Battle at Burlingame XC Race

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chrismitchell
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Battle at Burlingame XC Race

Post by chrismitchell »

After a less than ideal showing at the Fat Tire Classic last weekend we moved onto the Battle @ Burlingame this weekend. After feeling nervous and anxious last week, I was relaxed and focused. Maybe a little more relaxed than focused after I almost missed the start. But regardless I made it to the start with maybe 2 minutes to spare. Fowler and I lined up side by side in the back row, gun goes off and we take off, Fowler jumps onto the gravel and makes a b-line to the front, I settle in 4 or 5 riders behind him heading into the single track. I have a quick talk with myself to keep it steady and try to settle in.

I start out behind a guy who seemed fit and competent on the single track, after maybe a quarter of a mile I see an opportunity to pass and go by with him hot on my tail. We cruise together for a while and we catch a couple riders on the single track. I pass at my first opportunity and almost lose the spots again as I slide out turning onto the double track. I manage to catch myself and mash on the pedals heading up the fire road, holding my position.

After another mile or two I am all by myself in the woods, I can occasionally catch a glimpse of the guy behind me as I start reeling in the guy ahead of me. I catch the guy ahead of me by the end of the first lap, we chat briefly and I ask to pass at the next convenient place and he says sure. Then he dusts me off of the A-line rock drop (Pare warned me it was faster but I didn’t listen). I spent the next lap plus trying to reel him back in. As I’m finishing up my second lap I catch a high five from Pare at the road crossing and he tells me the guy in front of me has a huge beard (what I heard was, that guy has a huge beer gut). Taking it as a classic Pare troll I get moving and reel him in and make the pass at the start of the third lap. He is right on my tail, but I knew I was stronger than him on the hills. I know I just have to keep my lead into the hill(ier) terrain at the end of the course and I’ve got it. We hit the hills, he disappears and I hold on to finish 6th (out of 17). Pretty happy with the finish after last week’s debacle. Big shout out to Fowler for taking home 3rd place and winning his battle at the end. Looking forward to a technical Wallum Lake course this week. Should shake things up a bit.
fowleezy
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Re: Battle at Burlingame XC Race

Post by fowleezy »

Apologies for the long report, but I mostly wrote this for myself in case I ever forget how fun racing XC can be. This was definitely one of the most epic race battles I have ever had, even if it was only for 3rd in the "mediocre millennial" category.

CAT 2 19-39:

Cactus and I both started at the back of the field, mostly due to Cactus's casual disregard for the time that the race started. The race started and I quickly was able to get into 7th or 8th position on the wide open road section that started the lap. I stayed there through the first section of single track and slowly picked off a couple riders to more into what I thought at the time was 4th, but it turned out to be 5th because whoever was in the lead was out of sight within the first half lap. Second place guy was pulling away at this point, and so that set up a battle for third place between me, a Boloco guy, and another guy who was terrible on the single track but fast as hell on the double track, whom I will hereinafter referred to as "roadie."

So Roadie led the way into the second half of the lap that is mostly single track with Boloco and I right on his wheel. Roadie was painfully slow in this section, grabbing a fistful of brake in every corner and practically coming to a stop at the log crossings (Hint: foreshadowing). I moved into 4th when Boloco dropped his chain. I was able to recover a bit riding behind Roadie through the singletrack, and I used this time to plan my attack. I was going to try to pass on the next long road section that started the second lap.

Roadie was so slow on the singletrack that Boloco had caught back on by the end of lap 1, and it turned out that we both had the same plan to pass roadie on the road section, and Boloco led me and Roadie into the first section of singletrack. We were in the order as we pulled onto a long doubletrack straightaway and I pulled through. I muttered to Boloco to stay ahead going into the singletrack section, and he seemed to be all for it. After all, we had developed the kind of bond that can only be obtained after shared trauma like following Roadie through a mile and a half of tame singletrack. I heard Boloco say he was going to pull through to my right, and he told me to get right on his wheel as we headed into the single track. It was at this point that my complete lack of road skills showed, because Roadie forced his way in behind Boloco despite my best efforts, and I was again behind him going onto the singletrack. To make things worse I was cracked after that last effort on the doubletrack, and I watch them pull away up one of the hills. I basically thought my race was over at this point, that I would just have to settle in and hopefully no one else would pass me and I would get 5th.

However, I told myself to try to just keep them in sight for as long as I could, no matter how painful it was. I figured if I did this much, I knew I wouldn't be touching the brakes as much as those 2, and maybe I could slowly claw my way back to them. To my total surprise, this actually worked. I slowly started reeling them in, and after passing Pare, who was posted up heckling on one of the road crossings, I was getting really close to them. I finally caught up on one of the short downhills and could not believe it. Then Roadie went down in one of the corners and I passed him and moved into 4th behind Boloco coming into the final lap.

Boloco and I again worked together at the road section that started the final lap, and I took a pull before letting him pull through into the singletrack section with Roadie right back on my wheel. At this point I was so cracked I was just going to be happy if Boloco got third. I justified it because I was still pissed they closed the Boloco's in both Natick and Wellesley, and I thought that the advertising value that a third place podium at a CAT 2 XC race in Rhode Island might bring in enough revenue to open one of the locations back up. While I was contemplating this, Boloco crashed hard right in front of me going onto the long double track straightaway and I narrowly avoided him. Of course Roadie crushed me on the double track, so we went into the final section of singletrack Roadie, me, then Boloco.

Roadie was again slow as all hell in the corners and at this point I decided I was going to beat him, I just had to figure out a spot to pass. Most of the singletrack was too narrow, and he was taking the A- line (not the B line) on the rock drop, so I knew I couldn't get around him on the drop without causing a crash. There wasn't much of a finish stretch either, and I am really unsure about how well I can actually sprint anyway. I remembered Roadie coming to almost a complete stop on the log crossings, so I decided I was going to try to pass him there. This meant I would have to bunny hop the log instead of taking the ramp up, which I wasn't sure if I could do, but I knew that if I didn't I would likely be stuck in fourth anyway, so I was only risking a drop to 5th with Boloco on my wheel.

I stayed right on Roadie's wheel and waited for the log crossing. I saw the log coming up ahead, put down my dropper post, started my sprint around him and bunny hopped the log to the right of Roadie. It went perfectly and I was around him, and I pulled a little gap on the subsequent log crossing and my adrenaline. There was still a bit to go, but I thought that if I just stayed on it I could hang on to third. Roadie and Boloco got back on my wheel on some of the short uphills, but I tried to gain time where I could, one the drop and in some of the corners. After one of the longer downhills, I had gotten a few seconds over them heading into the final section. There were a couple "techy" spots like stone wall crossings, etc. in this section that I knew I would be faster on, so I pretty much had 3rd at this point, but I just kept pushing because I wasn't sure if one of them would pass me at the finish sprint. In the end, I hung on for 3rd, and the beer tasted pretty sweet at the end of that one.

Looking forward to next week at Wallum Lake.
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pace21
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Re: Battle at Burlingame XC Race

Post by pace21 »

Yup this was a fun one. Busick, Oscar, and I lined up for the Cat1 40-49 division and with a smallish (20) field and a whole lot of open space in the first 1/2 mile there wasn't the usual starting line scrum. I managed to be front row and had a decent start while forcing myself to NOT go as hard in the first 5 minutes as last week (this was a good strategy). The first lap felt really slow as we basically let the (eventual) leader go and no one really wanted to take up the role of leading the way since there were long stretches of headwindy open sections of the course. Fine by me. I slotted into 3rd which quickly became 2nd again. Wait I don't want to be here, back to 3rd and then 4th. Cool.

Settled into a nice rythm with Oscar glued to my wheel and Busick with a couple friends around 15-20seconds back, admittedly it was kinda fun running a 2 man TT of MRC for that second lap. At one point I wondered if I was actually hurting rather than helping Oscar so I asked him if he wanted to get by and fully expected him to say "no, I'm good" but alas he emphatically said yes and shot by, quickly building a 5-10 second gap. Little did he know that Expert races are about 40% longer than Sport races [insert sinister laugh]. Unfortunately I though it was just Oscar on my wheel but unbeknownst to me there were 2 more railcars on our train and those guys went by at the same time. Crap. Then about a minute later I dropped my chain over one of the stone walls and Busick and 2 more go by. Double crap, now there's like a 30 second gap to Oscar and his 2 new buddies, and Busick is like 10 seconds ahead. OK, settle down and start getting in a rythym, also suck down a gel rolling through start/finish (I always forget!)

It took a lap but I caught on to the "group Busick" and in the meantime passed Oscar after he remembered about the 2 extra Expert laps and started riding his bike backwards. I dangled on the back of the Busick group which now included the eventual 50+ podium, and after about 3 minutes of recovery on the group I proceeded to slide out and smash my knee in a corner. Yay! Get back on and chase some more. Took almost a complete lap to catch back up to Busick but fortunately I did so just in time to go past Katie and confuse her some more (I thought you were Oscar!!) and now Busick and I rolled through start/finish to start the final lap. Apparently we weren't going hard enough because we were riding two-wide and having a conversation, thus by definition we were off the rivet. I led for the first 1/4 lap through the twisties and then graciously pulled aside to let the Diesel pull through on the flat wide headwindy fire road section. And pull through he did! Full road-tuck on the bars and absolutely smashed the minute long section, pulling back 10+ seconds on 3rd place and then proceeding to go flying by with me in tow and bouncing off every root and rock because I was only looking at Busick's rear tire. I burned a match on the section for sure but Busick burned at least 3, which meant that he was basically junk for the ensuing climb. At this point we had passed 3rd so Busick and I were 3rd and 4th (if ever so briefly). Third passed me almost instantly on the climb since apparently he hadn't been doing a Zone 6 interval on the fire road but I managed to catch on with a single digit time deficit by the top of the climb. The final half lap consisted of me clawing back those single digit seconds until finally with about a mile left I made contact. He could out climb me but I could out turn and out technical him.

In hindsight I SHOULD have made a Fowler-esque move on the final log hop (a minute before the finish) because he was really slow over it and I had to check up. From there it was tight the whole way on the techiest part of the course with no place to really pass without taking us both out. Thought maybe I could wind it up over the wide rooty section before the finish straight but had to go off the smooth line and lost some momentum in the mega-roots. With a short finish straight he was able to kick it and dispatch me a couple bike lengths at the line.

Also with all the shuffling of crashing and mechanical-ing I didn't know my position until after the race. Honestly I'm not sure I would (or could) have done anything differently if I new I was racing for 3rd rather than what I thought was 5th/6th/7th-ish. Oh well, that's bike racing.

It was super fun to have all 3 of the MRC guys take turns leading our intra-squad battle. With my mishaps I ended up passing the same 4 or 5 guys sometimes 3 separate times during the race so I'm convinced they thought they were racing against like 10 MRC guys, kinda like one of those Bugs Bunny cartoons where Bugs makes a bunch of laps around Elmer Fudd and Elmer thinks he's up against a whole army of Bugs's.
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oscarp
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Re: Battle at Burlingame XC Race

Post by oscarp »

I think that was a well described race from Chris. Super fun. Yeah expert racing is whole different ball game than sport. My goal on this one was to finish in the top half and Id consider it a success. 5laps/21mi with about a 20min lap. I lined up front row with Pare. Im all in on this one, what the worst that can happen? Whistle blows and were off. I quickly find myself on Pares wheel. That exactly where I want to be. 5th is not bad running thru the singletrack. I figure if I last a few minutes on his wheel Id have a good feel of the expert start pacing. So a few minutes turns into 20. Thats the first lap! Im thinking this is manageable! Im still on his wheel. Holy crap. Im running 5th and no one in sight behind.

Something like halfway thru the second lap, im still focused on keeping Pares wheel. Im so psyched right now! I look back and see guys were closing in fast. Then I hear something from Chris asking me if I wanted to pass. Whats going on? Is this a joke? Hell yeah!!! I move in 4th place and fully expected Chris to be on my wheel. Huh no? Clearly his bike must have fallen apart. I was thinking good he brought that multi-tool with him after last week needing and not having one. Im riding in 4th now. Im so pumped, this really cant be happening. 40 minutes down, with only 3 more laps to go.

So things get a little foggy from here. Im not sure what started happening on my 3rd lap. I started getting passed and not being able to hold their wheels. Oh nuts. My "high" of finishing 4th in my first expert race in my mtb comeback was starting to topple. I began to panic. Then it happened. I decided to pick a different line on a 2 log hop over that was on a slight hill. I had no problem the first 2 times, but noooooo I had to mess it up and get off and run. Well just so happens Busick was on my wheel and I caused him to get off too. Shit im falling apart. All I hear from Busick is "I was saying whats the chance Oscar is gonna fuck up the log hop up". I think he concluded by saying "pretty good chance apparently". The only friggin time I messed that up the whole race was that time. I couldnt hold his wheel. No no no.

Not too long after, Pare comes steam rolling by with a freight train of riders. Yells at me to get on. I did. Well for a minute. I switch in to preservation TT mode. Try to lose as little spots as possible. Oh and yeah finally drink. I was so focused the first 3 laps I didnt drink or take my gu. The highlight of my 5th and final lap was sucking down a whole bottle.

I end up in 9th. I met my goal of top half. Alot of emotions in this race. I went from being nervous as hell for the start. To being psyched being on Pare's wheel. Getting the ultimate high of being in 4th and being ahead of both Chris's. Then it all came crashing down. Then getting some relief after seeing the 9th place result, that I didnt do so bad.

So cool to have the teammates in the race too, this is going to be a fun mtb season for sure! It was fun relaxing at the team tent which the sport MRC'ers battle it out!
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mohinishvi
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Re: Battle at Burlingame XC Race

Post by mohinishvi »

oscarp wrote: Tue May 01, 2018 11:54 am Well just so happens Busick was on my wheel and I caused him to get off too. Shit im falling apart. All I hear from Busick is "I was saying whats the chance Oscar is gonna fuck up the log hop up". I think he concluded by saying "pretty good chance apparently". The only friggin time I messed that up the whole race was that time. I couldnt hold his wheel. No no no.
Haha! Kingdom trails flashback.
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cbusick
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Re: Battle at Burlingame XC Race

Post by cbusick »

First that was a great battle Fowler had for 3rd! I was hoping he'd figure out a way to beat those guys, but after Pare's observation that there isn't much of a passing opportunity going into the finish I didn't know how he'd do it.

Second, what did you come back to the tent for before your start Cactus? And why didn't you ride your bike over? Don't you know running is bad for you?

Staging was interesting, we started milling around at the bottom if the hill by the beach near the big "STAGING" sign. Then Wissel, commented, this can't be right, the 6 hour guys come down this hill, and sure enough, every so often a 6 hour guy would bomb down the hill through the bunch of us milling around. The race "organizers" agreed with Mike that we shouldn't stage there and we moved up.

Tri-Mom is a firm believer in chip timing. I don't know if she thinks we all have rfid scanners in our garmins, but she doesn't make it easy for humans to tell who is in what field. Anyway, to her, the actual number on the plate is meaningless, might as well be random, let the computers sort it out, so she assigned them alphabetically. Not Alphabetically by field, but alphabetically overall. There wasn't a computer at the start though so getting the fields sorted out was a bit of a mess and then they announced they were staging 4 across so I got pushed back to the scrub zone.

With a soft 'go' we are off. I felt like I was about 30th out of 20, but it was probably more like 15th. When we turned onto the double track with the railroad tie water bars I tried passing Paul Cox on the left. He then came across the trail and ran me into the tape. I pushed back against his hip but he kept pushing until I backed off. At the time I thought it was deliberate and was surprised because I thought that kind of move was reserved for CX, MTB was supposed to be more laid back, right? Now I'm not so sure. After following him for a lap it could be he lacked the skill to get over the 1.5" of exposed railroad tie and wanted to go for the line on the left where you could avoid them all together.

I tried again to get around him going through the campgrounds but after having to do a dodgy move to squeeze between a picnic table and a fire pit I decided to wait for a better opportunity. At this point I figured Pare and Oscar were gone for the day, but I could see Bruce Romano tailgunning the group ahead. I should be racing with him, but I had to get there, and every time Paul grabbed the brakes the gap grew. We hit the long fireroad and I tried to sprint around Paul, but he is apparently pretty strong when the road goes straight, and all I could do was sit in his draft. This was fine since he closed the gap to Bruce, but then it wasn't fine since he screwed up Oscar's log and then hit the brakes on the fun fast downhill and let the gap open again.

Finally in when we hit that field by the playground I attacked him again, and he didn't react. I managed to pick off a couple stage 9 guys as well before reentering the woods. I was convinced my race was ruined but overall I guess we weren't going all that slow. When I passed Katie she yelled "they're just ahead of you". I hadn't even seen a glimpse of Pare or Oscar. I finished lap 1 in 11th, 37 seconds behind Pare and Oscar.
Near the end of lap2 I could see Oscar's helmet ahead of me on some of the switchbacks. Then on the 2nd stone wall I saw a MRC jersey on the side of the trail wrestling with his chain, I assumed it was Oscar, but then noticed the bike had a fork instead of a pogo stick holding the front wheel on. "Pare! what are you doing here? I thought you were Oscar." "Oscar's crushing it!" he yelled back.

End of Lap 2, I'm in 7th, 9 sec ahead of Pare, 9 sec behind Oscar. Oscar is battling with Vladmire Capka. I take the time to drink and suck down a gu on the fireroad before closing the gap. As soon as it goes up Vlad slips around Oscar and opens a gap, man he can climb. I was remembering how long it took Oscar to crack at KT last year, or actually did he ever crack? And then Pare's comment about how he was killing it, I thought it would be good to just sit on his wheel for a while and recover then we could work together to hunt down Vlad, and there's no way Oscar would F' up that log ahead...

So I passed Oscar after he did what I think was three complete pedal revolutions as his rear tire slid the length of the log sideways. I figured he'd hang with me, and I asked what place he was in, since I had NO clue. He said Vlad was in 5th, so I was 6th. And then he slowly fell off. I heard a lot of crashing through trees and undergrowth behind me on some of the turns, not sure what that was about, but he was gone.

End of lap 3, I'm in 5th place, but I thought 6th, because who can tell when people are assigned numbers randomly? Did I complain about that yet?
Pare's 2 seconds behind me, Oscar 7. I

At this point let me say that I had my doubts about a black jersey for the MTB team, but it is money. Combined with the subdued fuschia/red it is pretty stealthy in the woods. When I looked back I could see Oscar's disembodied hi vis helment and the white "minuteman" script on his leg. compared the the other teams wearing bright green "come catch me!" colors.

Anyway I could see a guy in red about 10 sec behind me and then some other ghostly movement which I was pretty sure was a MRC kit, but couldn't get a clear sight of. I assumed it was Oscar, but eventually I figured out white helmet = Pare. He caught me at the end of lap 4. At this point I was in 4th (but I thought 6th), Oscar over a minute behind. I asked what happened to Oscar and he shrugged and said something about bringing sport legs to an expert race. Then I pointed to Vlad 9 seconds ahead of us and said "Oscar says that guy is in 5th". To which Pare responded "We should get him then" and took off after him. I warned Pare that Vlad climbs very well. We hit the fireroad and Pare waved me through. I drilled it in full "lets see how long I can do this before Cratty complains, Cinco de Mayo pace" and closed the gap to Vlad. I was hoping if I could slingshot (does that work in MTB?) Pare ahead of Vlad at the bottom of the hill he could go fast enough to stay with him and then drop him on the turny bits.

A the bottom of the hill I pulled over to "launch" Pare, but he said "That Hurt" as he went by. Vlad was on his wheel yelling "keep going, keep going, arrrgghh on your left" and then he was gone.

I was cooked and went just hard enough to hold off the guy in red jersay who was still lurking 10 seconds back, but never closing.
-Chris Busick
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