2 Race Weekend

March 3rd

I would have a nice dress-rehearsal the weekend before Reddick race in the form of the Hospice 100. It is an event in its first year, and in memory of the mtn biker Cindy Feeney that died of cancer in the Fall of 2004. I decided to do it at the last minute and thought I had a team in with Andres and Wes Paradise. The night before I’m watching the movie 300 and I get a message from the Active Cycle’s shop owner ( Karem ) that Andres has pulled out. So the next morning I’m at the event scrambling to find a team that could compete with the Trek Team. Wes was in, and Karem has sent 2 riders to join us. They were First Timers which would make it very interesting if we wanted to be competitive. 2 First-Timers that ride for Active Cycles had a man bail on them, so I ask Wes if he would mind doing it anyway. So we decided to race as a Sport Team since I was an Expert, Wes is a Sport rider, and we had 2 First Timers. So it would turn into a very high intensity training ride.

Fast forward to the lemans starts. GO!! And I take the first 15 steps and I’m already in first place, but the empty water bottle comes out of the back of my jersey. I have to stop, turn around and pick it up. I manage to get back to my bike in the top 20, but I’m behind a lot of slow riders. The first part of Markhum is very tight and I know that I’m losing time, HELL, I’m not really in the race with 2 First Timers on my team anyway. Coming around a bumpy decent my change drops. WHAT!! When has my chain every dropped, and on the outside of my chainring? Not a great time to have it drop as I got passed by 20 riders before I got it back on. Now I’m really motivated because this lap is going to be slow for another reason. I get going and at the top of the dump I pass 6 riders going into the next singletrack and I start getting a rhythm, and slide out on some rocks and hit the deck. I get up and my chain is off again.



Observe the dirty left side

After a couple of choice 4 letter words I’m back on the bike and much more relaxed because I know this lap is a wash. So I settle in and I don’t even ask a rider if I can pass when I come up on his wheel, I just wait for an open section to pass. I finish the lap 5th over all with a lap time of 27mins, and 1 minute behind the fastest lap, but I know why.

The first timer was up, and he put in a 35minute laps and at that point I decided I was really going to have a good training ride. The second first timer was up, and he did a 33 minute laps. Wes brought up the rear and he did a 27 minute lap. I decided I would do 2 laps back to back. I did a 26 and 27 minute lap, and it was balls out. The First Timers did a 32 and 33 minute lap, and Wes put out another 27min lap. I did the last lap in 26 mins, 17sec. The fastest time of the day, and it was the best that I had felt. I still felt like I needed more, so I decided to the the Rosewood Crit Series Race the next day.