Monday, September 13, 2010

Addison Oaks Cross Country



I like racing Addison Oaks for some reason, it's a nice "track". I signed up for the Expert/Elite Single Speed class, something I promised I would do last year. I was using this race as a hard training day as it was one week before my very first 24 hour race.

We lined up and there was 8 of us, which is a lot larger than last years entries. The gun went off and I settled into 4th place and kept the 3 in front of me in my sights. I watched them all gain about 5 seconds on each other and the gaps didn't change much until the paved trail at the north end of the park. Then it split up a little bit more, or should I say, I fell off a little bit. I was not worried, I was racing at my pace and was staying there, although I wanted to do some drafting, it wasn't imperative that I did or did not, it would just make my life a little easier.

A mechanical would take out the 2nd place guy and that would move me up to third. I could see the guys in front of me in one place on the second lap, but they were to far in front of me to make a run for it. So I settled in again and did my best to keep those behind me...well, behind me. When on the end of the second lap a single speeder come up on me pretty fast and I was ready to let him go by, he said he didn't want to and we flew through the single track in unison. We passed a few slower sport riders and kept our pace up, we came around the start/finish area and he kept up a nice pace and I slowed to grab a water bottle from a pit crew member. Got my mojo going again and I went back out for my third lap feeling good.

The third lap was good, on pace of the first two laps and I was feeling good and I couldn't see any competition coming up, so I was happy. At the start of my fourth and final lap I climbed the Water Tower Hill and caught a few slower riders. At this point I just assume they are leftovers from the Sport race, but I come up to a group of 8 riders in a single file line in the first single track section and no place to pass. This went on for the entire last lap, although it did slow my lap time down by 2 minutes there was no mishaps that I seen and the beginners were enjoying their foray into mountain bike racing...and that's what it's all about!

I ended up with 3rd place which was a pleasant surprise.

Ride safe!

No comments:

Post a Comment