Today was my first mountain bike race in 4 years. What I thought was going to be fast fire roads and smooth double track, ended up being a gruelingly technical 20 mile journey through a lot of mud with lots of climbing. It renewed the meaning of the word epic to me.As expected I did not fare well on the technical parts partially cause of my bike but mostly cause this was my fifth mountain bike ride of the year (lyme disease is lame). Fortunately I did have some fitness from riding on the road to fall back on.
With such a prevalent handicap in the technical sections (i.e. mountain bike sections) my plan was to pedal on terrain that I could pedal on.
Somewhere around the halfway point of the race, after unnatural amounts of exertion and suffering, I lost track of all those nagging little things like reality. Then it hit me: racing mountain bikes is awesome. A surge of energy began pouring through my body and I charged ahead. Blazing through the woods, I picked up a bunch of riders.
Inevitably the effects of my efforts hit me pretty hard. But fortunately there wasn't too much further to go. I crashed a couple times and got my ass pretty beat up, but held on for 5th place - much better than I expected.
From a technical standpoint the last 45 minutes of the race were brutal. Every root and rock jarred my bones. Man I need to ride my mountain bike more.
But then I couldn't help but recall distant memories of racing on a blown SID shock. Sure enough, after the race I noticed that my lockout adjustment had been cranked all the way around, locking the shock. I must have hit it at some point during one of my thousand or so dismounts/crashes.Well, nothing like having the offroad skills of a roadie, on a really technical course, on a fully rigid bike.
Mountain bike racing kicks ass.
