Two Wheel Blogs

I was thinking as I drove home from the race today that this one, the 2007 Tall Oaks Challenge, wasn't really my first MTB race. Technically speaking, my first race was the 2007 Ouachita Challenge. Then again, I rode the Ouachita Challenge like it was fun, day-long trail ride. I stopped frequently to take photos and to eat and drink. It took me over seven hours to finish.

Today was nothing of the kind. Only the fastest of the fast could complete three full laps of the course in less than 90 minutes. That made it a three-lap race for everyone else. There were a little more than a dozen or so guys in my class and none of them looked like tourists. They all looked like they came to race all three laps with everything they had. This being only my "second" race, my strategy was to just feel my way along and see what developed.

I settled in somewhere in the middle of the pack as we cleared the starting area and headed into the woods. Nobody seemed to want to push the pace, so we pretty much rode the first half-lap like a trail ride. A guy went down on a switchback somewhere near the bottom of the first descent and it split things up a little. Once that happened the pace picked up a bit. I guess the guys in front sensed an opportunity to break things open a little. I did my best to hang with them. Along the way I learned I couldn't keep up with the geared guys on anything but the climbs. Singlespeeding these races is hard work. Catching, passing and pulling ahead on climbs is brutal. After a while it gets to hurting pretty badly.

No, after a while it becomes excrutiating. Too much of it and the engines start to shut down. That's what happened somewhere shortly after the start of the third lap. All I had in the tank after an hour of racing was fumes.

Here's how it went down. I wasn't completely sure of it, but I thought I had worked my way into second place. I was pretty sure the next rider up the trail was off the back of an earlier starting group. And I was pretty sure the guy immediately in front of him was the leader in my group. And unfortunately I was just as sure the guy about 10 seconds behind me was the third place guy in my group.

The leader had the tactical advantage, because to catch him I'd have to pass the guy from the earlier group. What he didn't know was that I was barely hanging on and hoping my fear of getting caught by #3 would provide the energy I needed to gut out the rest of the lap.

In the end it was that fight or flight energy that saved my #2 finish. He'd closed to only a few seconds by the time we exited the woods on lap #3; but I managed to hold him off in the sprint for the line.

Props to Nick at Red Wheel Bikes for putting on a hella good race. Turnout was terrific - full fields in every classification. The Binder trails, always a great experience, were well marked and nicely cut back, providing plenty of (painful) opportunities to pass. Or to pull off to be passed. Oh, and plenty of bike schwag too. Gotta love that schwag. And finally, cowbells all the way out to 6th place. Schweet!