and open classes are growing which is great to see. Once the weather cools off a bit I expect it to get even better.
Leading up to the race it looked like my competition from last week wasn't going to make it. Neither Cale or Jerred were there. Then about 5 minutes before the race was set to start Cale pulls up, registers and gets in about a minute of warmup before toeing the line. He had been on the road for most of the afternoon and was rushing to make the race. I was glad he made it.
At the start I was thinking I could take advantage of Cale's lack of warmup and try to push the pace and see if he would back off or burn too many matches early. I got the hole shot and rode as hard as I could.
I stood up on the climbs to keep my speed up and I was feeling pretty good. Cale stayed on my wheel the entire first lap.
On the second lap at the top of a climb coming off of the bat cave trail Cale passed me but I was able to hang on and kept him from getting away. He would put some distance between us on the flats and descents, but I would catch up on the climbs.
On the forth lap I went around Cale at the top of a hill right before we entered the bat cave trail and I just went for it. I was feeling the fatigue from the 20 minutes of hard riding but felt like I could keep the pace up. When I looked back at the bottom of the hill near the start/finish line I could see that he wasn't hanging on. After the fifth lap I couldn't see him behind me and they called out there were only three laps to go. At that point I just tried to cruise and not make any mistakes.
The last 3 laps went by pretty quickly and I ended up finishing 8 laps in about 43 minutes. 2 minutes faster than last week.
Luckily Ryan was not at the finish line taking photos. About 20 feet from the start/finish line there is a mound that the trail goes over. I decided I'd try to catch some air since there was a nice size crowd standing around, but unfortunately I'm not that good at catching air. Somehow after the jump I got tilted to the side and I biffed the landing. I had to walk my bike across the line. At least I got some good laughs.
My nephew Trevor wasn't able to make the race because of work but he's planning on being at the next one in two weeks. Hopefully it will be a bit cooler.
There won't be a dirt crit on the 17th. Instead everyone will be at the waffle road race. I might have to put the slicks back on my bike.....
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
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