Tripleshot Cycling

Today marked the start of the mountain biking season. A long race in soggy, cold conditions at the dump.

Lister, Liam, Eric, Logan & Katie raced intermediate. I tried moving up to expert to race against the legendary Glenowyn, and Jane was helping out in the timing tent.

A race yesterday and a new (to me) bike made the race a little tougher than it needed to be, but things still went well. I managed to avoid being lapped by the pros, which is always nice.

During my race, I caught a glimpse of argyle. Alex was out for a ride, but not racing?

Results: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key ... zrYH#gid=0

That was fun. All trails I had done before, but strung together in a new way and with quite a crowd to ride in at the beginning, and no stopping to chat every 10 minutes. Liam and I started at the back because we were newbs, and the last I saw of him was at the bottom of the first big climb. He told me later his strategy was to sprint up every hill then rest at the top. Friggin' soccer player/sprinters...

Of course my strategy was different, and I tried to keep it under control in the (ultimately, vain) hope of delaying that big 'ding' at 1h:15m that signals when I should stop for coffee. (Whaddya mean it means one more lap?!?!?)

I very nearly bonked by the end (1:48 was my time.), so apparently I didn't go slow enough at the start. Wolfed down everything in sight at the finish, and kept eating until about 6. (Yes I had breakfast; I think I just haven't actually gone hard and steady for 1:48 in a while. Note to self: might need to train.

I did notice that I was having an easier time than almost everyone around me in the technical stuff, so either riding with the kids has smoothed me out, or my bike (heavyish longer travel trail bike vs true xc bike was the trick for hartland rocks. Or we all just suck back there, and I just sucked a little less.

Big thank you to Roland for his race bike from last year. Liam sounded like he quite liked it, said he got into the zone after a while, and did a very creditable 11th, 1:38. His friend Thomas Doyle rode expert, which was a lap longer, but he did similar lap times, and he was within three minutes of Logan Simonson,, so he's in the ball park. Liam is now talking a new-to-him bike, so he might just be catching the bug. Thanks for that Roland!

results http://www.islandcupseries.com/

PS Alex wasn't quite ready to race, and her dad really wanted to try his new bike, and could only ride in the afternoon. So they went up later. I think Alex would have liked it.

Lister Farrar wrote:PS Alex wasn't quite ready to race, and her dad really wanted to try his new bike, and could only ride in the afternoon. So they went up later. I think Alex would have liked it.

For anybody wanting to try an XC race, Duncan on the 27th is a good first course. While, yes, it does have a very large hill, the decent is worth it. It's very fast and flowy compared to the slow and rocky dump. (And beginners only need to go 3/4 way up the hill)

Yah, that was fun. Even though it didn't quite go as planned.

It rained on and off, and it was windy, so standing around was cold! Logan and I, in an attempt to stay warm, made a tactical error as we tried to time our warm-up too close to the start time. Scott from Pro-City used his clock as the official time, and it was four minutes fast. We arrived at the line about a minute after the start! Duh! Chalk that up to a good lesson learned the hard way: Get to the line early!

We then tried to catch up, and did, but this combined with two times up pooh corner at race-pace plus, and my back troubles came back with a vengeance. Sucks, cuz it felt good riding the course the day before. Anywho, I dropped out during lap 2, and Logan went on to pass most riders and ride with the top 5 guys for to remainder of the race. He likely could have finished top 3, but some chain-suck and some hand cramps left him finishing in 6th. The top 5 were all old guys though (20+), so that was great I think.

Liam is going to be the next Adam! He rarely rides, and when he does, he rocks it! That kid is fit. A borrowed bike, five crashes (oh, Roland...don't read that) and no training and he comes 11th. Hardcore!

Lister did great too. I think he bonked as he crossed the finish line. I could tell, because when Logan took some Gu Cubes out of his pocket, Lister did this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30rUL2oV ... re=related

Fun day despite my DNF.

Eric