Real Coyote Hill Race Report

21/39 Pro

First mtb race of the season and it showed. I loaded up and headed due west Sunday morning to attend the 4th race in the Root 66 Northeast race series. I was feeling a bit unprepared fitness-wise having failed to get intense rides in the past 2 weekends in a row. But, I was marginally optimistic about my handling having gotten a couple of solid Bradbury mtb rides in and was very comfortable on the bike. Then it rained. I put way too much faith in the forecast the day before which had called for a 40% chance of showers in the morning, then a nice afternoon. So I set the bike up for a dry race. Well, that 40% turned into 100% of 1/4" of rain from like 10am-noon rendering the course muddy and slick and my front tire useless except for collecting mud to skim on top of mud.

Hutchinson Python = Stupid Tire

Well, you gotta run what you brung so I lined up with over 30 other pros and set off for a 4 lapper. The start was great as I was comfortably in the top 10 heading into the singletrack. Then it was a skid-fest. My front lost grip on the first slick off-camber section and I had to put a foot down to keep from going into the woods. The field freight trained by me and I lost at least 7 spots. I rudely jumped back in and hopped on to Mike Joos' wheel making this a repeat of last year when I rode with him for the 1st lap. The pace was high, but not killer. I had to stay super-focused to maintain traction and keep up with Joos and the small group we were in. There were a few sections that I opted to run that cost me a bit of time but not enough to get dropped. Eventually though, the running certainly adversly affected my finish. I looped through the start/finish in decent shape but I soon settled into a pace that got slower and slower each lap. I was no longer riding with anyone and the mind just started to wander. On the 3rd lap I swopped places back and forth with a single-speeder, then Mike Rowell motored through as I was doing my feeble try to ride a muddy, rooty section, then get off and run routine. I kept him in contact as we climbed the open road for the last time, but he was powering up and I was just riding up. The singlespeeder stood and delivered as well and entered the singletrack ahead of me. I desperately wanted to maintain contact to keep up the motivation and help me get through the singletrack faster than I would alone. But I was fatigued going up the climb and my recovery on the descent was slow and I was alone again. The course was drying quickly and traction improved with some tacky mud. Trouble was, my front tire liked to collect the mud and I still wasn't able to open it up. Plus, my mind and body were pretty unresponsive so my final lap was more like a trail ride than a race. Definitely the worst lap I've ridden in years. Then, to make the lap worse, I got nipped by a couple more hard-charging pros less than 1/2 mile from the finish to drop me out of the top-20 which would have been the only bright spot on the day! No excuse. I'm behind in my training and that was a tough course to start the season on. I have a couple of local road races in a couple of weeks to build fitness, then it's back to the dirt in June. I should be recovered by then!