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World Cup #7, Angel Fire NM |
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Written by Adam Craig
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Monday, 11 July 2005 |
Carl and I caught a last minute flight to Albuquerque on Friday night for the Angel Fire, New Mexico World Cup round. The reason for our pre-planned late arrival was the severe lack of oxygen available in Angel Fire area due to the 8500 foot elevation. Instead of showing up early and getting to know the course, we figured it would be better to get in late and only spend 24 hours with a resting heartrate of 100 before the race.
This plan seemed to be working as we got to town on Saturday just in time to sign our registration forms, take a nap, and get a couple laps on the (SWEET) course. The enthusiastic (they finally landed a world cup event after years of trying) promoters supplied us with a classic rocky mountains course, a 4k low angle fireroad climb topped with 1k of tech singletrack climbing and a solid 3k downhill reward, made up of 100% beautiful high country flowy singletrack to the finish. Definitely would be a good time to race on, or so it seemed.
It probably was fun for Christoph Sauser and Geoff Kabush as they charged from the front, with Susy barely taking the win over the hard charging Canuck. Unfortunately for the Deckerator and I, it was another day of trying to unravel the mystery of racing at hideously high altitude. Carl tried the “ride into it” approach and started very conservatively, planning on winding it up each lap and catching guys as they inevitably grenaded. As he determined after the suffering was over and we were lying on our backs in the living room at our “house”, coughing violently, things strung out so much due to the high levels of attrition that even if you finished str! ong, riding from the 40’s to 27th due to a lack of people available to pass simply wasn’t the call.
I, on the other hand, implemented my most reliable “guaranteed to ride like a small child” plan in the week before the race. After 30 hours of travel home from Brazil I decided that 6 hours of sleep and a sweet five hour, sixty mile singletrack ride in Bend on Wednesday would be good preparation for the race (Chris Sheppard tricked me). After another poor nights sleep and some floating on the Deschutes river through town Carl tricked me into another sweet trail ride on Thursday, which I enthusiastically went on to cement operation “small child”. A couple more poor nights sleep (the best way to combat jet lag is to admit you have a problem) and I had a good sore throat going (or was that just the dust and nega! tive humidity?). Right on track. Somehow I survived the start of the race and settled in around tenth, vowing to ride no harder than stiff tempo until my body decided how angry it was with me for the abuse. Turns out my body was pretty mad and I settled into “racing” around in the low teens at a “medium tempo” pace… Somehow not that many guys passed me, and I caught back up to Ned Overend, who turned 50 this year at the top of the last climb, who graciously let me lead the downhill so I could finish a fairly respectable 16th, which I didn’t really believe when I saw the results. I was happy to survive, I wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on an evening filled with serious flu symptoms and violent hacking.
We’re headed back to Bend for a few days of intense rest and relaxation (and not too much singletrackin, maybe…) and then it’s off across the desert in the Celica to the Idaho NORBA this next weekend. Should be a better time, only 4500ft..
Adam Craig, Team Giant |
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