(This photo lifted from Sly Fox)
The State Championships were held at Solitude Resort last Saturday. I felt good. I was climbing well and descending slowly. My stomach cramps were mysteriously absent. And this time I can blame my slow descending on the course, usually it’s my powerful sense of self-preservation.
MTBRaceNews.com gives a pretty good summary of my race:
Behind the leaders a large group of riders did their best to take the remaining podium spots. Looking more like a road peloton than a mountain bike race [David] Welsh (Kuhl/Scott), Kevin Day (Kuhl/Scott), Chad Harris (Racer's Cycle Service), Rich Abbot (Revolution), Chris Holley (Gary Fisher), and Reed Wycoff (Contender) rode wheel to wheel lap after lap each one unable to shed the others. Finally, Harris and Day would succumb to flat tires allowing Welsh, Abbot, and Holley to surge ahead crossing the line for 3rd through 5th respectively.
What MTBRaceNews.com didn’t say is that my flat tire occurred at the point in the race which would result in the longest possible walk and produce the maximum possible heartbreak. It was the longest walk because it occurred at the very top of the seven mile course, 1,000 vertical feet above the starting line. Maximum heartbreak because it happened not on the first or second, but on the fourth and final time I would have to climb that mountain. I was literally done climbing, the race was effectively over. All I had to do was not crash on the [dusty and very rocky] descent and I would have finished in seventh place.
They also neglected to mention what caused my flat tire, which was fatigue. “How can fatigue cause a flat tire?” you ask. Well, when you’ve climbed 4,000 feet over 25 miles and you’re within spitting distance of the top, you just might lose your focus. And your motor skills.
That’s exactly what happened to me. There is a little rock bridge over a small stream right near the very top of the course. The bridge is about two feet wide, but somehow, in my oxygen deficient state, I missed it. Literally. I mean, I was a good 12 inches to the right of it.
I had enough wits to pull my front wheel up and over the stream, but my back wheel slammed right into the rocky bank, where something sliced a small hole in the sidewall of my back tire.
I tried to get it to seal up, but by my brand new CO2 canister didn’t seem to have any pressure. Brandon Firth came by and gave me his, but I wasted it all trying to get it to seal. Then I put in my spare inner tube, and waited for somebody else to come by. Zach R. came by, asking if I needed anything, but was gone before he heard me say I could use more CO2. That was my last hope. I packed it up and started hiking.
Twenty five minutes later I was at the bottom, parched and grumpy. I returned Brandon’s CO2 canister, promising to buy him a refill, and checked mine again. Turns out it was clogged with a piece of the gasket that is meant to keep it from leaking during inflation. When I brushed it out of the way the entire canister discharged like a bottle of champagne. I don’t know what I could have done to prevent a malfunction like that.
In more upbeat news, Jon at Sabrosa Cycles is finished with the rigid fork for my single speed. He sent it to the powder coater yesterday, and I could be riding it by next week. Maybe riding a rigid bike on descents trails like Solitude will make me feel fast when I go back to by geared bike with a squishy fork.
Isn’t feeling fast the next best thing to being fast?
Is that a Superfly? Didn't that at least make you feel fast?
ReplyDeleteBTW - Obviously you were going fast if you were in contention for a podium spot.
ReplyDeleteYes, that's Joel Z's Superfly. And yes, it did make me feel fast on the climbs. It's harder to feel fast on the descents when you keep getting dropped, no matter how much the bike you're on cost.
ReplyDelete