Fool's Gold is a 50/100 mile mountain bike held in the mountains of N. GA. Aug 20th 2011 was my 3rd consecutive year racing the 50 miler. This year the start/finish venue was moved to the Montaluce Winery NW of Dahlonega. Actually, it wasn't on the winery grounds, but close by in an unfinished subdivision (roads, lot clearings, but no houses) courtesy of the housing bubble bust. This was a much better, more open venue, and it had a pool! Seems that the developer put in a pool for all the (non-existent) homeowners to use....it was very nice for a long post race dip!
The race started at 7:50 (100ers went at about 7:10) with a neutral rollout on paved road through the rolling hills. With something like 250 starters, I made it a point to stay in the top 20 so that when the race was on, and we turned uphill, I wouldn't have to fight my way forward. This worked well, and within the first ten minutes there was a group of about ten of us at the front. Dan Holt, pro roadie on Team Type 1, eased off the front and then things really split up. Tim Smith went solo, and then Eric Smith and me. After about five minutes Eric and I settled in about 30 seconds behind Tim, and Dan went out of sight. We must have established a big gap behind us because I couldn't see anybody even on long straightaways. This fit nicely in my strategy, because this climb was over ten miles of the race and a great place to establish a lead. The descent on Winding Stair road was very rutted and required equal amounts of courage and skill to go fast without crashing. The turn onto singletrack trail was so welcome, especially since the trail was in great shape after much hard work by volunteers. I continued to ride well, moving up into 2nd place on the trail by about the halfway point. But....in mountain bike racing many things can go wrong. On a fast descent I made the error of not shifting into an easier gear as the trail turned and went back up over some big rocks. I then tried to shift down and pedal and things jammed up in my gears. Rather than fight it there, I shouldered my bike and ran 150 feet to the top of the rise and got on and pedaled. We have an expression in bike racing of "no chain"--that means you're so strong it feels effortless. In my case it meant NO CHAIN! It was gone...so I ran back downhill where I found a kid holding up...my chain. His dad helped me to secure a chain link and reassemble it. What luck having them there! It did cost me about 7-8 minutes and several of my competitors cruised by. From then on my race was "full throttle"--I was determined to make up my lost placings or blow up trying. I started passing riders almost immediately, one (Jason Betz) who took my challenge to heart and stayed pretty close behind. This in combination with some great trail bolstered my determination. One goal I had set before the race was to "catch" Mike Brown and Asa Marshall, who started about 40 minutes earlier but were racing the 100. When I caught and passed them (in good spirits and good shape) I really gave it everything, and finally dropped my pursuer. I wasn't sure how many more 50 milers I had in front of me, but when I passed Maria Brown and Debbie Blankenship at the junction 3.5 miles from the finish (there to cheer the husbands and hometown boys on) they said there was only two racers in front of me. I got into road race time trial mode and lo-and-behold I got sight of Tim Smith. I did my best to sneak up on him, and gunned it up the hill as I went by. He appeared to not be able to respond, and as I turned onto a grassy road on the winery property I felt good about keeping him at bay...which was good as I was pretty much spent. At the bottom of one last grunt climb he reappeared a few hundred feet back so I had to sprint up the final climb, and cruised to the finish about 20 seconds ahead of him. Dan Holt finished about 11 minutes ahead of me, so even if I hadn't broken my chain he'd have won. Now if I had a 29er bike.....Results
I brought my road bike on the chance that Sunday I might race the Grant Park criterium in downtown Atlanta. It was almost right on the way home and the Masters race (35+ and 45+ combined) started at 2:15--plenty of time to sleep in and have a relaxing morning and a big breakfast with my Fools Gold companions. So, I rode a few laps in my gym shorts before paying my entry to see how my legs felt...good enough to try! It was a pretty big field (~50 racers) with some very strong crit racers, so my hopes weren't very high. My plan was to stay toward the front and try to go with any moves...until I blew up and got dropped. As things went, I did get into and stay with an 11 rider break, and had enough sprint left to take 7th and 3rd in the 45+ class. Results
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