Treasure Valley Rally 5/10/2014

[cbusick]

THAT WAS AWESOME! Jeremy and I were in the biggest field. We both started on the first row. This is my first Mountain Bike race since the Big Bang 2001 in Freetown SF.
I heard some people say that it was going to be gratuitously rocky, but I figured they were just whiners. How bad could it be compared to Leominster, Trout Brook or the MidState?
I sort of got the hole shot but then was passed back by 3 or four riders including Jeremy. The guy ahead of Jeremy didn't know how to ride though, and Jeremy took a great line in the first mud crossing to cut him off.
I flew through the double river crossing without any trouble thanks to some good pre-ride scouting. There were three guys who went off the front. I figured they were the serious sport sandbaggers and I should let them go. I passed the rest of the guys in my group (other than those 3) before hitting the left turn at the pebble. Then things got pretty interesting. I had to laugh at how tough some of the rock gardens were. At this point I was moving up through the expert women's field. Then I passed knee-pad wearing Jesus. I was pacing myself up the long a$$ed climbs when I was caught by a grey hair in a green jersey. He clearly was going faster than me. I saw Eric near the top of one of the climbs. Looked like he was having fun. Then we went back into the technical and GreyGreen clearly sucked at technical. I assume he had caught me from the 50+, so was willing to let him go on the climbs, but when it got rough, he was just in the way. I finally passed him in a particularly nasty section. Then I came up on Jimmy doing a social ride with the novices just before the chicken wire bridges. They all moved aside to let me through, and I got a combination a$$grab/push from one of them on the hill after the bridge. Now I was passing all kinds of random categories. One woman tried to hold me off, sprinting on the fire roads, but I caught her in the roots and passed.

Going through the start finish area I slowed a bit for a power bar. I could hear someone gaining on me on the climbs then losing on the technical. I thought it was the woman, but turned out it was grey/green. I pushed hard on the climbing twisty section through the pine needles, just trying to hold him off to the pebble.. He was consistently one switchback behind me.

I made it to the pebble with grey/green right on my wheel. The marshals said we get to go right and skip the 2 miles of joy we had to do the first time around. "Thank God!" we both said at the same time. I paused a second as a couple older experts went through from the other direction. One with a disc rear wheel that sounded like a drum every time he hit a rock.
I was still ahead of grey/green, but couldn't see out of my glasses so took them off and tried to get them in my pocket. I'm not sure what happened next, I may have hit the quick release on a rock or something, but my rear wheel got kicked out of the drops and I stopped hard. My arms were so week an shaky it took me forever to get the wheel back into the brake caliper and on. About 6 guys including grey/green passed me. I got going again and quckly picked off everyone but grey/green. I gained 50yards each time we hit a rock garden, but then he pushed the distance back any time we went uphill. I rode his wheel through the twsity downs waiting for him to make a mistake, since I really hadn't earned a pass. We hit the last significant climb and he dropped me. I figured it was for good, he was out of sight. Then it got technical again and he just pulled over and let me by. "See you the next time it goes up!" I said and then nearly blew the next rock garden.

I hit the next few rock gardens hard, but not very skillfully and put a big gap into him. Then I just cruised in to the finish. Felt pretty good to stop and take my hands off the bars.

4th out of 20 something in the Sport 40-49. I need to hit the gym and work on my arms/back before trying this again.

-Chris

Oh yeah, in the 2001 race I finished in 2:20:53. Today I fnished 2:20:28. Different race, different course, but thought that was amusing.

[cbusick]

Some pictures from Katie.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 338&type=1

[BTurner]

Nice report Chris and congrats on the 4th in a very tough race. If you enjoy your eye balls bouncing off your inner scull for two hours then I guess awesome is the proper description. I watched the fast guys including Greg "Action" Jackson pedal off and settled into a sustainable pace. I actually ended up going forward the whole race which is a plus and finished 6th a good 7 min. down from GAJ. I'm pretty sure my triceps our now quadriceps after that beating. A big congrats to Josh Merchant on his win and a big thanks for the Belhaven that I am currently enjoying. In the off road racing world we call that race course fast and fun!!!

[Mkidd3]

One with a disc rear wheel that sounded like a drum every time he hit a rock.

Paul Curley races MTN bikes too?

Well done dudes! And congrats Josh on the win! Woohoo!

[Bruce]

He's a former pro mtb