I made a weekend out of it. I drove to my parents' house on Friday night, then got up early on Saturday and pre-rode most of the course with Greg. Greg lives near Fort Custer, so he's ridden there often. I really enjoyed the trails, but there were several spots where I expected that the local guys would eat me up (Saturday was the first time I'd ridden there), and they did. The only hang-up on Saturday was that I bent my derailleur hanger on a big stick. My dad and I messed with it Saturday afternoon and got it bent back so it was reasonably straight. I have since ordered and extra hanger from Kona, just in case.
Going into the race, I was torn between racing Sport and Beginner. Given that I'd only ridden these trails once, that I'm just ending my Base phase, and that I've gotten pretty well smoked in every bike race I've entered to this point, I elected to go with Beginner.
The start of the race looked to be important. The race started in an open field, but only stayed in the field for about 50 yards before it hit the singletrack. They had mowed a bit on each side of the trail, so you could pass, but it was not ideal. I had a decent start and hit the singletrack in about 5th place. The 4 guys in front of me immediately opened a small gap. We also almost immediately started passing the slower Sport racers on their second laps.
I maintained contact pretty well until we hit the first little techy bit, a twistier stretch of singletrack with a bunch of logpiles (I should say now that I've never seen a trail system with as many logpiles as Fort Custer). Somehow, I managed to trip myself going over one of them (I literally caught my foot on a log and tripped). It wasn't a bad crash, but it cost me a little time and a few guys got by me.
We hit the biggest climbs next, they call them the Cardiac Climb and CPR. They're really not as bad as the names suggest, but they are made tricky by some substantial logs across the trail about 3/4 of the way up. I passed some guys going up these hills.
The next section, called Granny's Garden (I have no idea why), was the most technical of the course. It's pretty tight and twisty and has lots of little drops and short technical climbs. I had done reasonably well here in the pre-ride, but I made a mistake during the race. I was going down a section of little drops which ended with a hard right hand turn. The ground was pretty soft at the bottom, and I either had my weight too far forward or I started turning my wheel before it got rolling. In any case, my front wheel stopped and I went down. This crash cost me some real time, and a little skin. In addition to having to pick myself back up, my chain came off the chainring, so I had to put that back on.
There was a pretty easy section after Granny's Garden, but I was a little gassed and couldn't push as hard as I would have liked. In terms of fitness, that was really my only disappointment of the race (OK, I would have also liked to have hung with those first 4 guys at the start, but considering where I am in my training plan, that wasn't a surprise). This lead into the Amusement Park, a relatively flat and not-too-difficult singletrack section. I wasn't able to get close enough to the guy in front of me (who may or may not have been in my class) to pass, but I didn't lose any ground either. I basically maintained this position for quite a while. I did pass a guy at some point whose derailleur had ripped off. I saw it come off, but I'm not sure exactly what caused it to let go, it was kind of strange.
After meandering about on some flat singletrack, we hit what is, in my opinion, the signature trail feature of Fort Custer, the Trenches. The trail winds in and out and along a series of trenches that were used when the park area was still part of the military base. They're pretty easy (and fun) to ride, but since you can't see very far ahead, it's hard to go fast if you're not familiar with them. I entered the Trenches right behind a few guys, and by the time I got out, they were gone.
Not too much to say about the rest of the lap. We did go through a stream crossing, which Greg and I didn't know about for the pre-ride. It wasn't a big deal, except the part I rode through was pretty deep. The guy taking pictures told me that it was much shallower earlier in the day. Pictures of me going through the stream are here and here.
The only other point of interest was a decision we had to make going through or around this large pit near the finish. One side said "easy" (which I took to mean slow), and the other side said "hard" (which I took to mean fast). Greg and I had taken the easy choice on Saturday. I decided to take the hard way for the race, which was a mistake. It was a loose downhill (which wasn't a problem), but you had to turn a bit at the bottom and the trail was pretty washed out. They had armored the bottom with some wood planks, and I had to slow a little to hit the planks (had I missed them, I think I would have experienced crash #3). Anyway, the momentum I lost hurt me on the very loose climb back out. A couple guys behind me had taken the easy way and ended up ahead of me when the trail came back together. From here, it was a pretty flat, open cruise to the finish.
So, that was it. I ended up finishing 12th out of 20. After looking at the results, I'm pretty sure that one of the guys that went by me around that pit was in my class and beat me by about 6 seconds. Comparing my speed to the speeds from last year (they used a slightly shorter course) suggests I would have come in 4th or 5th in that field. Just goes to show that your placement depends a lot on who shows up. Incidently, it looks like I would have been crushed in Sport.
Despite the fact that I expected to place higher before the race, I was basically happy with my performance. My fitness level was about where I expected it to be. Considering that this race happened at the end of a 3 week training block, it was actually better than I expected. I wasn't so hot on the real anaerobic sections (like the start), but at this point in my training program, that's to be expected. I also felt like I probably could have done another lap if I had to. I wouldn't have been competitive in the Sport class, but I probably could have gotten through it.
Even though I lost a lot of time in the more technical parts of the course (and crashed twice), I was actually reasonably happy with the technical riding part of my race. Considering I'd only ridden the trail once before, the technical bits went better than I expected. I surprised myself and absolutely ripped through a few sections (sort of a situation where I just turned my brain off and went for it); of course, this was offset by being a little too tentative in some other parts. I definitely need to keep working on the technical aspect of my riding. I think at this point I'm losing more time on sections where speed is limited by skill rather than by fitness.
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