I got a couple of laps on before the first women's race of the day and set off for a place to wash my bike. I came up short on that search, so I watched Nathalie and Shaina take off for their race and cheered them on for the easier to get to parts of the course. Nathalie was in a good position and her ability to handle the bike through the crazy conditions were obviously giving her an advantage over others.
Ben, my team mate, smartly brought a pressure washer, so I was finally able to clean my bike before the start of our race, the Young Masters 35+. Bike cleaned, I went to puton some clean kit. Even dressed up in new gear and somewhat warm, my ambition was really laying down. The course was a mess, and I predicted the race would go best for those who made the least mistakes. That's not my favorite way to race mainly because making mistakes is something I'm pretty good at.
With myself, Jack, and Ben in the Young Masters, I felt confident we could come away with a good result. I pretty much blew my front row start by spinning my tire off the line and coming face to face with a hay bale. Once around all that, I spent the first entire lap playing my best game of "that's not the line" and hitting the deck often. All the tricks I usually get away with as far as getting around people were failing me. On the tiered, off camber section after the climb past the reg building, I slid out so spectacularly, I went under the tape. I managed to be ok on the two successive run-ups-ride downs, though in a bit of traffic, the loose dirt and roots on the first one was really hard to navigate and I ended up in the cold mud again.
I finished my first lap just shaking my head. My team mates were a distant vision in front of me. Something took hold of me though and I actually put in a couple good laps back to back and made up a lot of places.
Then I couldn't shift. Or I should say, my chain wouldn't stay seated on any gear but my 26 tooth. I had heard of cassettes packing in, but I really hadn't had it happen to me before. I have no pit bike, so I had to make do with only shifting between my small and big ring, which left me pretty under geared for the majority of the course.
This was a big dissapointment because I was starting to ride ok and I now had watts to spare. The only places to put down any effort was on the one rideable climb. I had to spin furiously to make up any time on the riders ahead of me. I did manage to bring back Matt Morrison and Dan Rapp by the end of our last lap and finished right between them for 11th.
I was pretty disheartened with the race and my poor equipment choices. It sucks when both your bike and your riding collude against you, especially at the last race of the year here.
On better note, I learned that after a damaging crash, Nathalie was ok and Mike from SRAM neutral support replaced her broken lever right there! Thanks! Another reason SRAM is the best!
Gerald, Mikey and Willem had a great final elite race with Gerry riding into the top ten and has the distinguished accolade of having ridden Heckler's Hill cleanly!
Dennis Smith was on hand and took some great team shots of us, with a number of folks on the team coming up just for the photo. Awesome!
Dennis Smith
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