EFTA/NECS #6 Fort Rock Revenge

6th/9 Vet I

This was another after-thought race that I originally didn’t have on my schedule. However, after my poor showing at Bradbury last weekend, I looked around for a race in the area in hopes of regaining some bike confidence. I had 2 races to choose from, but the stars had to align for either of them to work. I contemplated competing in the New England Criterium Championship in Concord, NH. However, Babs made a subtle, but effective push to have a “family day” due to the fact that I would be pretty involved with an upcoming hockey camp for the next few weeks. It was a great call as we had a fantastic day at Popham Beach jumping waves, hunting for crabs, playing catch and having a picnic. That was way better than any race, any day.
This left the mountain bike race in Exeter, NH as a possibility. I noticed I was 3rd in the series ranking, so I figured it would be worthwhile to earn some points and try to maintain or move up. For that to work, I arranged to do a Portland airport pick up of hockey campers at 1pm. I figured a 9:30am start would certainly have me finishing before noon and an hour drive to the airport would make it perfect. The course was described as an 8-mile loop consisting of technical singletrack, rock gardens, bridges, etc. 3 laps sounded like a 2 hour race to me. Doh!
I picked up U-23 US National Team Member and KHS graduate Andrew Freye in York and we drove in a KHS mini-bus together from there. Just like old times!
We arrived in terrific weather conditions, got registered, got warmed up, got lined up, and hit the trail. Thankfully, the younger Experts/Pros went out 1min ahead of my Expert/Pro Vet group. I lined up on the front row and had a great start. I could have had the hole shot, but chose to settle into second heading into the singletrack to ride behind someone whom I hoped knew the trail as I had no clue having not pre-ridden it. Most of the time, the objective to getting a good start is to get ahead of riders who may hold you up in technical sections where there’s no place to pass. Well I now realize, I’m one of those guys whom people are going to want to get by!
In a nutshell, here’s my analysis of me as a cyclist after this race:
Biker: Good
Mountain Biker: Not so good
Trail Finder: Lost
As soon as the trail turned technical, I turned into a buffoon. I was so intent, I think, on riding fast, I chose bad lines, never focusing on where I wanted to go. I quickly got passed by Pro Mike Patrick, then another guy who seemed to know the course. I tried to stay with him, but I was too sketchy and I would lose time at every technical spot. Then another and another passed Obstacles seemed to jump out at me. Any place where you may have needed to put a foot down, I did. The ¾ of a lap section was the worst for me as I constantly had people come up behind me because I was so slow. I played cat and mouse with a guy for the middle part of the race as I would drop him on the few climbing or open sections, but he would reel me in and pass me in the rough stuff. I lost too much time at the end of the 2nd lap however, and I could never catch back up to him. The 3rd lap was my demise. Any place where it was questionable which way the trail would go, I took the wrong path. A critical trail miscue halfway through the final lap allowed 3 riders to pass and I lost my cool. Although I was glad to see former teammate Anders Larson go by as he was having a good ride, I couldn’t contain my emotions. I expressed my frustration and discontent for the course markings vocally (potty mouth!) then tried to regroup and soldier on. Unfortunately, my mind had checked out. I was pissed about everything like my broken pedal stabbing me in the calf, my poor handling skills, the poor course layout, everything. I knew my mind had checked out when I started to think about what I was going to write about in this Blog and recanting ala Carl's line in 'Caddyshack' "I don't think the 'technical stuff' is going to come for quite a while now." And the hits kept on coming; I took another wrong turn later, and I endoed twice: once getting my leg caught between the handlebars and the top tube(?!) and once on my head. You know you’re on a technical course when your forearm cramps and your legs feel fresh as a summer’s breeze. This was neither my type of course, nor my day. My lap times reflected my sentiment as my final lap was 4 minutes longer than the previous 2. The icing on the cake was the race took me 2hrs 48 minutes (longer than Bradbury's "enduro!") so now I was going to be late for the airport pickup! Who’s brilliant idea was it to do this race?!
Freye did well, finishing second, but he admitted the course took its toll on him as well. My 6th place finish was not good enough to maintain my 3rd place standing in the series as I finished behind the 4th place guy, so now I'm 4th. We loaded up right away and cruised north, reflecting on the misery and fielding phone calls from the airport, “Where are you?!”
I’ll probably do the local Readfield Heritage Days MTB Race on Sunday for fun with the family, and then it’s the Mt. Washington Hillclimb and Sugarloaf MTB race weekend.