Well the racing bug is back and it bit me hard! Yesterday morning a new mtnbk friend in Greensboro emailed me about a 12hr (LAF) race in Charlotte at the US Nat'l Whitewater Center. I’ll be doing solo SS on my new SS 1FG which has just 4 rides on it so far. I’ll be tuning it up tonight as with all new bikes things were coming loose. I also need to re-build my CandySL pedals or I’ll have to use the heavier standard EggBeaters. Other than that it looks like it’ll be ready to race!
I almost died at the end of my 1st lap! The initial plan was to ride 1 daylight lap and 1 night lap. However, Mother Nature had different plans...Just as I popped out of the woods approaching the staging area after the 1st lap I felt a huge rush of speed, but it ended-up just being a huge wind gust from behind. As I turned my head I had visions of Something Wicked This Way Comes!!! A huge black rolling cloud as far as I could see was rolling in fast behind me! Just as I reach the trail-head and the gravel parking lot, which was located under high-tension power lines, lightning came crashing down! I was freakin'!!! A bolt struck about every 30secs! It's been a long time since I've seen something this bad! I quickly dis-assembled the bike to get it into the car. As I placed the wheels in the trunk it started to sprinkle and as I was putting the bike in the back seat the trunk blew shut and the down-pour commenced. This I quickly ran around and jumped in, but I didn't feel safe until I was out of the park and away from the power lines....Whew, now that was close!
The course is quite a bit like the trails found back home in MI. The course is 9.4mi with 700ft of climbing, and at an easy pace on my 1st lap took about 54min with 32/15 gearing. I’ll have a second wheel ready with 32/16 just in-case, when, I need to gear down during the race. hahaha The race is from 10AM to 10PM, so unfortunately I will not have much of an advantage having limited night laps. As everyone knows, the night laps have always proven to be a major advantage for me…I love racing at night!
I’ll post updates leading up to the race and following the race! Hopefully I will be able to last the entire 12hrs without running out of gas due to having no “true” training and limited hours of riding. I’ve only been riding an average of about 1-2hrs 2-3days per week since the end of April when I started my new job in Asheboro. I’ll tally it all up on the Polar tonight and post it.
No comments:
Post a Comment