Peak Season #2 01/14/07

I wasn’t feeling all that chipper before the start of my race. During my warm up I couldn’t tell if I was feeling good or bad, but I was feeling very lackadaisical. The Elite Men and Singlespeed classes would start together and managed to slot myself right in the middle of the first row. There was a very long paved straightaway that lead to a right turn onto the dirt. I managed to get the holeshot! I didn’t think this was possible on a singlespeed as the straightaway was so long I thought the geared riders would have smoked past me. I must have looked like a sewing machine at full rpm!

A couple of corners later I was passed by my own bike! Actually, a guy visiting from Ireland borrowed my geared bike to race on. As we hit the race car track I pulled to the right and let a gang of riders buy. I didn’t want to go so hard that I would immediately blow up. I could see teammates Mike Martin and Erik Thunstrom along with some other guy I didn’t recognize, who were all on singlespeeds behind me. I rode moderate tempo until they caught me, but by then, I felt recovered from my initial effort. The rest of the first lap was uneventful.

As we went pass the scoring area/finish line Mike M. who was at front sat up, so I threw an acceleration in to see what would happen. It had no real effect, but it did tell me that I was feeling exceptionally well! By the time we hit the zigzag through the barns, I was riding steady tempo at the front. The next thing I knew Mike M. throws down an attack and on the way buy throws me an elbow! My own teammate throwing me a bow!? His attack did nothing to shake us up. When we hit the climb out of the lower section of the fairgrounds to the top near the parking lot, I went to the front and set a hard tempo. When we reached the top of the climb I looked back and found only Erik on my wheel. The guy I didn’t recognize was long gone and Mike M. had popped. During the next lap I talked to Erik and told him since he was ahead on points, I would work for him and wouldn’t sprint him for the finish.

For the next couple laps we traded pulls, but we couldn’t bring the rider in front of us back. It was kind of bummer that Mike M. blew as I think the 3 of us working together could have brought the rider in front back. The cool thing about this course was it had plenty of places to take visual checks on the riders in front and behind. We kept gaining on Mike M. until we couldn’t see him any more, but suddenly a new rider appeared behind us! I was convinced it was the singlespeeder we had dropped earlier. I started getting paranoid about getting caught from behind as this usually seems to happen to me when a race! Erik and I made a plan on what to do if it happened. Suddenly Pat Schott appeared behind us. He rapidly passed the rider behind us and was making large gains on us.

Going into the last lap Pat had almost closed the gap to us and was ready to lap us and the guy behind him had taken a huge chunk out of us. This certainly increased my paranoia, so I went to the front and started to give it all I had left! Pat caught us half way through zigzag in the barn and I hoped onto his wheel. We started up the hill on Pat’s wheel and about half the way up Pat slowed a bit so I came around to take a pull. In the process I gaped Pat and dropped Erik. Dooh! Pat came back around me and I soft pedaled behind him while waiting for Erik. Pat rode away and Erik finally caught up to me on the finish line straightaway and I let him pass so he could score extra points. All of the paranoia I suffered on the last to laps was unfounded as the rider in question behind us was in the Elite Men class and not the Singlespeed class.

This was most certainly my best race of the year. I felt very strong and didn’t blow once. I have absolutely no idea why I felt so good. I did nothing unusual in the days leading up to the race. I had a lot of fun riding with Erik and he was very stoked to have someone work for him. 17 races down and one to go!