Hard to Handle

That had to be one of the most fun mountain bike trails to race on.  Yea the granite was scary the first time over it, and there were some hard climbs, but the Olympic Track in Conyers Ga. was like a roller coaster.

I worried about the weather all week for nothing.  A shower Saturday night put down just enough moisture to make it tacky for our 11:30 start.  I have BJS to thank for that, the forecast changed as soon as he decided to bail out.  The only problem with the weekend was the wedding reception at our hotel that had moved onto the patio outside our room.  After 2 calls to the front desk they finally got things calmed down but not until my blood pressure had reached critical mass.

Are you interested in a race report?  Do you mind if I describe how I almost lost 4th place in the last 15 feet?  How about how I went for a leisurely trail ride for the first half a lap.  Or maybe how I just fell in behind a Clydesdale rider on the last lap and decided that he was "going fast enough".

Anyhoo, I got a terrible start, the guy next to me elbowed me as soon as he got on his pedals.  This is the 50 plus class but this guy looked like Santa Clause, beard and all.  How could he have been so mean?  The first clue should have been when he told me before the race that he had been in the sport class for 15 YEARS!  So naturally I got behind him and followed him for half the first lap.  I know, it doesn't make any sense to me either, but it seemed like a good move at the time.

After I got around Santa I caught a couple of riders in my class and figured I was close to the top 5, which was my goal for this race.  I had a little incident in the feed zone as yellow wave riders were just riding back and forth across the track.  I may have thrown my bottle at one of them as I tried to get to my fresh bottle.  Right after that a Clydesdale rider passed me just before we went into the single track.  He was going ever so slightly slower than I could go, not quite slow enough for me to pass him back, but slow enough that my heart rate wasn't in the "I'm racing now" zone.  I kept checking behind me and didn't see anybody so I settled in.

On the last time up the big gas line climb I came up on a rider pushing his bike, he was in my class.  I passed him and tried to put as much distance as I could between us.  When we got to the granite climb near the end I could see him at the bottom.  I figured I had my position as I couldn't even see the rider in front of me.  I then started to wonder why people were yelling "GO GO" as I approached the finish line chute.  I upped the pace a little just to make them happy.  Turns out there were 2 riders in my class right behind me, like almost in my jersey pocket.

As you can tell I need to learn a few lessons from this race.  I should know all this stuff by now.  I don't know why it's so hard to think when you're out there.  I ended up 4th in the 50+ Sport class.  The kid got a 3rd in the 15-19 base!    We'll do it again this coming weekend in Winder Ga.  Let's see if I learned anything.