I love the mountain bike stage races that are done by Tailwind. You have 3 different disciplines, Time Trial, Short Track and Cross Country. Saturday was the TT and Short Track at Addison Oaks , there was a small field for our group of 50 to 59 year old racers but I was able to eek out a psychological win in the short track by taking 3rd place in my age group. I used my cross bike and it handled the extreme turns very well. The turns did not affect me, but I stuffed my pedal into the hill on an off camber turn and, although I was in 3rd place of the entire ‘sport’ group, went to the back of the pack in seconds. It is only a 15 minute race, so it is a lung burning, leg cramp-fest, a fall is fatal. So, like I said, a 3rd place finish for our age group was a nice win.
In the morning we had the Time Trial and I ended up 4th of 4 in our age group there. Even though the number of racers in my age group was low, these stage races are double points races and set the tone for the leaders for the rest of the season. As such…finishing 4th is strategically valuable…even if there were only 5 or six of us out there this weekend.
Final tally, 4th place TT, 3rd Place Short Track, 5th place in today’s extremely hot 3 lap cross country race…overall I should walk away with a 4th place double points win for WSI-Team Active.
Again my race day started with Jacob and the little kid’s race. As usual he had a great time; he was slightly disappointed in the course because there were hardly any jumps compared to Yankee. Either way he got to stand on the podium and received a dog tag for his accomplishment.
Then my race started a little while later, with almost no passing. Then it opened up a bit here and there and I was able to pick a few of the guys here and there throughout the rest of the race. I ended up with a time of 1Hr 26min and that was surprising enough to get me to 4th place in my wave. I was very pleased with my overall race and look forward to next year’s race.
My son Dilan took 3rd place in the 10 and under race, just missing 2nd place by 6 inches in a frantic sprint to the finish line. His time was 56 minutes, it sounded like his race went very well, with no major mishaps.
Special thanks to everybody involved in the after race festivities. The food and beverages where great! Also thanks to Danny and Amy for the pictures and team support. Great Job guys!
Well, I was slow as I predicted I would be. My endurance isn’t where I’d like it to be, and I would have preferred to race in the Sport class and only do two laps instead of three, but in order to cook the food, I needed to ride Expert for the earlier start time.
After racing three laps on the trail, I ran the grill - cooking up burgers and dogs for the hungry racers. What a great day!
Anyway, the start at Custer is always very fast. This year, I told myself not to push it and relax for the first mile or so, which I did. While on the first lap, I saw a couple guys up ahead of me getting back on their bikes and figured there was a crash. A little bit latter, I saw one of the same guys getting back on his bike, and figured he crashed again. Well, now he was right in front of me, which was making me nervous. The guy was fast on the straight parts, but when he got into curvy sections or technical sections, he was right on the edge. I couldn’t get around him, but figured sooner or later he would screw up. Well, he did….coming down that hill and across the bridge…once he cleared the bridge, he just dumped it. Luckily, I was able to dart around him and keep going.
As I completed lap 1, I came up on Eric Wallace on his single speed. He was spinning away on the flat start section and I went on bye. At the top of those rocky/rooty hills before grannies garden, my right calf cramped up like a rock. I had to get off my bike and stretch, and Eric and a few others rode past. This wasn’t good…leg cramps 1/2 way into the race? I just had to take it easy the rest of the time and not try and push hard up the hills. I finished with a pretty slow time, but I was done and it was time to cook!
100 hot dogs and 160 burgers in 2 hours!!! (All on a charcoal grill) Thanks to Chuck Brenner and Jim Gallagher for being the ‘bun’ guys. Like years past, this event is a total blast. The people love the free beer and food, and this year’s ‘Beer Garden’ made our team set-up that much cooler.
Congrats to the ladies that placed, as well as the young pup, Caleb. I think us older guys like the beer too much to make a podium!
Thanks to the entire team yesterday for an AWESOME showing, all of the help, camaraderie, racing and results, set-up, clean-up, and just having a great time and looking awesome in team kits and team shirts. It was a wonderful day!! We looked so professional.
2nd place in my first expert race!
Kathi said the Team Active beer garden was a huge success. Congratulations to all who raced, the course was firm and fast and the weather was just perfect. I couldn’t find posted results yet, and can’t remember everyone’s results, but we had at least 3 podium places.
Caleb, 2nd place Sport (Age 15-19?).
Me, 2nd place Expert Women
Kathy, 3rd place Expert Women (rocking it on a SINGLE SPEED!!!)
This was the first time (after much good hearted teasing from Kathy in the past year) I decided to woman up and race Expert class, figuring if nothing else, I could use the miles (and secretly thinking that I would finally get out from under the shadow of Summer the super freak cyclist from Custer only to find out she moved up this year as well – dang). Knowing that I don’t have the best endurance (and I struggle to drink enough while mtn biking), I figured to try and take it easy – riiight. Was 4th back of 7 or 8 women, with Summer in the lead. It was interesting how mellow the first few miles were compared to a Sport race then I remembered oh, we have THREE laps, pace yourself.
A few hang-ups in Granny’s and the new green section by two of the riders in front enabled me to pass to sit behind Summer in the first lap (some advantages to riding those trails all the time). Into the second lap (and still forgetting to drink), I actually dropped back a little and just got into a groove, then caught Summer again. On the back side, I took the lead for a bit, and she was being chatty (this is about the time she’ll take off, if nothing else, she’s predictable), and I was hurting a bit (and still not drinking enough – stupid of me). She passed and I lost a bit in the blue climbs and started the 3rd lap further back, in a lot of pain, and no energy and had to slow down and start sucking fluids. As my body found the joy of hydration, I was able to very slowly increase my pace although the climbs were laughably slow.
Could still see Summer up ahead now and again, but still not enough energy to catch her. Kept glancing back for riders behind me. Caught up to a couple of guys and realized that I could actually maneuver the technical stuff better and passed them. Then came upon a beautiful sight – Eric Cook!! A WSI jersey! I followed him for a while, and then passed and bless his sweet, wonderful soul, he rode right behind me in silent encouragement. We spoke a few times (at this point on the green section and I was struggling to focus and could feel the beginnings of cramps in my legs) and he asked how I liked the Scalpel and all that came out was a gasped, “I can’t talk right now” – sorry Capt Crunch, love ya.
An elite woman (Founders) was in front of me in the red and kept slowing down in the corners (twice in the race, I found it ironic that I was getting mad at slow people in front of me in the technical sections – normally that slow person would be me), but took she off like a rocket up the blue hill, see ya. I hit the last big hill after the bridge and cramps hit in about 3-4 places in my legs, but if I slowed down, they got worse – and if I sped up too much, they got worse. LOL! My arms and shoulders were killing me, cramps were twitching all over my legs and at one point my hamstring started to lock up but I couldn’t stop pedaling. Breathe deep, relax, pedal, ouch, pedal – almost there. What a race.
Summer got me again, but only by 30 seconds or so – yeah, I am (mostly) ok with that.
