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Southridge NORBA NCS |
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Written by Andrew Freye
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Tuesday, 09 May 2006 |
 Round one of the NORBA National Championships Series was held at Southridge Park in Fontana, California. Thankfully one week before the start of the race I received the drive train for the El Santo. Unfortunately with the end of the semester ending before the NCS event I did not have a chance to get out and ride the El Santo due to school work and bad weather. The weather in Maine leading up to my flight out to SoCal was your typical Maine spring weather, cold and wet, nothing like the weather in SoCal.
Now flying cross country can be stressful for most people. However, for me it is actually kind of relaxing. I have this capability to get on a plane, fall asleep before take off and wake up during the rough landing. The only time when this hurts me is when I have to force myself to stay awake on the 2nd leg of a flight so that way I can go to sleep when I arrive on the other side of the country.
I made it into San Diego (with all my luggage) Thursday night where my older bro picked me up. When we got to his apartment I built up the El Santo and took it out for a quick ride to spin out the legs.
On Friday morning I dropped my bro off at school then stole his truck and headed up to Fontana. It is too bad that so many people live in SoCal because it really is beautiful country. I think he entire 2.5 hour drive from San Diego to Fontana was on a 5 lane highway and the entire time it was filled with traffic. Now I thought people from SoCal were supposed to be super chill and laid back. Well that might the case on the beach, but when those super chill laid back SoCal people get behind the wheel of a car they turn into road raged idiots. If people just stayed in a lane and didn't worry about switching all the time traffic would flow a little more easily. Plus, using turn signals might help, but I guess cars in SoCal are not equipped with them.
 | | My sweet ride, notice no blinker |
I arrived in Fontana on Friday and was able to get a couple of laps in on the course. After getting in a good preride it was time to get back into the truck and head west to LA to crash with some fellow Bikeman.com teammates Andy and Matt.
Andy and Matt took great care of me and were definitely a huge help. They put me up for Friday night and fed me which saved me huge $$. Saturday morning I made the hour drive from LA to the race site. Matt and Andy said the 91 would be dead with no traffic. I guess there definition of dead traffic means all five lanes filled with cars, except the cars are moving at a somewhat fast pace.
 | | The call up |
The weather was cool and cloudy with temps around 70. After a good warm up and a decent call up based on my results from 2005 I was ready to race. Because of the dry sandy conditions of the course I decided it might be a good idea to wear a carpenter's dust mask as the start and during the descents to prevent all the dust from getting into my lungs. After the gun went off I was glad I had made the choice of wearing the dust mask and was moving right along. I got on the wheel of Matt Kelly (Subaru-Gary Fisher) and was somewhere in the 20's (perfect starting position). I stayed on Kelly's wheel up the first big climb and that's when everything started to fall apart.
 | | Pro field, I'm somewhere in the middle |
Within two minutes all the clouds were gone and the blazing hot sun was out. I think the temp went up 15 degrees within minutes. For some reason my body didn't like the heat and decided to shut down. I started to get goose bumps and bad chills. On top of that my stomach went. I think during lap two I had to get off my bike. After two minutes or so I was able to see somewhat straight and decided to continue on. I didn't fly across the country to DNF.
 After getting back on and continuing on with the race my body didn't really start to come around until the final lap and even then it was still pretty dead. I finished the race some where in the low 60's out of I think a field of 100. Not the result I was looking or hoping for, but there is nothing I can really do about it.
 | | Racing in the blazing hot sun |
After the race I saw local racers wearing hoodies, beanies and jackets. I couldn't believe it. It was 85 and sunny and people were dressed like it was fall in Maine! I guess you get used to hot weather when you are from SoCal. To bad it wasn't 55 and raining on Saturday. (Racing in the blazing hot sun)
To top off the trip I made the drive back in my bros truck that some how survived the journey. For dinner I went to a sweet little burrito place a block away from the apartment and had myself a nice dinner. Then to clear the mind I went across the street and met my bro and some of his friends at the bar where I had a racer's (Sierra Nevada Pale Ale) beer.
Now all I have to do is survive finals week and its summer break! It's early May and I have never done a race of this size this early on in the year. I have a full month to prepare for North Carolina and I am not going to let this race ruin the rest of the season. Only good things can happen from here on out. Despite the bad result it was a great experience and I am glad I had the opportunity to go out west and race my bike. I would do it all over again. Thank you for everyone's support. Take care.
A
Flying tips when traveling to a bike race:
- You cannot fly with a container of Stan's No Tubes. However, you can fly with Stan's No Tubes in your tires/wheels. If you do fly with Stan's make sure you remove the labels. Something about the contents on the label that the TSA doesn't like. Airport security is more worried about a massage stick then a CO2 cartridge. I guess a massage stick can be used as weapon but the CO2 or Big Air is fine.
- Make sure when the TSA inspects your bike box you are there to put the bike back in correctly because the TSA doesn't care if the bike gets put back in correctly or not. It's not the TSA fault if anything breaks.
Equipment notes:
- The El Santo was amazing, I love the way this bike rides.
- The SRAM drive train performed excellent. No shifting problems, just smooth shifting the entire race.
- The Panaracer Razer XC 2.1 was the perfect tire for this course. They offered enough traction in the loose sandy corners, but rolled smooth and fast on the open sections and up hills.
- The Slick Willy's dry conditions lube was another great fit for the race conditions preventing any chain suck or dust build on the chain.
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; "My sweet ride, notice no blinker")
; "The call up")
; "Pro field, I'm somewhere in the middle")
; "Image")
; "Racing in the blazing hot sun")
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