Saturday, May 30, 2009

First notch on the helmet for the year.

I finally picked up a win this year. I did a short track mountain bike race in West Virginia as part of the WVMBA series. Most of the other riders were treating the race as a mountain bike short track. I looked at it as a cross race. I was one of 2 riders who were on a cross bike and right from the gun, I punched it hard. We started in a barn and coming out I took the short line through the deeper grass and shot away from the pack. I then maintained the pace til I got to a short road section. It was packed enough that I was able to get a good head of steam up and heading back into the trail slung the bike through the sharp turn in. This jumped the gap another 15 or 20 yards. Coming out of the back side of the course, I had a good gap and there were 3 riders working to bring me back. After another short section of road, I accelerated hard down a twisting trail and carried the speed through the mud section. At the end of the first lap I had a couple hundred yard lead. I put it in cruise control at that point. I only punched it when it seemed the riders behind started closing. At the end of the 4th lap, one of them got to within 20 seconds. I did one last hard punch and after slinging myself off the road at a really fast pace which also involved nearly sliding out once on the trail, the gap went way back up as his effort must've been an all-out effort to catch me. Once I disappeared on him, he let up. I came through on the bell lap and was able to cruise it in for the win. It wasn't a big win, but it was a good intensity type ride. I'll do 2 more of the 3 remaining short tracks. I think I'll go after this series to get myself ready for cross this year. After today, we get the XC for the weekend. I'll be back on the single speed so I won't have as much of an easy time though there is alot of rideable but technical single track so maybe I'll have a crack at a high placing. I'm hoping my last week of long stupid miles pays off.

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