May 17th, 2009

The race was an hour away so I decided not to pre-ride the day before. Got to Winsted by 11am with the intentions of riding a lap before my race at 2pm. Beginners had finished and Cat1/Pro riders were out on the course. Based on a few quick conversations and the clear observation that bikes were caked in mud, I made the executive decision to replace my Continental Race Kings with the WTB Velociraptors from Cheryl’s bike. There are many disadvantages to Velociraptors: almost anyone who has been riding mountain bikes long enough has owned a pair, yet nobody seems to like them. They’re heavy, slow and have giant paddles for treads adding some serious rolling resistance. Not to mention this specific pair was dry rotting. And they’re not tubeless, either. The one benefit, perhaps, is that they can handle a little better in the mud. Racing Hopbrook with my Continentals was a mistake seeing as I couldn’t hold a line. I didn’t want to risk that again. So on went the tires and I was off to ride a lap. Finished the 5 mile loop in about 34 minutes. The race was pushed back to 2:30. The pros were finishing slow. This meant the course was getting nasty. There’s nothing quite like the anxiety I feel before a race. The night before, the drive, waiting to stage, the starting line, the whistle and then the first 10 minutes of anaerobic death. And now another 30 minutes to think. A few new faces at the starting line. To my right was a rider from UMass Amherst that looked fast. I overheard that he won the race last weekend (“dominated it…”). On my left was Anthony who beat me out at Farmington but admitted that he wasn’t the best when it came to technical riding (note: any lack of technical skill is made up by his consistent road bike mileage of around 500 miles a month). At the whistle Anthony pulled out fast and sped up the asphalt ramp. Following UMass’ lead, I jumped the curb and cut off several riders heading into the woods. We were 1-2 at the start of the singletrack. This is where everything goes to hell: Your engine is red lining having just gone from 0 to 100 from a cold start and there are 10 other riders who want your position. Your muscles are consuming oxygen much faster than you can supply it. If it sounds like you’re hyperventilating, you’re not breathing hard enough. You want to puke. You want to quit. You consider pulling off to the side and letting air out of your rear tire to fake a flat. You wonder if your training has prepared you for this… and why you’re doing this at all? Is anyone else feeling the same way? Did they train harder than I did? These thoughts are normal. They happen for the first 10 minutes of any race of this intensity. For me, anyway. I don’t start slow. Getting trapped behind a slower rider in tight single-track means you’re losing critical time. While it would hurt a lot less to ease into the start, the logistics of placing in a mountain bike racing don’t favor such a concept. Get in front, control your own pace. It’s going to hurt like hell, but this is what it takes if you want to win. My heart rate slowed and my breathing began to stabilize at the top of the first climb. UMass was in-front by about 25 yards and pushing fast. I held on the best I could. For a short while I was alone until Anthony caught up. He had shook off 4th place and I briefed him on the rider ahead. I told him to go catch him to which he reminded me that it was still the first lap and, in simple terms, to calm down. I was still breathing erratically and wasn’t racing smart. At the base of the first large climb I noticed that UMass was pushing his bike. As we approached he let us know that he flatted. Take what you can get. This meant Anthony and I were in familiar territory: 1 and 2 with nobody close. We would ride together for the remainder of the race. Now Anthony isn’t the best rider in the mud or on technical ascents. But, by riding on his wheel, I was able to slow my pace and conserve energy for what was setting up to be a close finish. Looking back, there were opportunities where I could’ve attacked a climb, but his ability to close any gap caused me to second guess any strategic moves for the time being. There was a rider in black that we would see occasionally when we looked back. It must be one of those new faces I saw at the start… nobody else we had raced with in the weeks prior was fast enough to catch up. We kept pushing harder through the first lap and finished together heading into lap 2. More of the same, but Anthony was leading into the mud and would occasionally take the wrong line and have to unclip. At one point, he went down and I fell into him… my front foot through his spokes. We were both getting tired, but holding steady through technical spots is something I’m good at. There is somebody catching up and we need to move faster. Throughout the remainder of lap 2 we kept seeing that rider through the trees. He was holding our pace, but how? By the start of the third lap, he was getting even closer. So close at one point that I was able to read his number: 536. “He’s not in our class, he’s not in our class”. This rider was fast as hell, having started 2 minutes /after/ us, and now poised to pass — but he posed no threat to our position and so we let him go. He was just a ghost — he didn’t matter but we were pushed harder by his presence. Looking over our shoulders again, there was nothing to worry about. Halfway through the final lap we were both out of water and he offered to let me pass. I told him I’m not ready. This would come down to the end. The end of each loop climbs into a grassy field, levels off, then quickly descends into a steep and technical singletrack. On the first two laps I let him take the lead while I took a drink or a gu. The third lap had to be different, but I had almost no energy to work with. By this time, we were passing (lapping, really) slower riders together. Anthony was pushing hard past them trying to shake me, and I might well have let him but I dug deep and followed his lead. As the flats turned into the final descent I stood up and hammered past the last remaining rider standing in my way, slurring “right, riggghhhtt”. I knew I had one chance if he was to take the lead into the descent. Midway through the downhill there was a quick uphill berm with two braids: center or right. The common route was center — the right route was steep and tricky, but executed correctly, would allow for a perfect cut-off. I had been calculating this move for over an hour. Sometimes plans fail. I experienced chain suck about 10 yards into the descent, wondering if I was going to have to run the bike in. Eventually I was able to spin the pedals and knew I had to gun it. I caught him by the berm, but it was too late. Despite taking my short-cut, he was still a bike length ahead of me. The only option now was to ride really fucking fast. There are risks involved in this. One such risk may involve hitting a steep drop-off much too fast with all your weight forward and literally flying off of the bike and crashing to the ground very, very hard. I was dazed, but still focused. A spectator yelled out “you could have had him” as I remounted the bike. The finish was only a few yards away. As I exited the woods I scrambled to ask where the finish line was. Oh, just through that field and around the corner! I had originally thought that the finish was directly at the end of the descent. Had I known that there was an option for a true sprint finish, I may have taken that downhill a little more carefully and avoided a crash. Or, maybe I needed to ride that fast in order to even have a chance to catch him. Regardless, it was a close race. I spun it out and took second by 11 seconds. Third place crossed the line 7 minutes and 30 seconds later. Fourth place another 5 minutes after that. We absolutely destroyed the field.