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Written by Andrew Freye
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Monday, 26 September 2005 |
Sunday, September 18th was stop number nine in the EFTA New England Championship Series. There was a decent size field with a couple local semi pros including New England legend Skip Brown. The race promoter decided to send off all racers at once which I thought was pretty cool. I am definitely a fan of larger field starts. It makes for a more interesting start and race.
I started off more on the slow side riding behind the wheels of young Eathon Gilmore and Kirk Turner. About half way through lap one two guys passed Kirk and Eathon. I was hoping Kirk would follow the attack and try to stay with the leaders. After lap one the attack had put a gap of about 45 seconds onto me so it was time to stop fooling around and go chase the leaders down.
It didn't take long to catch up to the leader, about half a lap. The 2nd half of lap two (out of 4) I spent spinning around with Todd waiting for him to crack and fall off my pace. Shortly into lap three Todd fell off my pace and I never saw him again. To keep myself entertained I decided to see if I could big ring the entire 3rd lap. I accomplished my goal so I decided to see if I could do it again. I was able to and took my 1st ever overall win at an EFTA NECS race! It must have been the delicious breakfast that I got at Dunkin Donuts on the road that helped fuel me to victory. After the win I haved moved up into 1st place over all for the series!
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September 25th was the Grillz Memorial race at Reid State Park. Salem Mazzeway said earlier in the year that he would be there so I was really excited to race against him again. The Grillz race has to be one of the most challenging races that I do all year. The 1st 3rd of the course is some pretty fast yet challenging single track followed by a long section of open super fast hard packed walking trails. The last 3rd of the course is some sweet super technical single track. The challenging part of this race is that the last 3rd of the race gets harder and harder as you approach the lap finish area. By the end of the race you are so tired and it requires so much attention just to stay upright that the single track becomes even more challenging.
I knew that Salem loved this course and was probably faster than I was in the last section of single track so I was going to have to really push it hard for the first two thirds of the lap. Right from the gun at the start I went full throttle heading into the woods first. I red lined it until the last long section of single track where I would "recover" and ride slow to ride fast. I knew all I had to do was focus and ride smooth and I would be able to hold off Salem and then repeat it again for the rest of the four laps.
My plan seemed to work. After the start I never saw Salem. I would push it super hard for the first two thirds of the lap and then ride slow and smart for the last third of the lap and repeat every time. After crossing the finish line I was able to refuel thanks to the free chili made by the folks at Bikeman which allowed me to get a nice long cool down ride in on the Maine coast!
I talked to my coach after the race and said "Something has to be wrong. I am getting faster every week and I'm in school!" I guess I can't complain about that. The Grillz race brought a close to the regular mountain bike season. I have a couple of college races ahead and a weekend of cyclo-cross before competing in the collegiate nationals at Seven Springs, PA. Again thank you for all the support and I will let you know how the next month goes!
Andrew Freye, Team Bikeman
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