Dust, heat, elevation, the end of a era, the end of a series, I wanted to finish like Seinfeld, and Team Platinum, on top of the game. But just showing up in my catergory is generally more than half the battle, so I was confident enough to go for the 6 hour progressive neighborhood dinner party the night before, after an 8 hour day at work.
Morning came too early and Big Bear is a long ways away. At the start line it seemed like a smaller than normal group with all the familiar faces. Everyone seemed to start quite a bit faster than usual though, but the guy I was chasing from Woodruff Off-road had popped the last three races about 2/3 of the way into the race and finished more than a few minutes back. I wasn’t to concerned making the initial 2+ mile climb when I couldn’t see him anywhere near the top of the course.
I had gone with about three extra PSI front and back after flatting at last years final. It didn’t occur to me at registration that the section that the extra pressure was added for had been trimmed out of this years course. Floating so many soft fire road corners and having to slow coming into them just to keep the line had me wishing I would have flirted with the chance of flatting a bit more.
I finally made visual contact with Jason Woodruff on the single track up to the “three bitches” where the Cat 1 riders rejoined the medium length
course on the final three fire road peaks to the top of the course. Latching onto a few of the faster Cat 1 rider wheels and bridging up to Jason was slowly and painfully getting me closer. The Luau themed Mai Tai’s and Kalua pork from the night before wasn’t seeming like such a good idea at this point. But a half mile past the top of the course on the downhill fire road into the single track descent is where I squeezed by. I didn’t look back at the top of the rolling single track and log ramp.
Several racers were bottlenecked at a little makeable soft run up so we all had to dismount, at this point Jason ran by me and two others in front of me, and I had no answer, nothing left in the reserve tank. I kept walking up the little rise. I couldn’t get by the two between us until the next fire road, and couldn’t reel him back in down fall line to the finish and ended up half a minute back.
A disapointing way to end the series but will look forward to fall classic to redeem myself and maybe will wait to make a pass until I know I can hold the lead.
Something that Mr. weinerhoven fails to mention is that Mr Woodruff is on a singlespeed. Sorry excuses for a sorry performance, Real racers come ready to race not write an article about how they “should” have won but…. Your teammates should be very proud.
I'm commenting more on your piece here. I'm not too familiar with bikes and all but I know that when you have one gear, you don't have the lux of making the challenge any easier, especially in a six hour race (you're nuts anyway doing this race). I'm sure you'll come more prepared in the fall classic thing, but I'm going to have to pull for the Woddruff guy. someguywholivesinreality was right. You probably shouldn't have written this piece. You could have given congrats to the fellow riders who actually finished the race, win or lose. An excuse driven piece is going public with the regret of not preparing yourself. If this sport is a passion of yours, think/read twice before posting or have your teammates edit your draft.
I'm commenting more on your piece here. I'm not too familiar with bikes and all but I know that when you have one gear, you don't have the lux of making the challenge any easier, especially in a six hour race (you're nuts anyway doing this race). I'm sure you'll come more prepared in the fall classic thing, but I'm going to have to pull for the Woddruff guy. someguywholivesinreality was right. You probably shouldn't have written this piece. You could have given congrats to the fellow riders who actually finished the race, win or lose. An excuse driven piece is going public with the regret of not preparing yourself. If this sport is a passion of yours, think/read twice before posting or have your teammates edit your draft.
I'm commenting more on your piece here. I'm not too familiar with bikes and all but I know that when you have one gear, you don't have the lux of making the challenge any easier, especially in a six hour race (you're nuts anyway doing this race). I'm sure you'll come more prepared in the fall classic thing, but I'm going to have to pull for the Woddruff guy. someguywholivesinreality was right. You probably shouldn't have written this piece. You could have given congrats to the fellow riders who actually finished the race, win or lose. An excuse driven piece is going public with the regret of not preparing yourself. If this sport is a passion of yours, think/read twice before posting or have your teammates edit your draft.