Last night was the first of five races in the Schenectady Tuesday Night Race Series. Format is three laps of four miles a piece, best time wins. It started pouring down rain about 45 minutes from the start time. It tapered off about five minutes before we were supposed to begin. We lined up to race and it looked extremely wet and muddy. I was already soaked from head to toe.
The race begins and we all funnel into the singletrack. A girl (no offense to any women readers) fell over and blocked me and some others from the trail. About 4-5 people got by on the other side of her, she picked herself up and we got going again. I can't say I would have held my own had this not happened, but it definitely put a damper on the start. I knew I was going to need to make up some time, just not sure I was up to it. It was super slick out and everyone seemed very twitchy. There was standing water everywhere. Every root and skinny plank was so slick, it was impossible to have any consistency or expectation about clearing anything. I just wanted to make it a goal not to wreck and have a good steady ride.
First lap through, I passed a couple of guys and made up a little bit of time. I felt good, but was sucking air because of the pace I was riding. End of the lap, I was in eighth place. Right in the middle, but not as high up as what I was hoping to be. Second lap in I backed off a little, but was keeping a good solid pace. No wrecks or slip ups. Coming in at the end of the second lap, another rider got into a bad wreck. He slipped on a root and fell over. He is a super good rider and always does well in these races. They halted the race completely for EMT to come through and pick him up. He ended up dislocating his ankle (ouch). As a result of this wreck they stopped the race completely for the night and counted just our first lap. I ended up less than a minute behind four riders, all separated from one another by one second. I had mostly caught up with the rider in front of me at the end of the second lap, but not sure if I could have caught him by the end. There's always next week.
Mud:
Race pics:
3 comments:
Mud sucks on race days. Sounds like you were doing well in the mix, though. How's the new rig?
Nice work in the mud. I have no doubt you would've reeled in some more of the leaders. Good thing you didn't pick up the new white jersey, and I must say I still think V1 looks great.
Thanks fellas. And thanks for the vote of confidence. Hoping I can move up a bit in the rankings next week. JP, I forgot that I wanted to say something about the rig in my post. It's been great. Consistently smooth/ buttery shifting, better feeling suspension and overall a big upgrade.
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