Nationals
The alarm clock woke me up Saturday morning at 5:30. After reevaluating preparation time, I didn't actually get up until 6:15 and out the door not much after 7am.
Temperatures dropped to the upper 20s overnight but the winds were calm and the sun was out, so things did not feel so bad. I went out for a couple practice laps to learn the course and did not like what I found. The first couple hundred feet of grass/mud was fine before making a right-hander into a long section of deep ruts of frozen mud from Friday's racing. These ruts went from tape to tape and left no room for escape. Riding in a straight was hard enough for me and going through the turns was even tougher. Hit a rut wrong and it would grab your wheel and toss you across the course as you tried to correct, hoping another rut wouldn't toss you in another direction.
I literally had some fear for what the actual race would bring. People struggled enough in the relative isolation of warmups. Put 80 or so riders trying to win a race and charging into these sections of frozen mayhem and it could be ugly. While there were portions of the course that were not bad, there were about ten others very treacherous.
I was more than happy to be starting near the very back and not feeling the pressure to mix it up in the midst of a packed field. As expected, lots of folks were having trouble on the first section of frozen ruts. The field bottled up but I managed to ride a short distance before having to dismount. Rode a short distance. Then had to run again around the hairpin turn by the pits. Back on the bike for a long, gradual uphill that kicked up at the top.
I was cruising along and not pushing TOO hard. My goal was to get one lap under my belt, let things sort out and take my chances from there. After reaching the top of the hill, it was down a paved road with a right hander back onto a softer mud section and up the stair runup.
I got up the stairs pretty well. I hopped back on the bike for a downhill S-turn back onto another paved section. The first part of the S-turn felt awkward but I figured it was the soft ground of this section. The second half of the turn felt even more awkward and I had a bad feeling about what was going on. Once I turned onto the pavement I was greeted with the unmistakable rough ride of a flat tire.
My race was over. I was not close to the pit. And, even if I had been closer, I had decided to not put the borrowed Zipp 404s in the pit for fear than if I had needed a wheel that the course conditions might damage the wheels. I was not prepared to risk damaging another person's wheels
My race was far too short. I was done before I even got into the flow of the race. Next year, maybe it will be different.
Temperatures dropped to the upper 20s overnight but the winds were calm and the sun was out, so things did not feel so bad. I went out for a couple practice laps to learn the course and did not like what I found. The first couple hundred feet of grass/mud was fine before making a right-hander into a long section of deep ruts of frozen mud from Friday's racing. These ruts went from tape to tape and left no room for escape. Riding in a straight was hard enough for me and going through the turns was even tougher. Hit a rut wrong and it would grab your wheel and toss you across the course as you tried to correct, hoping another rut wouldn't toss you in another direction.
I literally had some fear for what the actual race would bring. People struggled enough in the relative isolation of warmups. Put 80 or so riders trying to win a race and charging into these sections of frozen mayhem and it could be ugly. While there were portions of the course that were not bad, there were about ten others very treacherous.
I was more than happy to be starting near the very back and not feeling the pressure to mix it up in the midst of a packed field. As expected, lots of folks were having trouble on the first section of frozen ruts. The field bottled up but I managed to ride a short distance before having to dismount. Rode a short distance. Then had to run again around the hairpin turn by the pits. Back on the bike for a long, gradual uphill that kicked up at the top.
I was cruising along and not pushing TOO hard. My goal was to get one lap under my belt, let things sort out and take my chances from there. After reaching the top of the hill, it was down a paved road with a right hander back onto a softer mud section and up the stair runup.
I got up the stairs pretty well. I hopped back on the bike for a downhill S-turn back onto another paved section. The first part of the S-turn felt awkward but I figured it was the soft ground of this section. The second half of the turn felt even more awkward and I had a bad feeling about what was going on. Once I turned onto the pavement I was greeted with the unmistakable rough ride of a flat tire.
My race was over. I was not close to the pit. And, even if I had been closer, I had decided to not put the borrowed Zipp 404s in the pit for fear than if I had needed a wheel that the course conditions might damage the wheels. I was not prepared to risk damaging another person's wheels
My race was far too short. I was done before I even got into the flow of the race. Next year, maybe it will be different.
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