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Clifford Park Assault |
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Team Bikeman -
Race Reports
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Written by Matt DeMeis
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Thursday, 28 June 2007 |
Clifford Park Assault
MMBA #2
Biddeford, ME
Sunday June 24, 2007
 | | Big Al - Big Wheels |
Another year, another session of M.A.W. (Maine Ass Whippin's). Ahh, Clifford Park. I love this race because it's like going to technical riding boot camp for a day. You can have boatloads of fitness but if you can't handle your bike, game over. Fast people showing up at this one and getting totally rocked by the locals is nothing new. The loop has hardly any climbing but what it lacks in elevation gain it makes up for in ledge and rock garden boulderfun. A good hard time on the MTB.
The course was in good shape with some nice additional wood bridges to help people keep their bikes intact over some of the more stressful bits of the course. So with the sun shining and temps in the 70s it was looking like a perfect race day. I didn't really have any set expectations for this race since I was coming fresh off a rest week and the legs felt pretty slow.
I got to line up next to our own team celebrity "Racin' Rick" Nelson, who I had pegged to mop the floor with our field since he is up at 3am every day doing 80 mile rides and had also pre-ridden the course 50 times in the past 2 weeks. Off the line Ben Moody and some other wicked fast guy were just gone, never to be seen again. By the top of the climb and into the first section of single track we had caught the tail end of the field that started before ours. Normally this wouldn't be that much of an issue but on this course it's a lot harder to find a safe place to pass someone in oxygen debt. So I inadvertently ended up following a set of riders the long way around an obstacle that had an optional faster way. Coming around the other side a million riders (ok, maybe 10 or so) magically appeared in front of us out of the woods from the faster way. This didn't make me happy since I'm a dolt and didn't see the clearly marked faster way while in traffic.
 | | Big wheels keep on rollin |
Lesson learned I had to pick my way through traffic again. By this time Rick turned on the gas and was distancing himself. I felt like I was cooked. No matter how hard I pushed I felt like I just was going sooo slow. Totally feeling the rest week slug legs. On lap #2 Big Al caught up to me rocking his rigid Salsa Mamasita with a big meat 2.3 on front. I mumbled something about feeling like poo and then hopped on and tried to stay with him. Not an easy feet since he was killing it, on a rigid fork. Oh and did I say he was riding this nutty nutty course on a rigid fork? A RIGID FORK!! Nuts. Big ups to Big Al. So this game of pace setting with Al proved helpful and finally on lap three the rest week plug blew out and the legs kicked in. We picked up Racin' Rick and started the 3 man locomotive from hell. We were going pretty good. Picking our way through the devastation into the 4th lap.
Coming through the feed zone going into lap 4 I dropped my bottle and made the decision that I really could not do another lap sans HEED. I stopped, put my bike on the ground and ran down the hill to fetch said bottle. This gave the Ricker a nice gap up the climb. I had to dig pretty deep to get back to him before he got too deep into the single track. We slugged it out the whole last lap. It was pretty good racing to say the least. I managed to get a gap on a technical mud pit slippy bridge hill and was able to hold it to the finish. We rolled in with myself in 3rd and Rick in 4th. Moody kicked everyone and did the whole race in like 1:31, insane. I was happy to not get a flat and not break anything on my bike. It's always good to get up to Maine and see all the teammates I don't normally see at the southern NE races. LT made the drive as well and finished the race despite a hefty morning speeding ticket and about 5 cajillion crashes, one of which cracked his helmet. Props to him for finishing his first Clifford Park. Next up for me is the "big dance" in west dover VT come mid July. See you all there.
Matt |
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; "Big Al - Big Wheels")
; "Big wheels keep on rollin")
