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Written by Tim White
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Wednesday, 06 August 2008 |
Soldier Hollow Biathlon
July 2nd, 2008
After hosing the 2002 Winter Olympic games, Salt Lake City has a lot of leftover sporting venues that can be put to good alternate uses. There is a mid-week mountain bike race series that alternates between Sundance ski resort, and the Soldier Hollow Olympic Venue that hosted the Nordic ski events, including the biathlon.
Once a month the midweek series hosts a mountain bike/shooting biathlon at Soldier Hollow. It’s a little complicated, but it goes like this. The course is shortened considerably from the usual course, down to a 2-mile lap. Near the end of the course, you ride by the shooting range where you get off your bike, grab a clip of 5 rounds, run to a mat and take your 5 shots. As you ride away from the shooting range, there is a mini lap course where you have to ride a mini-lap for each shot you missed. If you make all 5, you can continue on your way.
I arrived early to get familiar with the shorter course and the guns. They had some great support at the range with people to help you learn to use the rifles. They are the Olympic style target rifles, shooting a lead pellet. You chamber each pellet with your middle finger, with a hair trigger on your index finger. The target you are shooting at looks about the size of a 50-cent piece. The targets are black and when you hit them, they turn white. I went through 3 practice clips and made all my shots. I guess it helps to be one of those kids who received a gun for their 12th birthday.
I lined up on the Expert B line with a good-sized group. The start seemed unreasonably fast, but since the laps were taking all of about 8 minutes including shooting, This race was definitely going to be a sprint. I had 5 laps to do, and after the first visit to the shooting range learned how difficult it is to hold a rifle steady with a heart rate of 180bpm.
The lead changed off a lot during the race, mostly due to penalty laps. By the final lap I had missed 1 shot on 3 of my laps and was in 2nd place. I was able to close in on the first place rider by the time the shooting range came around. I knew it would come down to shooting, and if we both shot the same, it would come down to a sprint. My adrenaline was going as we both ran up to our rifles and shot. I made all 5 shots and was so focused on getting back to the bike and in position for a sprint I didn’t check my competitor’s targets. We both got back on the bikes at the same time and headed down the paved road to the hairpin turn that would take us to the long straightaway to the finish. I was trying to get behind him for a short draft when he turned off to take a penalty lap. This made for a less exciting finish, but I was happy with the first place.
For full results go to WeeklyRaceSeries.com.
Tim |
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