Gods Country TT 2014

Pic courtesy of Roger Harrison

This post is a bit late mostly because I've been sick and pretty much uninspired to come up with anything worth reading! Anyway...Last weekend was the Gods Country MTB TT...initially it was supposed to be an MTB race but Mr. Locke thought a time trial was a better idea...as I look back on it I think it was a good idea too...I've only done one other MTB TT and that was waaaaaaay back in 1996...That's a pretty good story by itself...maybe I'll write about that someday.

I had a good week of riding leading up to this race and since it was on Sunday I decided to take Friday off and do my openers on Saturday. Well...that went down the tubes when I woke up on Saturday with a sore throat and a sinus infection...LAME!!!! So no ride Friday or Saturday and not racing on Sunday was starting to look like the path I was on.

As I was a waste of space on Saturday I decided that I was gonna race health be damned...I had already reg'd online and picked up my packet...I'M IN!! To add insult to injury...I woke up on Sunday to find that it had snowed over night...Mother Nature hates MTB'ers!!!!

The race was fun and I had an okay ride...I had pretty low expectations based on the others in my field and the fact I was illin...anyway...the main goal was to finish without being caught. I was 4th off the line with some fast guys in front of me and several more behind me...I roll down the trail at a good pace and for 8 and a half miles I held off the riders behind me...it was then I looked back and two were gaining on me quickly. I "drill" it and held them off for another half mile and finally had to let them by...oh well...as I said before, it was fun!!!

I rolled across the line 4th in class and 9th overall...not bad!

E

Spring fling 2...2014

Courtesy of Roger Harrison

I planned on doing a couple of early season crits this year and this past Saturday was my second race of the year. The goal of these races was to build fitness and have fun...well as much fun as one can have suffering! Since the weather has changed for the "better" I have gotten some decent riding/training in so I felt pretty good going into this melee.

Anyway...the race was pretty hard, we averaged at least 25 mph and lots of attacks went up the road at an all to frequent occurrence!! From the gun team Evoke from Oklahoma, who had 4 rider in the field, attacked...the pic above is of the first lap and I'm trying to keep the Evoke rider from riding away...it took nearly 3 laps for the field to bring him back...as soon as we did, either one of his teammates or someone else jumped. I managed to jump across to a few small breaks...one in particular, I think, had a good shot at staying away for a bit but the rotation never got organized and we were quickly swept up by the field.

As the race went on so did the attacks...at about 3 to go my lack of fitness was finally taking it's toll...I was holding on for dear life. With about a half lap to go I blew up into a bazillion itty bitty pieces and more or less rolled across the line.

I'm pretty happy with how I rode and probably wouldn't have done anything different. It's March and I don't have any real racing agenda til CX season...this race is just one of the many stepping stones to there.

E