10th/20
Careful planning and scheming enabled me to hit the Concord Criterium the day before on my way to my mom's on the Cape. Then day trip over here to Oxford, MA, back to the Cape, then pick up the fam @ Logan on Monday and head home. 1 more neo-pro bike racer weekend for me.
My hope was to arrive early enough to the race venue and get a recon. lap in. But, 1 thing lead to another and by the time I was kitted up and on the bike I had less than 1/2 hour. Rumor was there was some standing water around and talk of a "floating bridge" so it sounded like a pre-ride might do more damage than good. So I hopped on the bike after changing to a rear mud tire and set out to spin the legs around. I rode for like 10 minutes then started to feel the rear getting a bit too squishy. Sure enough, I was losing air in the tire. I run tubeless, but no Stan's, I'm a little crazy like that. So it was a bouncy pedal back to the truck to swop tires. Problem was, it's often a bitch seating the tire. As I was madly pumping, the announcer made the pro call-up. I wasn't panicking, but I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make it. Fortunately it caught and I rolled up in the 2nd row and was ready to go. If my legs weren't warmed up, my arms sure were! A Hutchinson Python was my only other option and I was hoping it wouldn't be a liability out there for me.
The gun went off and we packed it down a fire road for like 1/2 mile. I was in the top 1/3 before the first 1 lane section. We hit some puddles along the way and I got thoroughly drenched by some nasty smelling water. Fortunately, I would get a total spray down several more times on each lap! Having scoped out a pro line on my pre-ride, I avoided a slight traffic jam, and made my way into the top-10 right away. But, the faster riders like Kevin Hines quickly put me back where I belonged hovering outside the top-10 and we all settled in to singletracking. The course was a lot of fun and reminded me of Otis. Rolling hardpack trail with some roots and baby-head rocks to swerve around. However, it was not all Oz.
The land must have been around like a reservoir and the dam controlled how much overflow water remained above it. Given the amount of rain we've had, the low lying areas had a lot of water. 1 section in the trail was so deep the wooden bridge that normally spans it was actually floating. If you came up to it, it was all good because it was on the top of the water. But if you were behind someone, they would submerge it and it was tougher to negotiate. This was clearly a run! There were massive puddles in an open road section that were hub deep as well as 1 long super muddy section. But this took the cake:
I ran it each time, but guys were saying they rode it. I don't know how @ race pace.
Anyway, in terms of the race, I made a couple passes myself on lap 1, then settled into a groove and ended up playing cat and mouse with a singlespeeder for 2 laps. He was quick and smooth in the singletrack, but my gears helped me bridge any gaps in the open sections. Eventually I got by him in the last 1/4 of the penultimate lap then I dug in and hammered the first 1/4 of the final lap and made the gap stick. I rode solo in from there for a top-10.
I was really glad to be riding the mountain bike and enjoyed the course as a whole. The water issues were nothing compared to the crap we've been riding through @ Mt. Snow, Pat's Peak, etc.
Joos and I took our traditional post-ride dip. This time the water looked dirty and there was a dead fish, but it really doesn't matter when you're covered in mud.
Good times.
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