Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Sherwood Hills

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Sherwood Hills is my favorite course on the Intermountain Cup circuit.   Last year it was held the weekend after the fourth of July, so it was hot and dusty.  This year they moved it up nearly two whole months and, coupled with one of the snowiest winters in several years, ensured us of cooler temperatures and softer mud.  My brother pre-rode the course several times before last Saturday, and would give me snow reports.  “There’s still 12 inches of snow in the parking lot.” he said just two weeks ago. 



So I wasn’t too surprised to learn that the promoters had to reroute the race course.  They cut several miles of new trail, started us in a new place, but still managed to preserve most of the great serpentine singletrack that makes this course a racers' favorite.  They even shoveled the last of the snow off the course in time for the race. 



But they couldn’t control the weather.  A storm moved through the area on Friday and delivered 0.8 inches of rain to nearby Brigham City.  I mounted up some mud tires on my new Reynolds wheels. 



Sherwood Hills is the shortest course of the series, so they stagger the start times for different race categories; beginners at nine, sports at eleven and pros and experts at one.  Mags and I showed up in the morning as the beginners were finishing.  Most of them were covered head to toe with mud.  I counted two broken derailleurs. 

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Most people don’t know this, but Mags loves mud.  She took one look at the racers and decided she wanted to race with the Sport Women that afternoon.  I loaned her my front wheel with its mud tire.  As usual, she didn’t disappoint.  She started off in last place because she’s not one to be assertive at the start line.  By the time she came through to start her second lap she had passed three or four women and was riding in fourth place.  She passed another one right in front of us.  She’s such a show off.  She says she passed a couple more and may have been in the lead when her tire went flat.  Next she discovered her pump was missing a couple parts and was ready to throw in the towel when Chris Holley (number 8 in the photo on the right), 00136010549_2whom we bought her mountain bike from, came along and fixed it for her.  She passed one rider before the finish so she didn’t finish dead last.



I should be upset with myself for letting Mags race without a working pump, but I think it may have been better for her to do that well and still lose.  It may have given her the bug--In her own words, “I actually had fun racing this time.” 



My race wasn’t much better.  I was strong for the first two laps, but suffered from stomach cramps for the next three.  I think I was riding in third or fourth place for a while but with the cramps I slipped back to seventh.  I also wished I had switched back to my regular tires because the course had dried out enough to make the mud tires a detriment.  I would have been eighth but I was able to hold off a surging Johnny Hintze in the final hundred yards.  That’s two consecutive sprint wins for me.  Hey, there's got to be some advantage for a mountain biker being 6’5” and weighing 185 lbs. 



1 comment:

  1. I'm so impressed with Mags.....I didn't know she loved mud so much.

    ReplyDelete