get a jersey in the end. But this means winning the races that didn’t fit into the Bubba Series or NECS XC because they were too long and contained too many rocks. Basically the races that were deemed “Old School New England”. I’m not sure how Secret Squirrel didn’t get lumped into this category, possibly they faked out the powers that be with a venue change after the series had been decided.
Or maybe Secret Squirrel didn’t have enough climbing.
Since nobody other than MRC was dumb enough to do back to back TVR and Domnarski, I figured that worst case I only had to finish 5th or better in the remaining 3 races to win the series, so I should at least race Domnarski and see how things stood.
I pre-rode the course Saturday morning. Wow. This was going to be a tough one.
I had serious concerns about having a 34T X 40 as my low gear. Don said there were soul crushing
gravel climbs on the course, which gave me an image of loose gravel roads that sucked your energy. I wasn’t expecting them to be power line and abandoned logging road climbs where you had to scrabble for every bit of traction and celebrated just being able to make it up. I had a long text conversation with Brian and Don about gearing. Then Jeremy texted me that he was going to race Domnarski. Should I tell him what he was signing up for? No, I didn’t want to scare him away. Instead I told him “If you do this race, and do well, and don’t complain I’ll never give you shit for being a roadie again. Also if you finish 2 spots ahead of me you’ll be leading the headbanger series. Then YOU get to figure out if you care or not” Jeremy decided that being accepted as a true Mountain Biker was worth making the trip out to Ware.
The race starts with a grassy double track that turns left and up a steep tech climb with greasy rocks. Cratty was determined that he was going to ride it. “I’m going High! If you are ahead of me, go low, cause I’m still going high!” I was starting on the front row, Cratty in the 3rd. I was 4th wheel at the hole shot and thinking I might clean the hill on the low line when #3 spun out and jammed me. There were a bunch of people running everywhere then Cratty was yelling “ON YOUR LEFT!” and he blew through the group managing to ride the whole thing and was gone with the leaders and Brian chasing after him.
Meanwhile I got caught up in a mess at the stream crossing, thought I could get around to the left but the guy ahead spun out and fell over into my line. Another dismount and a few more spots lost.
I finally get going again and get to Katie who yells “I just saw two Black Bears cross the trail!!”
“Oh, that’s soo cool!!! I replied” and didn’t hear her respond with “I’m scared!”. Apparently I was supposed to stop and scare the bear off or something and not just be jealous at the opportunity she just had.
I see Ian from Fritz up ahead. Every time he is mentioned people say “he climbs really well” This was the first MTB race with any climbing so I figured keeping him in sight was a good idea. We worked our way through a bunch of people who were realizing they might have started a bit too hard. We caught Cratty just before the top of the climb, then he took off and opened a huge gap to Ian on the downhill. Ian cleaned one of the skinny bridges and I blew it giving him a huge gap.
I finally reeled in Ian again on the fire road before the pavement, catching him as we passed Kathleen who looked like she was enjoying herself. Being a Roadie myself I couldn’t pull Ian up to cratty so I just sat on his wheel, and drank some water.
“Hi, you are Ian right? I’m Chris”
“Oh hi Chris”
“Is that Cratty just ahead?”
“Yup, that’s him. I can’t keep up with him on the downhills, he just took off”
“Yeah, he’s nuts. I wonder how he will like this next climb that he has no idea is coming?”
“Heh heh”
Turns out Ian isn’t THAT great a climber. I dropped him on the Halfway Hill climb and then chased down Cratty and then Saw Brian up ahead. After halfway hill there was a little bit of double track downhill then a turn onto another climb.
“That’s it, all that climbing and no reward” Jeremy said in a voice that sounded a bit like complaining.
The climb was short and we had some more descending then a turn onto a single track with a couple big rocks 1/2 hidden behind grass or ferns or something that I swiped with my rear wheel.
“Oh Jeremy, you are going to LOOOVVE this next climb” I said and we turned onto the power line.
The power line started off with a reasonable power line type climb, but as you crest you can see other riders ahead, way ahead and way way up scrabbling up a rocky climb to the top of the lines.
I caught up to Brian and white jersey 50+ guy who Brian seemed to be stuck with. After recovering for a few seconds I thought I could go around on the right but it was crap and I spun out and had to start walking. Brian and white jersey pulled away. It was hot. Pushing the bike up the hill was hard, I took a look back before remounting at the top and saw Cratty also walking his bike and no longer looking like a threat to my Headbangers Series Lead.
Then I started chasing Brian. I caught him at the top of Fox hill and we started down together. The guy we were chasing got freaked out on the loose downhill and slammed his breaks skidding and tossing gravel so we dropped him.
Then we went around for a 2nd lap. Brian was killing me on the early hills, but i could catch him on the power straightaways and we were together at the power line climb. This was the point where I was just hoping to stay with him to the finish, but I think his 15 mile pre-ride was catching up with him and he let me go on the climb. I was having twinges of cramps in my legs, and wasn’t sure I could walk the hill again without my calf locking up so I stood up and flailed my way up the climb, with my calf protesting the whole way.
I was pretty cooked at this point but saw that I had a good gap on Brian and a kid that was chasing us from the 30+. There was someone behind Brian but I couldn’t tell who. I took off hoping to extend my gap and then came to the place where there’s an easy long option to the left of a big tree or straight down some reasonable sized rocks. I had no trouble with the straight down option during pre ride or lap one, but somehow my rear tire slid out on the first big greasy bolder and I hit the second one with my front wheel flying off into the woods.
Fortunately the bike was ok and I got going again, but I could hear Brian and the kid coming now. I got over Fox hill and started the descent to the finish, coming in 3rd and cementing my lead in the Headbanger’s Series. Brian came in right behind me for 4th, then Cratty for 7th. I think this means we are 1-2-3 in the Series.
But I still get to give Cratty shit because he certainly was complaining even though he did pretty well and actually went around for lap 2.
Does this mean we have to do Landmine and Freetown 50 at the beginning of cross season?
