Minuteman Road Club

Lined up for my last race as a Cat III XC rider. This was my 4th race in 3 seasons of competition.
My plan was to:
1. Drill it off the line
2. Pretend to fade after the first rise
3. Draft whoever passes me until the woods and then draw the sword.
As soon as I heard the whistle, I drilled it and took the holeshot over the bridge. I hit the rise and let one guy pass me, falling in until the woods. Since I had about 40lbs on the leader, he hits the gas on the climb and gaps me.
HEY THIS IS NOT WHAT I PLANNED COME BACK! I took MAJOR risks on the descents to hold his wheel, and so did he. Eventually, his risky riding led to a busted chain, taking him out of contention (SCHLECKED!!!). The chase is on, and it's mine to lose! Two guys put the pressure on. One was clearly stronger, but only managed to take about 90 seconds out of me for the day. Chaser 2 was more of a match. Luckily, I attended Rich Mazzola's School of Rock in April and learned how to corner. Every attempt he made at closing the gap resulted in a full on yard sale. He toasted himself after the 3rd try and lost 3 minutes to me overall. Alone and chasing, I turned myself inside out to catch a glimpse of the leader, but I couldn't close the gap. I sprinted it in against no one in particular, taking 2nd place in 1:17 and some change. My first podium finish, and a state championship silver medal to top it off.

Nice job! Time to upgrade.

Way to go!

Today was supposed to be a day off of riding. However, it was beautiful out, no humidity, and I got antsy sitting around the house. Since the Cat II had a 2 PM start, there was no reason why I couldn't leave Boston at noon, drive an hour, and get my mountain bike on.

Some ides are better left ignored while sipping morning coffee, though.

Last year I did this race and this year's course was a bit different. Due to the heavy rains last year, they had to reroute big sections of twisty, rooty, rocky singletrack up to a fire road. When I got the text from David that I'd probably want my full-squish bike, I took him up on the advice, even though I remembered this course as being pretty straightforward.

I faded near the back off the start as everyone was racing hard off the line and sucked in a lot of dust on the initial fire road sprint. For the first 15 minutes, I raced like it was CX with a pegged HR racing a bunch of guys. However, I went for a long 4 hour ride with lots of tempo the day before and I was hurting. I decided that actually racing hard was a dumb idea, especially since I had about two hours of this pace ahead of me. So, I eased off and found a zone just a couple beats shy of my LTHR and proceeded to ride for two hours. I passed some, I got passed by some. There were some really fast descents with big rocks and rough stuff and I was really glad for the suspension as it allowed for lazy line selection and increased margin of error handling the bike at speeds.

I kept wishing for a flat tire or mechanical of some kind on all the rocks and roots. But then remembered that I upgraded to tubeless and it wasn't in the books. But maybe if I corner really hard, I can unseat my bead? Nope, didn't happen. I just suffered through the rest of the race, finishing around 17th Place out of 25ish or so? This was a small victory for me because a) I didn't crash b) I rode some lines I probably wouldn't have in the past c) it was better that sitting on the couch wishing I had gone.

This years course was really nice. Lots of fun single track sections. Lots of rocks. Lots of fast flowy accelerations. No major climbs. Being so close to Boston, I'll probably return yet again, even though XC mountain bike racing hurts a lot.

That hurt..... Cat 1 race was 4 laps, plus warm up lap which made a total of almost 30 miles! First race of the season for me since all the accidents. I have to say it’s a good thing I got a deferment to 2011 for Leadville; I’m not in race shape enough to tackle 100 miles.

However, even with all the pain and suffering, the day was perfect, weather unbelievable. At times, when I so wanted to bail out of this race, I thought of Jens Voigt. He was the inspiration to pedal on to the finish, his words kept repeating over and over in my head like a mantra “you’ll have to shoot me first to get me off my bike”….

Afterward I was like some kind of cycling zombie, groaning and staggering around the parking lot, drinking recovery fluid, not sure if I wanted to puke or die… Can’t wait until my next race!