This past Sunday was the first race in the Groovy Cycleworks / Vulture's Knob race series.
As many of you know, I've got some high hopes for this year. I've moved up and started racing expert with the big boys in hopes of learning from the experienced guys and hopefully being able to mix it up with them. I've been working my ass off with Sean Gilbert trying to get ready for the season, and what do you know, the season is here.
It was a beautiful day at the Knob, 60 degrees, sunny, and the trails were fast. I lined up next to Brad Wilhelm and Jeff Pendlebury (aka the future of mountain biking).
(thanks to Julie for the photos!)
The gun went off, and there we went. Steve Twining and Brad both got awesome starts, and turning into the top of the Furnace, they already were starting to pull away. Jeff got by me pretty soon after. This had me sitting at 4th place and I expected something like this, so I stayed on the gas and kept consistent.
After motoring through the prologue, I saw Brad on the side of the trail with a flat tire, right at the powerline downhill. Sucks bad, hopefully he has better luck this weekend and we can race together. That left me in third, whoa!
The new stuff built at the Knob before the race was tricky, some bumpy off camber stuff before the landfill climb, and the over / under has a drop-in to it now which makes it the earth's most scary thing at speed. I'm surprised I didn't die on the loose rocks. By then, Chip Meek, caught up to me, and we were going back and forth. He'd get a little gap on the climbs, and I'd reel him in on the flats. This went back and forth for the next lap and a half.
All was well, and I was feeling good and had my sights on Chip, and 3/4ths of the way through the second lap; what do you know I crash into a tree. Nothing gets you out of your groove quicker than that. So I get back on my bike, kiss my chances of catching Chip goodbye, and hope to stay consistent enough to keep Ross Clark and teammate Kyle Spisak from getting by. I had about a minute gap on them, which was good enough, but I started to see them on switchbacks and that put the fear into me.
I was able to hold on, and rolled across the line in 4th at 1:58:23, a little less than one minute behind Chip.
I'm pretty jazzed on that, and I figure there's no where to go but up this season… until Dave Walker shows up, then I'll go one more place down :-)
On to the other races. Rudy kicked some but in the old-man sport category, and pretty much put on a clinic on the sharp new Cannondale Flash 29er he got. He had to deal with a ton of traffic, and negotiated it very well to win his class. Robert did not have much luck. He was in the front group (big surprise…) of all of the sport racers when his crankset decided to explode. I'm sure he'll unleash his vengeance this weekend at the OMBC race.
In the expert race, Kyle Spisak rolled in 5th, a minute behind me. Luke rolled in strong holding down the top ten. Todd Bolgrin had a good race too.
On a team-related note, huge thanks to everyone at Bike Authority: Sherm, Mike, Sean, Chris, etc etc etc for getting me up and rolling this season. My Cannondale Flash 1 29er was awesome through the rocks, the big wheels handled it with no problem, and the Lefty smoothed things out well, no deflection off of anything. My Stan's ZTR Race 29er wheels were light and snappy up the hills, and held up even better than expected down the nasty stuff of the over/under.
First crit: RATL this Saturday, and first OMBC race at Mohican Wilderness this Sunday. Looking forward to it.
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