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Hop Brook Dam |
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Team Bikeman -
Race Reports
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Written by Steve Morse
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Wednesday, 11 April 2007 |
Hop Brook Dam - Root 66 Race Series #1
April 7, 2007
Middlebury, CT
 | | click to enlarge |
It was a cold and windy day for the first race of the Root 66 Series. I got to the race venue pretty early - probably because I had miscalculated the travel time out to western CT and my new car is just too fast. I had a lot of time to kill before my 2pm scheduled start time so I was pretty easy going. I got into the registration line and was literally in the line for 45 minutes.
I guess they had problems with the registration all day, because there were a bunch of experts crying behind me that their race was about to go off. So I got bumped out of line and had to wait some more. Finally I made it to the reg table inside the heated tent and picked up my race numeral. Good thing I pre registered online, because that sure saved me a boat load of time. NOT!
After some mental turmoil as to what to wear, I donned my winter skinsuit and some warmup layers and headed out on the road bike to do some nice highway wind-tunnel warm up riding. I think I went a little too far and realized that I had a good deal of climbing to get back to the venue. No problem, I rode the hills back and switched bikes and into mountain bike shoes. I rode around the venue on my mountain bike and watched the pros and experts come whipping by, but the course was closed, so I didn't get the privilege of a pre ride. I only heard some vague course descriptions second-hand, but I really had no idea what I was in for.
Well, 2pm went by and the announcer said that Sport wouldn't be starting until at least 2:30. I think they underestimated the course/conditions when they figured out the lap and start times. In reality, we didn't line up in staging until almost 3pm!
So the Sport race went off an hour late. Can you believe I killed the start and got the holeshot? I led all the way around the field, down the dirt road, and mostly up the first big singletrack climb. I was pretty happy with that, and was feeling good on the incline. Part way up the climb, I kept checking behind me to see if I was opening a gap. I could see that 2 or 3 guys were on my tail and the rest of the pack (over 30 riders!) were already falling back a bit. I guess when I kept checking on how everybody was doing behind me, I lost my concentration and smacked a tree with my handlebars. Yes, I crashed going UPHILL. Three guys went by me quickly as I tried to remount, but it was just too steep and rocky to get on. I ended up having to run the rest of the climb, which was not very short, or fun. When I got to the top, I saw the 2 guys on the front hammering down the hill. I tried to get back on with them, but the ol' HR was still pinned from the uphill hike-a-bike. I had no choice but to recover on the technical downhill, but was able to eventually pass back into 3rd place.
This turned out to be a pretty hard race, with lots of climbing. More than I've been training for. It was a lot of up, down, up, down, up up, with some pretty nasty switchback steep climbs and rocky descents. Even the parts that looked like you could recover turned out to be false flats, and the grass fields were pretty soft and sapped even more of my power. The amount of climbing at this event completely caught me off guard.
The rest of the course had lots more climbing and some pretty serious mud pits/streamcrossings during the descents. This particular mud also had big melon-sized rocks strewn about in it. This is where i saw a lot of riders either zigzagging though the muck, or wallowing in it after crashing. Somehow I was always able to choose a magical line through it, and powered right through. No loss of traction, no foot dabbing. Besides my mishap at the start, I surprised myself and rode the rest of the race technically flawless- especially in the mud.
I tried as hard as I could to catch the guys in 1st and 2nd. I kept thinking that my TT engine would kick in and I'd eventually roll up on them, but unfortunatley this wasn't my style course, and I couldn't find that kind of rythym I crave.
So after 3 laps, I was able to hold 3rd place and score my second podium in 2 weeks. Due to the race starting late and not drinking enough, I hit the wall and bonked pretty badly on the 3rd lap. You know that when all you can think about is the sticky-bun and other baked-goods waiting for you in the car, that you're in big trouble. Guess I need to learn to eat a lot more before a long MTB race like this, and remember to force myself to drink, even when there isn't any place to do it! Two days after the event and I still feel pretty lousy, so I guess I gave my system a real work-over.
Steve |
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; "click to enlarge")
