So I've been riding my big wheeled BMX bike a lot lately and Bovine finally convinced me to start blogging again so here it is.
Three Saturdays ago I went up to Krug Park in St. Joe to help get the trails ready for the next weeks race hosted by Craig Hoppe, Randy Tracy and Ethos. After 6 hours of pleasant weather while weed eating, Steve and I headed out for a lap. It was awesome fast, with big bermed corners and even bigger climbs. I was psyched for the following Saturday.
One week later I arrived at AWC headquarters to meet Garet and Trav for the 1 hour drive to Krug. I was on the fence on whether to race SS or toughen up and try my first race in the expert category. Trav and Garet had other plans for me, during the course of drive they convinced me to race marathon in preparation for Syllamo. This was fine except if I had planned on racing marathon I would have changed my gearing and brought more nutrition/water bottles. The marathon group gathered halfway down the hill for the start. Somewhere around 15 racers lined up and were off for a furious sprint up the hill, with myself and one other rider on a singlespeed. Some guy I didn't know blasted off and I sucked onto his wheel spinning my brains off, starting up the steeper part of the paved hill he pulled away from me and James Shiflett of 360 Racing passed me. I had ridden a good portion of Bone bender with James and he is a solid rider with many years of racing under his belt, I was bound and determined to stick to his wheel and follow his lead. I hit the singletrack in third just behind James. Rounding the first section of trail Travis and Garet were out there cheering me on with this statement, "If you don't win this we are going to kick your ass!" When Travis tells you that, you take it seriously.
James and I quickly caught up to the leader. After the second climb I could tell he had not much time left in front, he was barely making it up the steep sections. Shortly afterwards James and I both passed him and settled into a more manageable pace. Another 360 rider Denny pulled onto my wheel and was content with following. I felt great and then the Shit Circus began.
My right pedal started feeling weird after a climb, I looked down to find it almost completely unscrewed from the crank arm. I panicked. I pulled off to fix it, scrambling to get my multitool out. Denny passed me then another rider. I threw my multitool into my jersey and stuffed my seat bag with all the other crap that had fallen out. I quickly caught a rider gunning for the top 2 and I had Deja Vu. My pedal was almost completely unscrewed again. I stopped again to further inspect my pedal to see that the bearings were completely seized on the spindle. I tightened it down with as much force as possible. The remainder of the lap i was consumed with my crapped out pedal. I kept looking down to see if it was starting to unscrew again and on a steep downhill corner caught my front tire on a root sending me over the handlebars and turning them 10 degrees off center. JP Brockett had seen all of this and heckled me from the woods. I asked him if I could borrow a pedal off his bike since he wasn't racing today, he gave me the green light. Limping into the pit area I yelled to Trav is to grab JP's bike. He arrived shortly with the bike only to find his eggbeaters required 8mm allen wrenches and I only a 6mm allen. I told Travis I needed a pedal or a bigger allen wrench. He ran back to his car yelling over his shoulder that he had some pedals. He came back with a pedal that required a freaking 8mm allen. Third trip back to the car Travis returned with said wrench and I finally got it switched out. At this point most of the class had passed me, and I was beside myself with how a perfect start had turned to crap. I started off for my second lap so frantic that i forgot about my handlebars. Travis had told me to relax and that I had 2 plus hours to reel people in. So 50 feet into the singletrack I stopped, composed myself, fixed my handlebars and officially punched in at Krug timeclock. Three laps later I pulled up behind Denny, James had broken his chain on the second lap. I asked Denny if there was anyone else in front of him. He said no and conceded. I pulled into the pit area to swap out a bottle and grab a coke for some last lap nitro. The bottle that was set aside with coke was not sealed completely and had spilled inside my duffle bag. I filled a bike bottle with water and headed out for my final and fifth lap. I set the stumpjumper on cruise control and committed to make every climb, I had only walked one short steep section up to that point. Legs on the verge of total lockdown I made the final climb up the grassy hill to the finish for my first win in a mountain bike race, just to avoid a beat down from Travis and Garet. More Travis than Garet!
Thanks to Craig and Randy for such an awesome event and some totally kick ass trails. Wish I lived a little closer.
Next week is Syllamo, I am crazy psyched and slightly intimidated.
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