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Urban Racing in Fontana |
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Written by Adam Craig
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Tuesday, 09 May 2006 |
It’s been a year since we’ve raced in the capitol of the mountain biking universe, that being Southern California somewhere… It’s actually good to have been back, kind of strange, but definitely good. Replacing the timeless (until people got lawsuit happy) Big Bear stop this year was Fontana, a little ‘Burb about 50mi east of Los Angeles proper. The Southridge Park venue has actually hosted races for at least a decade in the form of the ODI Southridge winter series so it was an easy choice for the national series kickoff. After driving through impressive industrial sprawl in the inland empire we arrived in a little haven of hills and a few trees.
As it turns out, there was also a bunch of fairly sweet singletrack in those hills… Each day morning “fog” gave way to afternoon sun and smog, some of which was our own fault for kicking up so much dust… A fair number of people came out to race and see what was going on in the park, a good sign of what happens when you stick a bike race amongst 14 million people.
I chose a new approach to the weekend racing kickoff, the 10:15am Super D. With the XC at noon I figured it’d be a good warmup? After a good hotel buffet session and a Red Bull I started the warmup with a run “down” the course, which was about 60% flat or uphill… Perfect for the Anthem with a 2.2 Michelin up front and the stem flipped from dorky XC negative to coolguy freerider rise. This would be my first Lemans start (every lays their bike in the trail, then lines up 100m away and sprints to their steed) Super-D, the idea of which normally horrifies me. I figured this one would be reasonable though, there being a two minute climb off the start and all… Fortunately for me, as I used this climb to pass about a dozen guys who were all much faster (although probably still not very fast) runners than me to enter the singletrack behind perennial contenders Mike West, John Kirkaldie and Ross Schnell, aboard his trusty hardtail. After Kirkaldie tricked me into following him over a mandatory diversion ditch gap I set about chasing Mike down on the next short climb. This worked, leaving only Ross, who had gapped everyone on the descent on his HT (Ross is probably the smoothest bike rider ever) to hunt down on the last long flat straightaway. I felt kind of bad blowing by him and using a Canadian line to cement the gap, but what are you going to do? I knew he was going to take the most terrifying rock/carpet/sand gap jump option ever before the finish, so I needed a gap bad! Turns out he jumped it, didn’t die, and didn’t catch me. Whew. Kind of a weak finish line wheelie brought it home after eight minutes of sorta downhillin, and a bunch of breathing hard going up hills.
That left me with an hour and a half till the XC started. I think Carl might have been onto something with resisting the lure of Super D, while I was cooling down in my sweaty skinsuit, he was sitting in the shade of the team tent dozing off… Surprisingly enough, when the gun (by gun I mean whistle) went off at noon it was Carl at the front and me trying to stay comfortable while maintaining contact. Soon enough Decker decided that the attacking nature of the front group of five wasn’t going to be his style on that particular hot, dusty afternoon and removed himself from the situation. This allowed me to catch up with my Mexican companion. I need to take a minute to describe a common phenomenon in mountain biking. The Spainish Speaker. The old saying goes, “If you can speak spainish, you climb as fast as you descend”. It’s amazing, never fails. My partner in racing crashed about ten times, usually in grand style, and somehow would use his amazing power to the pedals to catch back up in less than a minute. His tenacity was amazing. Finally I let him lead a descent just to check out the scene, he started off doing a pretty good job but seemed to get a bit carried away, charging into a rutted chute going WAAAAAY too fast. The end of the story is predictable, he ate it, hard, got up and seemed allright, but definitely didn’t catch up. This saved me from having to contest what would have been a very difficult sprint for seventh place. Carl had the foresight to shift into his middle ring and dance up the short power climbs in the second half of the race instead of leaving it in the big meat like some other dumb guy who rides for Giant, distancing himself from said dumb guy, and almost catching the remains of the lead group for a solid 6th place on the day. Good to see the ol’ Deckerator starting the NORBA season off right. Kabush won, again… Barry Wicks got 3rd, that’s pretty sweet.
As usual, we spent the evening talking about how we were going to unleash team Giant dominance on the Short Track, seemed like we had a good shot at it. Things fell into place on one of the cooler STXC courses we’ve raced in a while, the highlight of which was a long straightaway that took us into the bottom of the fourcross course (which Aussie Giant teammate Jared Rando unleashed his dominance on the night before, qualifying fastest and taking the pole position to the win) at full tilt. Three (uphill) berms, a bunch of (uphill) jumps and elevated heartrates brought us to a steep chute descent, a tiny jump option and some fast turns into the finish straight. I played tailgunner on the lead group as it gradually whittled down to five, letting Carl figure out how things were going up front. He seemed to have a handle on it coming into the last lap, and I wasn’t feeling too snappy so things stayed like that. Kabush had a smart move, as usual, for the win, Carl got within about a bike length of coming around JHK, ending up third, and I didn’t have the heart to stuff Todd Wells in one of the last turns, which he was taking gingerly due to a severely jacked wrist from a crash in the XC, so I was fifth. Next time we’ll try to be a bit more clever, or just a lot more aggressive! Solid day for Giant regardless, Deck and I on the Box, along with Amiel Cavalier and Jared Rando on the DH podium, in 3rd and 4th.
Overall good weekend racing in SoCal, much better than we expected. Great courses and turnout, sunshine most of the time, no bad luck, what more do we need? Now it’s off to Europe for Carl and I, Madrid World Cup this weekend, followed by Belgium and Scotland. Should be a fun trip, hopefully we’ll get some stuff done
Thanks for reading.
Adam and Carl’s weather predicting Giant team. |
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