Brighton Stage Race - 2011

The 2011 Brighton Stage Race is now in the books. My result wasn't a whole lot better than it was when I last did the race in 2008, but my performance was much better.

I almost didn't go to the race on Saturday. It was raining pretty hard in Waterford, but by the time I got to Brighton, the rain had stopped and it didn't rain the rest of the day. Despite the rain, the trail was in decent shape for the time trial, but it was a little difficult for me to tell which corners would be slippery and which were firm. I rode just OK; I had to run up one hill after my rear tire spun on a wet root and I dabbed one other place when I messed up my line. I ended up off the pace for the Expert field, but I improved my time from 2008 by more than 2 minutes.

The short track race was in a slightly different location than it was for 2008. The grass course was pretty bumpy and soft. I knew that a lot of people would be riding 'cross bikes, but I thought I would be OK on my mountain bike. I was OK, but a 'cross bike probably would have been a better choice. I got off to a good start, but after a lap or so, I couldn't hold the pace and had to back off. After that, people kept gradually coming around me. Like I said, a 'cross bike would have helped, but it was mostly a fitness issue. I'm not sure if it was just a problem with threshold power (kind of a weakness of mine, particularly on a soft bumpy course) or if it was the volume of repeated hard accelerations.

Sarah and the kids came out to watch the short track race. It was cool to hear Cora yelling "Go Dad Go!".


It was rainy and cold again on Sunday, but I figured that since I raced on Saturday, I might as well go on Sunday too. Instead of clearing up though, it kept raining, hard. It was also pretty cold, about 42F by the time my race finished. We decided to shorten the Expert race from 4 laps to 3. For whatever reason, I'd been a bit worried about the distance, so I felt much more confident about doing 3 laps.

I had a decent start for me, and could immediately see that I was going to be competitive in the race. I passed a few guys on the first lap and was riding pretty well. I only had one problem on the first lap, when one of the faster guys bumped me a bit making a pass; that screwed things up for me and the next guy trying to pass.

I felt like I was going really well on the second lap. The trail was getting muddier, but I was riding well. A guy that was following me said, "you're much better than me on the technical stuff"; I don't think anyone's ever said that to me in a race. Definitely a sign of progress. I was passing more guys and had to hold myself back a bit to save something for the last lap. That's when things started going south. My brakes, which I'd noticed were fading a bit, really started to go. By the end of the lap, I could hardly slow down and my front brake was making a metal-on-metal sound. I stopped at the start/finish area, hoping I could just adjust the cable to fix it, but then I saw that the pads were almost completely worn down. I decided not to try to finish the race like that. So, another DNF at the Brighton XC. Unlike 2008 though, I felt really good about how my race was going on Sunday, so I can't get too down about a mechancial problem. I figure there's some karma at work here; a lot of times in a hard race I'll be thinking about getting a flat or something to put me out of my misery. So it figures that when I'm going pretty well, that's when I'll have a problem.