Totally Unexpected Win

Bike postrace:  It was a "little" muddy at North Meck

It's been a while since I've posted to the blog, I've been meaning to but it just hasn't happened in the last couple weeks.

My fitness has been coming around, still not where it was earlier in the year, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

This week's race was at North Meck.  I got there early enough to do two warm up laps (each lap is only about 15 minutes).  Felt really good riding on my first warm-up lap, both bike handling wise and fitness wise.  Just as I was finishing up my first lap it started to rain, so I headed to the car, then it started to pour, then it started to do whatever is rained harder than pour.  While it was raining hard, hung out in John's (BikeSource Manager and fellow BikeSource racer) truck during the heavy rain.  It let up and then started again, while it was raining really hard I stayed in his truck when it eased up I hopped back on the bike and rode around to keep warm.  So much for my two lap warm up. . . oh well.

The situation kind of reminded me of my year: fell really good at the beginning, then some unexpected issues, that get in the way of the plan, but in both cases I tried to make the best out of things, and stay as positive as possible (neither time I was completely positive, but did try to do my best to be positive).

By now the course had turned from dry, even a little slippery because it was hard packed with a little sand on top, to what I could only assume was a complete mud bath. 

Lined up for the start, it was Justin Brayton (a pro motocross rider and extremely good mountain biker, who will in all likelihood get his pro mountain biking license if he applies for on), Luke Sagur (pro mountain biker who just got his new regular race bike put back together, for the last few weeks he'd been using his single speed and was still fast enough on that to win the previous weeks summer series race). . . and me.  So while it wasn't a big field by any means, the other guys were very good.  Even if the conditions were ideal I still would have thought I would be third, but especially with the conditions the way they were I felt quite sure that I would end up finishing 3rd, unless someone had a mechanical or rash of falls.  Maybe not the best attitude to have going into the race, but it was realistic.

At the start I let Justin and Luke fight it out for the lead going into the woods, Justin ended up leading, then Luke, then me.  As expected it was muddy and slippery.  The three of us stayed in a line, riding fairly easily to start out with, I certainly wasn't going to argue since I was pretty much just out there to get a ride in and hopefully not crash.  About halfway through the first lap I locked up my brakes coming around a corner and spun almost completely around.  After turning myself around and getting started again I was down probably 20 seconds, I could still see the guys ahead when the trail turned back on itself.  I worked on catching back up to them, knowing that if I rode cleanly and they didn't pick up the pace I'd be able to catch back up, I just hoped they wouldn't pick up the pace.

Slowly, but steadily I was able to pull myself back to the other guys.  This doesn't happen all at once, especially in muddy conditions like we had, it's trying to pick up one or two seconds through corners or straights at a time; you can't just sprint back because you'd just end up on the ground covered in mud (well I should actually say:  more covered in mud, because I was already covered in much from it spraying up).  I was very thankful that they hadn't really pushed the pace. 

Still on the first lap, the the super sport riders started to catch us, they started a minute or so after us.  This didn't worry me, but I did let Justin and Luke know that we had company.  Things continued like this for the remainder of the first lap:  Justin, Luke, myself, and then some of the super sport guys.  After finishing up the first lap, Luke accelerated and took the lead entering the wood for the second lap.  I stayed in third, thinking that Justin would probably close the gap to Luke, if it was going to be a pace I'd be able to maintain.  As it turned out the gap between Luke and the two of us continued to stretch out, not too much at once, but probably to 20 seconds half way though the lap.  I was still feeling good at this point so I decided to pass Justin going up the one relatively long climb that each lap has and tried to pull Justin back. 

This is where things start to get a little fuzzy for me, I don't remember exactly when stuff happened, in part because I'm really bad at counting laps as I go along, I usually rely on looking at my Garmin to know where I am in the race, but unfortunately with the rain and mud I really couldn't see the Garmin clearly and anyway didn't want to take my eyes off the trail since it was so slippery.

At some point, I think, toward the end of the second lap the leading super sport rider, who as I would later figure out was Charlie Mullins, asked to get around me when there was an opportunity, shortly after I move over and let him by and continued behind him.  We were slowly, very slowly pulling back up to Luke.  On what I think was the 3rd lap of 4 going up the climb (which is about the only place to cleanly pass someone, except if they just let you by), I passed Charlie and surprisingly I was also to get up to and pass Luke. 

I stayed in front of the two of them, continuing to try and ride smoothly and not slide out in the mud.  Given how slippery it was I actually felt very comfortable and as much in control of the bike as much as possible, given how muddy it was.  I continued to lead through the end of lap 3, I never knew exactly  how much of a gap I had on Luke and Charlie was, because I was focused on trying to stay upright and couldn't turn back around to see where they were, but I knew they very close behind.  At some point, part way through the final lap Charlie told me that Luke had fallen down.  I continued my pace knowing that even though Luke had fallen, he's really strong and would catch back up if I let up.

With a couple minutes left to go I knew there was one rider not too far behind me, but I wasn't sure if it was still Charlie or if Luke had caught up and passed Charlie.  So going round a switchback I turned around to see who it was, I was kind of surprised to see that it wasn't Luke, but instead Charlie, this was very reassuring, that I had a good sized gap on Luke and assuming I didn't mess up that things were pretty secure.  But in doing this I almost rode off the trail, fortunately I was just able to stay on the trail and not get off into the leaves and underbrush.  And after that the last couple minutes were uneventful. . .thankfully.

After finishing I congratulated Charlie and Luke for having very good races.  Chatted with Luke for a bit and he was extremely complimentary of my riding and said that "I was back" I wasn't completely convinced (and am still not completely convinced I'm back to where I was earlier in the year): it was one race in really difficult conditions, with only two other guys in the race:  would that translate to a dry race with more people. . .I don't know.  But it's certainly a much better to maybe be back than definitely NOT being back.