Here is his race re-cap:
"Anybody who has seen me race will know exactly how the
start went; despite a solid 30 minute warm up with hill climb
intervals. I got a call up to the start and was on the inside staring
at the first wide turn. At the start whistle I proceeded to shoot
straight to the back of the field. There may have been one rider behind
me, but I am not 100% sure; I was now in 10th (or 9th). After some
uphill single track, where the field slowly pulled away from me, there
was about 2 miles of smooth climbing with a few uphill rock gardens. I
managed to pull back one rider rather quickly. As I crested the top of
the first climb a junior passed me, then a group of five, then another
group of 5; oh to be 30 pounds lighter. The juniors turned out to be
the largest field of the day. As I made my way through the downhill
single track I passed at least two of my competitors off to the side of
the trail; identified by the ‘2’ on our left calf (Root 66 should bring
this back). Throughout the twisty single track towards the top of the
mountain several other categories’ race leaders passed me. I was making
good use of the Scott Twin-loc going from climb to trail to decent over
and over and over again.
A large portion of the decent starts with the most
technical part of the course with a series of staggered, variable
height, boulders between trees natural stair set. Last year I put my
bars and hand into a tree here. This year I cleaned the decent and the
accent that immediately follows. Next up was a tight switch back with a
crowd. I locked up the rear and power slid around without issue.
Between the switch backs was some technical rocks and traffic. Between
being held up and holding others up I was pretty clean. There was a
more rock strewn switchback that had me wishing for a 650B or maybe even
a 26”. The last 1.25KM of the course, thank you 1KM to go sign, is
flat twisty; more New England Style single track before starting the lap
again.
By the time I reached the peak of the mountain the second
time I was feeling really good; much better than how I felt the first
time over the top. I sped up a few lines and continued to use the big
wheels to roll over what was in my way. I was not able to get through
the natural stairs clean this time as my front wheel hung up;
fortunately I did not become a super hero. Sometime during the second
decent, I think, a racer from my category blew past me and I was not
able to hold on.
With about 600m to go, still in the last set of single
track, I came around a switch back and saw what I thought to be a 90X
number behind me. I thought this was another racer in my category. I
put all the effort I had left into the last section of single track
before coming into the last grass then gravel section. Without looking
back I powered over the gravel and up the climb just before the finish.
I finally looked back with about 50m to go and saw no-one. I rolled
over the finish line in 1:35; ~0:45/0:48 split. When the results were
posted I had one of the greatest feelings ever after a bike race. I had
taken 5th and the final step on the podium; 6th was 5 minutes back, so I
might have been riding away from a ghost in the end.
The race was the third ride on my new bike. Thank you
Dillon and Andy for getting it shipped and built in time for last
weekend’s race so I was comfortable riding it this weekend. A special
thanks to Andy for staying late Wednesday to set me up tubeless. Thanks
to everyone for their support at the races and on the list serve. I
think I can finish the Root 66 series as a Cat 2 this year, but next
year my license will be a Cat 1."
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