Big-M XC

I raced the Big-M XC race this weekend. I've never been there before, so I drove up Saturday to pre-ride. I have to say, I was a little disappointed with the course. It was almost totally non-technical; just the last big downhill required a little care. There was lots of climbing though, so it was tough physically.

I camped out with some other Rhinos on Saturday night, so that was pretty fun.

My class had a decent turnout for the race, 12 guys, including most of the usual East-side suspects. The first couple miles of the course were pretty flat, so the race was fast right from the gun. I did a good job hanging on to the pack for a while, but then I popped right before we got to the first long climb / false flat. In hindsight, I probably went a little too hard at the start, because it took me quite a while to recover from the effort. On the other hand, the hard start also let me drop one of the guys I beat, and I never saw him again.

I finally recovered a bit for the second lap, and the second and third laps went pretty well. I've been working on trying to maintain my momentum on the singletrack, and it seemed like I was doing that better.

My legs were feeling the effect of the climbs on the last lap though, and I was pretty cooked. Near the end of the lap, I saw a guy standing to the side of the trail sucking wind. I asked if he was OK and went by him (I didn't recognize him or check his number). He hopped on his bike and went by me. It wasn't until he had a bit of a gap that I wondered if he was in my class. I didn't have anything left to chase him, and at the finish, I saw he was in my class. Doh! So, he beat me by about 15s.

Anyway, I felt like I had a pretty decent race, and it was nice to beat a couple guys, even though I still finished at the back of the pack. It still seems like my weakness is just maintaining my power. I'm OK for the short bursty stuff and the climbs, but the longer efforts get to me.

For the first time I can remember, I also felt like I would have gone faster on a different bike. There weren't a lot of rough sections, but there was one section in particular that was mostly flat and had a bunch of roots. The roots were big enough that I felt like I had to do something (stand, unweight a bit, etc) to get over them without getting bucked around. When I was fresh, that wasn't a problem, but as the race wore on I was wishing the bike would just roll over that stuff faster. Supposedly, a 29er would do that, and I probably could have sat down and pedaled on a full-suspension bike. Since the mountain bike season is almost over, I probably won't do anything about it this year, but maybe next year...