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Mt. Snow NORBA #3 |
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Written by Adam Craig
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Tuesday, 20 June 2006 |
I really like coming back to Vermont to race bikes. No matter what’s been going on with racing or life leading up to Mount Snow I can count on a good time weekend with good racing and people. This year didn’t disappoint, except on the people front, as crowds were sparse compared to the normal packed parking lots and race area. I figure the twenty inches of rain received in New England in the last month dampened the average cycling enthusiast’s spirits. Nationals next July, when it’s guaranteed (kind of) to be hot and dry should see a return to a normal state of affairs. And it’ll be fairly sweet to rip around the best race courses in America in the contest for the stars and stripes. I’m fired up.
Cross Country kicked off with a fairly impressive performance of the National Anthem by Vermont resident and close friend of Lea and Sabra Davison, Sally Swallow. She killed it. Then it started pouring. Perfect! Then it stopped five minutes later, dang it… It still was a perfect afternoon for a race, slightly slippery in the woods, not too hot on the climbs, perfect. The start was hard, surprisingly enough, with Matt Kelly and Christoph Sauser battling for the top of the climb first award. Carl and I settled into around tenth and twentieth, wanting to move forward rather than back. We both set about this task as the (lack of) dust settled in the ensuing laps. With the lead trio of JHK, Sauser and Liam Kileen charging off the front I gradually, comfortably reeled in the chase group of Kabush, Wells and Ricky Federau, finally distancing myself on the third lap climb and descent. It was nice to be riding the Anthem in it’s environment, using the chassis to my advantage everywhere. Meanwhile, Carl was using the chassis of his Anthem to support his gloves as he changed a flat tire resulting from alternative lines with hidden rocks. This briefly interrupted his solid charge into the top ten. Back on the horse he moved forward with haste until the next lap, when, figuring that flatting in the mystery line would only happen once, it happened again. Leaning his bike up against the same tree a half hour later to fix the same flat… At least this time Troy Wells bombed by and flatted on the same rock so he had some company in the fix. After that it was an endurance training day for the Deckerator, rolling in around thirtieth place. I was also having an endurance day, keeping the pace steadily higher as I remembered how it felt to be strong for the duration of a race. I caught sight of Max Plaxton, the young Canuck, starting the final lap and made it my project to reel him in before the finish. I got it done, but got scared just before the finish as I had to pass his girlfriend, Trish Sinclair, just before the finish, fortunately, she didn’t box me out and I rolled in fourth, just three minutes off Sauser and Liam and within a minute of JHK, getting back to where I should be this time of year… Finish line wheelie was still a bit weak though…
Short Track was preceded by our standard discussion of how we were going to win the thing, hopefully combining cleverness with incredible strength. We needen’t have worried though, as Ryan Trebron attacked on the second lap and quickly, impressively, built a lead of over thirty seconds on the semi organized chase group, which was policed by Ryan’s teammate Barry Wicks. Carl took some solid pulls early on, trying to get things rolling. I figured I’d tail-gun while he killed it, since I was far too tired to do anything else… Eventually reality of the race for second set in and the pace picked up. I got dropped. Carl took over tail gunning. I got pulled with two laps to go in tenth place. Carl held off the lead moto for ninth… Maybe next time we’ll make a better plan, or just make Ryan race more than twenty minutes of the XC so he’s as tired as the rest of us…
Thanks for reading.
AC n’ CD |
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