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Brialee's Ramblin Rumble 1 |
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Team Bikeman -
Race Reports
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Written by Matt DeMeis
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Monday, 14 May 2007 |
Brialee's Ramblin Rumble
Ashford, CT
Sunday, May 13, 2007
All righty! First race of the season was this past weekends 3rd stop on the Root 66 series. I have never done this race before and since it's time to start getting in some racing to open up the legs I figured I'd give it a go. There have been few courses where I have actually wished I had a full suspension for the ENTIRE thing and this was one of them.
All I can say is holy roots and rocks! The course was brutally technical, real mountain bike boot camp. Super challenging and fun to ride, but with no real sustained climbs. My one problem with it was the lack of places to fuel. LT Steve had the right idea by placing his "bottle stick" outside the designated feed zone where he could grab a fresh bottle right before the flat smooth dirt lot section of the course. Oh well, live and learn. On to the race.
It was great to see such a good turn out. The fields seemed much larger than in years past and this is encouraging for the sport. We went off and I made it to the single-track in 3rd spot, just where I wanted to be. The first little section of woods was key to be up front because it was a total root fest and a pile up was likely at the back. After that we dumped out on the fire road and "Flyin' Brian" Pierce took over the race for good, showing us all just why he has the jersey, while Chris Strempel and I filled out the top 3. Brian and Chris just rode away from me in the sick choppy stuff and there was nothing I could do. I just rode as fast as I could. The course had some phenomenal technical stuff that was all 100% ridable. Aside from a 1st lap nutter save on my stem in a mud hole, I had no mechanicals or crashes. Woo woo! And the hard tail was great through the mud. I felt pretty bad for the first half since I have no races in me so far but by lap 3 the old engine started to come around and adjust to the stress. I managed to bring 2nd place back to within' 25 seconds by the end but I was cooked when I crossed the line. 3rd place, last step on the podium, but I'll take it for first race of the year. It was a great day with perfect temps and we had a pretty good team showing with Art DeGraw and Mike Joos in the pro/semi-pro and Jamie Tyler in the Senior 1 expert field (and of course LT Steve punishing the sport field).
As far as equipment goes, I love my Moto Rapido but there is something to be said about using a flathead screwdriver on a phillips head screw, so to speak. It just wasn't the best tool for the job yesterday. It handled flawlessly and as far as hard-tails go, it's amazing. The new Avid Juicy Ultimate discs and FSA oversize cockpit were top notch. Light as stink and bomber in the rough stuff. I'm really not worried about riding a hard-tail either since no other race I will do this year is as consistently tough and boney as that. The new Champion System skinsuits are sweet too, I don't know how I lived without them. Hopefully LT will have a picture of his "feed stick" on his report, because that was the true mechanical marvel of the event.
Matt |
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