Race to the River

Race Fever was in the air, it was the biggest turnout I’ve seen at Harbison today and our addition to the Southern Classic appeared to be a good thing. The Sport field seemed in line with the numbers that were at the last Stump Jump State Race so will be interesting to see some final totals but definitely was a good turnout for the most part. Recognized several faces and regulars in other brackets but in the 30-39 sport class it was just me and Tom from the local riding club accompanied by Bike To Nature Dave and some of the Hawley crew; that I was aware of anyway.

From the start heading up the gravel road reality hits this is a race and the pace quickly moved fast. So fast that trying to fight for position into the woods the burn and HR was reminding me this is just the start and started second guessing taking the last three days off to rest. Outgunned into the woods had to muster what I could to keep the lead pack in sight. Tom and crew ahead were motoring along good and tried to focus on keeping Tom in sight when I could. Kudos Tom you were riding strong there for awhile and it was more trying to catch glimpses of ya here or there. Ive raced with that Brad(2nd place) fella at a few other races and I cant ever keep up with him for long. Passed a few riders here and there along the way to spider woman and finally got within distance of Tom but wasn’t until inner loop that I was able to pull up along side him. There was some other rider behind Tom that had to hit the brush to finally get around him after tagging his rear wheel a few times. That was the first time I had done that and it wasn’t deliberate either, there just wasn’t too much room and you know those quick down and ups , well, he’d slow to much on the ups and I was right on his tail and kept tagging him probably 3 times before I had to hit the brush to get around. Then caught up with Tom and he let me go on around. Thanks a bunch Tom, that inner loop was putting it on me and I sure didn’t have no hammers to drop. Then on that hardest climb section there was another rider ahead that luckily let me by right at the crest/turn. After the Rock garden section there was an older guy who broke a chain on one of those small climbs and the fella came rolling straight back at me and had to unclip to move out the way. The poor guy probably skidded 5 feet OFF the trail. After he acknowledged he was alright I had to leave him be and took off.

The addition of spider woman inner loop sure can make a difference and by the time I got to the long fireroad midland mountain climb I had to hit it a couple gears lower than what I know Im capable or pushing. It was way to early but legs were burning , my side was aching and was borderline on blowing myself up. Had a couple riders pass on by and had no idea what class they were in and really didn’t care at the moment as I was just set on getting up this dang hill looking forward to the crest when I knew I’d have that section to recoup a little. The rest of the first loop went as expected and was easier going for the most part. Had some guy pass me leading to the open halfway point open field, but he couldn’t hold it and ended passing him back as soon as we entered the woods again for loop two.

Second loop went good and by this time we were spaced out enough and whether I should have or not didn’t feel I had to try and maintain that near max heart rate pace so was a little calming. On the second loop up the switchbacks one of the expert riders passed me and turned into spiderwoman and I was sooo glad that we only had to do that once, a second inner loop would of definitely been my definition of hell today. The final push thru the creek then up the firebrake climb one of the Hawely guys (Ken, Kenley or something like that) blew on past at a strong pace, standing the whole climb, hats off to him for sure there was NO WAY I could come close to that. In all respect he earned it 100%, he was even running Single speed and ended up taking 3rd racing in our geared class. Good racing indeed!

I Ended up pulling out a 4th place finish and earning a good nights sleep.
Congrats to Tom who placed within a minute or so with me that was pretty cool. And congrats to Toby P who placed and SS and Eric who placed in Expert 40+.