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Team Bikeman -
Race Reports
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Written by Mark Logrbrinck
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Saturday, 18 March 2006 |
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18th Annual Keyesville Classic Mountain Bike Race
Lake Isabella , CA
 Howdy All,
We kicked off the race season with one of my favorite races, the Keyesville Classic. I had been watching the weather all week long. Now I know that back in the Northeast the weather is not very forgiving, but here in California it was cold, at least to us it was. The forecast was for rain and snow with temps in the 30’s and 40’s.
I was in Big Bear with my wife Vikki 2 weeks ago and we had a lot of snow, about 3 feet in a couple of days. That is too much for me, hell I am from Texas the only snow I saw was in a Sno-cone. For those who ask “what is a Sno-cone?” it is shaved ice in a paper cone with flavored syrup on top. Quite the treat for kids. Well anyway the forecast did not change, it started to rain on queue in the morning. I was prepared for the worst. The gods must have heard my prayers. It hardly rained at all and was not as cold.
My friend Ed and I got there about noon. I got there early enough to get the best site in the area, under a nice big oak tree. We set up camp and got situated. We waited for Matt and Andy to arrive. They got there a couple hours later. We got geared up and went to practice. Now this is not your normal downhill race. There is no shuttle or chairlift. You get to pre-ride the course in reverse. This is kind of nice, you can see lines to take. Well you think you see lines, going downhill lines seem to blur and you go where the bike takes you. So we practiced, prepared dinner and went to bed at various hours to say the least.
 On Saturday we woke to more ok weather, no rain or snow. The race started at 11:00 am. We hiked to the top and wait for our start times. I went first followed by Matt and Andy. My runs were clean. Matt crashed on his first and Andy crashed on his second. Before the race I was discussing on how it seems my times are always close together. My two runs were 1 second apart. Well I finished 3rd in Expert, Matt got 9th in Sport and Andy got 4th in Beginner, in our respective age groups. Not bad considering that this is the first downhilling I have done all year. Earlier in the day Andy had volunteered to ride for Team BIM (Brothers in Misery) Inc. They are described as “a loose assemblage of west valley riders”. They were doing the 8 hour relay race in the 4 person single speed category. One of their team members got stuck in the mountains due to bad weather. So Andy came through and rode for them in the afternoon. They finished 1st. Oh yeah the three of them rode the same bike, a 29” single speed while Andy rode my Surly 1x1. We will be riding with them in April at the 24 hours of Idyllwild.
We woke on Sunday still no rain or snow. We all raced the XC. Now XC is not our forte, at least not yet. Andy got 10th in Beginner, Matt got 7th in Sport and I got 11th in Single Speed. The course was nice and lots of fun. One neat thing they have is the vintage bike race. They race the DH and XC on vintage bikes. There are 2 categories 10-19 year old and 20+ year old bikes. Lots of cool old frames. Quite a few Salsas.
Time to go now gotta get back to work. The next race is in about 4 weeks a miserable single speed course. Just kidding riding is fun. How can you not have a good time on a bike?
Happy Trails,
Tex
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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