Reidlbaur’s Round Top Rally Round Top, NY October 18th 2009 Presented by: Big Ring Inc.
Well my season pretty much came to a burnt out halt about a month ago. The past couple of weeks I have just been enjoying riding my bike without any monitors. Although I was at the tail end of a cold and had not ridden my mountain bike all summer there was no avoiding doing the Round Top Rally to cap off the year. The course is only 30 minutes from my home and since my 4 year old son said he would try the kid’s race I guess the only thing to do was get us registered.
Mike Henry has been hosting races in the Catskill’s for years and is one of the best in the business. His course is very technical but very flowing at the same time. There are lots of sections where there is no room for error. Mike is very passionate about keeping mountain bike racing alive and you can see it in his efforts.
The day started out with my friend’s son James Farrell doing his first ever mountain bike race. He raced the cat 3 14-18 age bracket. I prerode the course the day before with him and realized this 14 year old had some serious game. If he trained for racing it could be scary. Maybe a future Bikeman.com teammate. Anyways James was slated to do two laps which would take him about an hour. After his first lap he was in 2nd place with 3rd not too far behind. On his final lap he must have put the hammer down because he maintained his 2nd position and put a sizable gap to 3rd place. I think James was pretty pumped with his first outing.
Next race up was my son Jacob’s kid’s race. I was not too sure how things were going to go. Jacob had only ditched his training wheels about 4 weeks ago. On top of that Jacob’s idol Josh from the local bike shop scored him a 16” wheeled GT BMX bike that he can’t quite touch the ground on. Since Jacob was going to have to pedal around a soccer field through the grass, the bigger wheels would help compared to the 12” wheeled bike he had learned on. Jacob went down once during his race but got back up and kept going. He was the youngest kid out there and the place was really cheering him on as he closed in on the finish. Everyone could see how hard he was working to pedal through that grass. He got a sweatshirt for finishing and of course he had to wear it to bed. He told his mother after the race that he was not going to give up. Does that sound like a mountain biker? My race would follow right after Jacob’s. I was stacked in the Cat 1 30-39 field which due to the cold weather was kind of on the small side. Starting this race I was with the mindset of having fun. That did not seem to last. After a steady effort for the first 3 laps I noticed I was gaining on a guy from my field. As I passed him he told me that 3rd place was only 15 seconds ahead. With that being said I put myself into no man’s world trying to maintain an all out effort for the last 3 miles. Just as I had my eyes set on the 3rd place rider I was laid out. I have no idea how or where on the course it happened but it did. I mounted my bike and began to go but my left knee was having none of it. I knew something was wrong but I only had a mile or so to finish. I never caught 3rd and ended in 4th. My reward for the all out effort was 10 stitches over my kneecap. That’s how bad I wanted 3rd place I guess.
All in all the race day was a good one. James did awesome in his first junior race. Jacob accomplished something I felt may have been too much for him. Then there was myself who tasted a podium spot but got denied and now have a nice scar to scare all the roadies with at the next crit I show up for. Next season I think it will be best to ride my mountain bike a little more often rather than just the day before the races. One last big thanks to Mike Henry and all his boys in Round Top who put on New York’s premiere mountain bike race.
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