Stumpjump Mountain Bike Race Report

We’ll get right into the race, felt good warming up. Had a good start, 4^th going into the woods which I was really happy about since I knew from pre-riding the course that it was going to be very hard to pass.  The first 5 of us stayed in the order almost all of the 1^st lap (out of 3), there might have been a pass or two if someone struggled over an obstacle, but beyond that we just rode in a line for the first lap.  My bike handling was really good; in fact I would pull up closer to the guys in front of me when going through a technical area, where they would pull away slightly on the climbs.  This was the first time this had EVER happened to me, where my bike handling was better than my fitness when compared to the guys I was riding against.  Going into the second lap I wanted to see if I could take advantage of my handling skills (what would typically be a foreign concept to me; it’s always been how can I take most advantage of my fitness), after going through the start finish area and just prior to the first technical area I took the lead, unfortunately I eased up too soon before the descent and two guys passed me back.  After that I pretty I just stayed in place and tried to ride as smooth as possible.  Again the leading 5 stayed together pretty much in a straight line.  I don’t know if it was at the end of the second lap or the beginning of the third lap, but I couldn’t go fast on the sections where I could pedal (I just didn’t have the power to push hard any more).  I had been going pretty hard up until then, but I thought it was a pace I could maintain or keep close to, unfortunately I didn’t slow a little. . .I slowed a LOT, (ended up losing about 5 minutes in the course of a 35 minute lap to the rest of the leaders).

After a little time to reflect on the race there were some good things and some not so good things to come out of the race:

The good:

-My Specialized Epic Expert Carbon EVO R 29 (I know isn’t the name a little long), was AWESOME:  pedaled great and handled the bumps and roots great.

-My tire choice given the weather and conditions couldn’t have been better: swapped from a Fast Trak/Renegade set-up to a GroundControl/Fast Trak front/rear combination and it hooked up great in the slick wet conditions that we had.

-My bike handling was as good or maybe even a touch better than the rest of the leaders, something that has NEVER happened before.  It’s really great to see the work I’ve put into improving my bike handling pay off.

-I was able to stay right with the leaders’ pace for two laps, and even when I did blow up I was able to finish in 6^th place.

The bad:

-My fitness: it isn’t where it needs to be.  I just need to be more fit to compete against the top guys in the category, and certainly if I want to get my pro license this fitness just won’t cut it.

-It really hurts my chances of getting a pro license this year, this was a race that a really good result would have helped tremendously in applying for my pro license.

What’s coming up?:

-Going to race at North Meck in the Charlotte Summer Series race on Wednesday, Huntersville Triathlon on Sunday.

-Going to push the intensity of my training up some (I’ll still try to be smart about it), trying to make sure I get a long ride and at least one interval session in per week, in addition to the weekly Summer Series races I’ll be doing.

-Focus on getting really prepared for qualifying race(s) for Xterra World

-See where I am in the Summer Series races and evaluate whether getting a pro mountain bike license this year is a reasonable goal.

Results
Pictures of me
Pictures of Bobby Bryson which include Bobby, Chris Audet, and myself lined up at the start line.