The decision not to go to Hendersonville the weekend after the state championship sucked, but it was definitely the right one. I felt bad for bailing on my friend, who probably wouldn't have gone if I hadn't encouraged him to. I wasn't too upset about skipping the UCI race, though. I knew I probably wasn't cut out for it, and probably would have done the single speed race again anyway.
Plus, my face was full of snot.
I didn't ride for most of the week after the race in Conyers, trying to get better and finish out the school year. I rode on my birthday on Thursday, and then didn't touch my bike again until I ran off to Gainesville, FL on Sunday to race. I figured I was still relatively fit, so if I couldn't make a full weekend trip, I could at least drive a few hours to a "close" race. I needed the day on Saturday to study for finals, but still wanted to get some 'cross racing in before the season ended.
Gainesville was a lot of fun. Good course, and very down-home, grassroots feel to the race. Everyone was calm and relaxed, and it was warm. Much warmer than Hendersonville.
It was a small Pro/Open race that morning. We settled into our positions pretty quickly and then stayed like that for the next hour. A local Florida racer rode away from Bryan and I pretty quickly and Bryan gapped me by the second lap. I rode around in third place all damn day and wasn't too upset about it. I struggled to breathe, and took breaks to try to drink, but still got to have my picture made on the podium again at the end of the day.
I decided to skip the single speed race that afternoon, even though I heard the winner got a tattoo. I needed to go back to sleep, and study some more.
The following week was much of the same- snotty and busy. Finals week was crazy at word and, combined with my own school work, I lost out on a lot of my normal riding time. I didn't get back out on my bike until Friday, but managed to ride three days in a row!
The season was set to wrap up the next weekend in Macon at the Thompson factory. This was my second race at Thompson this year, and it went way better than the mountain bike race I did in the spring.
I decided again to do the single speed race. I was still struggling with the cold and knew that I was rapidly losing fitness. I could pretty much guess where I would finish in the P/1/2 race, but figured I could compete in the SS.
I started on the second row, yielding to the de facto call ups claimed by the guys with series points. The thing about splitting my time between P/1/2 races and SSCX races was that I didn't quite accumulate enough points to make the top 8 in either category, not that I should have in the pro races anyway.
After getting caught in some traffic in the first wooded section, and the death spiral (ugh), I settled into a chase group of four riders. One guy was already up the road and gapping us like we were barely moving. I went to the front of our group, working my way around some less than motivated racers, and tried to close down on the leader. We rode like this for most of the race, with one guy going horizon, me on the front of the chase, and two guys on my wheel. Coming to the last lap I yielded my chase duties and settled in third wheel.
On the last lap, the group leader used some traffic to create gaps in our group, passing lapped riders in narrow or technical spaces and leaving us to try to squeeze through the same space without killing someone. I ended up closing down these gaps a few times and the settled back onto his wheel.
The death spiral was probably 3/4 of the way into the course, and one of the last major features before the finish. I couldn't manage to get around him in the spiral and even if I did, there was nothing I could use to create a gap. We came to the last turn, a 90 degree left hander about 300 meters before the finish, and had one more group of lapped riders to get around. He passed them in the turn and started to sprint out of it, and I got held up. I tried to close him down in the sprint, but it was pretty useless and I finished third.
It was nice to finally find some success at the end of the year, and the single speed races were a lot of fun. It's cool tinkering with your bike before hand, but not having anything to worry about during the race and it forces you to focus on your driving and skills, instead of just pedaling hard. Choosing the single speed races for the last two weekends of the series meant that I gave up my chance of finishing top ten in the Pro/1/2 series. I think I was 13th, which was consistent with my finishes, so I can't complain.
It was definitely a fun year and really, really hard. I'm excited for the break, but I know I'm going to miss 'cross pretty soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment