I’ve only raced a couple of mtb XC events not promoted by
Gone Riding the last several years (but I have done a fair bit of endurance
races). So, when I saw that a new club
was promoting a new trail system with a race, and it included a couple of
meals, a nice t-shirt and a concert….I decided to give it a try! Chewacla is a AL state park just off I-85
outside Auburn, AL. It’s on the grounds
of an old CCC camp and has a nice lake, stream and waterfalls. I didn’t really visit the park much,
concentrating on the race and festivities, but it looked like a great place to
unwind for a weekend. The drive to
Auburn is quite relaxing—country highways with sparse traffic for the most part
(only 10 miles of interstate). I arrived
on Saturday about 4:15 pm for a 5 pm short track race…just enough time to get
changed, register and do a couple of warmup laps on the 1-mile flat and very
twisty course. The race was to be 30
minutes plus 2 laps…most laps/first finisher wins. With a fairly small turnout (maybe 25 men) we
were started in two heats males/females older than 19 years, and kids under 19
years old. As expected, the race was a
sprint from the start and really never let up.
I was initially about five riders back but was up into third by two
laps. The field pretty much exploded
with such varying abilities, and four of us settled into competition at the
front. That reduced to three by about 20
minutes. I took the lead at about 22
minutes and was surprised to hear the announcer call “two to go”. He didn’t ring a bell (as is customary) with
one to go, but when I was passed on the finishing straight (the only straight)
I knew I would need to pass and attack hard to win. Luck had it that the guy clipped a pedal and
dropped his chain, allowing me to get a small gap which I held to the finish
for the win…which ended up being at just less than 30 minutes.
Central Alabama Mountain Pedalers (CAMP) organized a nice
pasta feast with two bands and mtb movies under a large pavilion on top of a
bluff in the park. Being that I wanted
to preride the XC course the next morning before the race, and that I wanted to
race well rested, I turned in early, camping out near the race staging area at
the CCC camp. Sunrise comes early in AL, and I was on the trail on my pre-ride at 7 am. I had been told that the trails were very
twisty and narrow, and a look at the map backed that up too. It wasn’t too difficult to ride at a casual pace,
for the most part, but I could see how I would need to be concentrating 100%
when racing. There were almost no wide
or straight sections save a mile or so of doubletrack jeep road. I figured that the jeep road would be where I
would need to go all-out to build a time gap.
I recognized a few current and former competitors at the start of the XC
race, though there were only six of us in 40-49 expert category. We started two minutes after the combined
group of 19-29 and 30-39 yr experts, and the guys allowed me to lead the group
into the singletrack. My goal was to go
as hard as I could in the very short sections between turns. This meant constant accelerate, brake hard,
turn, and repeat. The turns were often
180 degrees and tight, so precise handling was paramount. I continued to lead the group which dwindled
to two guys that stayed very close. Both
of them are formidable bike handlers and one used to be a top notch competitor. They were still with me when we reached to
jeep road that led up a gentle hill to the start/finish, where I applied my
pre-determined tactic and got about a ten second gap. I knew that if I could continue to eke out a
few more seconds as we went that I could then get an even bigger gap the next
time on the road—I wasn’t very aerobically challenged since I could rarely
sustain much effort given the constant turns.
I started to pass the younger experts, so I knew my pace was good. By the start of the third lap I had passed
all of the younger experts and I focused on maintaining a fast but safe pace to
the finish. I managed to keep the pressure
on enough to build about a nine minute lead and didn’t crash, taking the
overall and age-group win. CAMP put on a
great event…I think I will participate in more Al mtb races in the future.
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