Bump and Whine

Bump and Grind mountain bike race at Oak Mountain State Park near Birmingham Al.  This past weekend.  It was, well, different.

Normally Gone Riding promotes the races in this series but they only scored this one.  The local club did everything else.  And it showed.  Let me explain.

We arrived Saturday at 1 pm.  Parking was weird with half the paved lot roped off for no apparent reason.  We set up in a soggy ditch across the road and set out to find sign up.  We being The Lovely Wife, The Kid, and myself.

At sign up I was informed I needed to choose between Cat 2 or Cat 3 for the race.  Now for the series I am in Cat 3, which was only running 9 miles, as opposed to Cat 2 which was going the whole 21 miles.  No laps, just one big loop.  Hmmmmm.  The forecast called for strong thunderstorms that night and on into the next day.  So I could take a chance and ride the 21 miles or play it safe for the points and go 9.  Again, weird.  They told me I had till in the morning to decide.

Practice Lap

"Where do we pick up the 21 mile loop?" I asked.

"Well you go down here to Froggy Back and climb up Mr. Toad, then take a left on Pretty Pony" the guy from BUMP told me.

"Huh?"

So we rode up a road for a mile, figured that wasn't right, went back to ask again, got the same BS, found a rider who showed us what he thought was the trail, and promptly ran into BL and EP coming back from being lost.

I finally found the 9 mile loop while The Kid went to ride the whole 21.  I decided to just do the 9, which turned out to be a smart move.

Race Day

Muggy, cloudy, with rain in the area, but not raining when we got to the race.  My class started with the 50+ at 9:00.  It was actually sunny and the conditions were perfect.  I started out in front but got passed on the 1 mile road climb.  With both the guys in my class way off the back I politely let the 5 50+ guys go into the single track ahead of me.  I really don't know what I was thinking as they were scoring us separate.  Needless to say the last 3 were slower than me, so it took some time to get around them.  My bad.  I finished right behind second place in 50+, BL caught and passed me, sigh.

I won the 60+, my competition for SERC didn't show up so it worked like it was supposed to.  The Kid lined up for his race with 17 others.  As soon as the whistle blew it started to rain and it rained for 2 hours.

Bump didn't call for podiums, at least not that BL and I heard, so we missed them.  They gave us our medals and a gift card, but still, it was not well organized.

The Kid had a great race for second.  I was sooooo glad I had run the morning race.  Since THE CRASH I'm intimidated by slick trail.

All in all not a bad weekend.  The Kid was pumped with his performance, especially under those conditions.  They finally did his podium at 3:15 and we hit the road, getting home around 9:30.  I am once again thankful to be able to do these races.  We go again this coming weekend.  I am smiling.