LET’S GET CAUGHT UP… race updates
VCHSS Race #8 (my 5th) Kairos Resort, Glen Lynn, Virginia
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Easily the toughest course on the schedule, probably a little too ‘hard enduro-ish’ for some (lot of folks skipped), with the amount of rain leading up to the race the week before it was extra gnarly.
I already described the general conditions of this place located on the West Virginia State line just west of Blacksburg in this earlier post…
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My local track, and I know most of it thoroughly, but there is always new sections being added and it always kicks my butt. This time I shot myself in the foot by deciding I could get just a little more out of an old front Dunlop MX 53F I’ve been abusing. It’s an intermediate terrain tire I’d swapped on for the summer break and was too cheap and lazy to swap out for fresh knobs. This was a serious mistake. Combined with the vicious IRC VE-33 Volcanduro on the rear that thrives in muddy, rocky, rooty and slick creek rock terrain, my bike had dual personalities on the wet and greasy trails. The front was getting pushed all over by the rear and that really worked me over. Felt and looked like a total noob.
… A week later I returned to these trails with a fresh Bridgestone M59 in identical conditions and ripped it up. Mind blowing how different and more satisfying that experience was… probably would have finished two spots higher.
THE START…
Lining up on the inside of about ten other racers on the uphill, short wet grass start, there was a hard left 180 around a clops of trees before charging back down the hill on a rough, muddy road to the flags. This funneled into a left-hander chicane single track into some trees and finally into the woods. My plan as usual was to gain everlasting glory and international fame with a hole shot and then just try to survive the ensuing carnage of this extremely technical track up and down the mountainside.
Carefully studying the flag girl I picked out her routine and confidently waited my turn. Earlier I had noted the inside line was prime as it was drier close underneath the overhanging trees, the outside was slick as snot and the morning classes were sliding out up there. One guy went underneath the banner for a wild ride.
At the ‘ten seconds’ call I hunkered down and found top-dead-center, and then my mind wandered as I envisioned the thrilling victory I was about to clench, the fame, the cover shot in Cycle News with the headline ‘KDX Still Getting It Done’, the invite for a 3-hour interview on Whiskey Throttle podcast with Ping…
Truth is I kind of went to sleep for a second and was awoken by the flash of falling green flag, but reacted quickly enough to get a decent start with my 200 roaring to life and a good launch. I surged up the hill with a roar turning tightly under the shade of the trees, ducking some low branches and then swinging wide and down the hill in 4th, feathering the clutch with throttle wide and accelerating to pass one rider for the flags where I was up to third. Disappointed I didn’t get a better jump.
At the funnel the 2nd placed rider went down in front of me and I slid off the track to avoid him and stalled. Quickly kicking her back to life, I filtered back in line and there was still three bikes behind me as we entered the woods. Into the greasy single track I quickly discovered a serious deficiency in front end authority. I let the others get around me as I struggled just to stay on my bike.
With the pressure now off I followed and began figuring out how to survive. The rear tire was doing all the work, driving like a champ, but the front was completely out to lunch.
I found my limits of control and started to get a handle on things and learned if I just put her in a rut like a slot car I could get around. Ruts were my weakness, but I’ve been working on them and today was my day to gain experience.
There were some very hard and steep, muddy, rocky climbs and they took their toll on many. The first one stalled me out near the top as I was cut off by a rider falling over in front of me, eventually a volunteer hooked a strap to my forks and got me over the crux. This struggle, picking up my bike at least twice while barely even being able to stand smoked me pretty good, but I continued on to the next hill climb as I caught my breath. The very technical, steep downhill single track led to an upstream creek run of about half a mile which wasn’t terrible. I’ve been practicing these and have some confidence in creeks now.
At the bottom of the next more typical mountain side climb there were volunteers and a marshal offering advice at the bottom. There was also a by-pass, but I decided that I wanted to at least climb this rascal once. While studying the the wide array of terrible options the AA guys came through lapping me (we’re at mile marker 3 of 8!) and I watched them blast up.
Guess I spent ten minutes here recovering my strength and watching the show (there were many failed attempts) before finally taking my shots, eventually I succeeded, but at a large cost to my energy reserves. The rest of the course was more fun and some of the fresh single track was drier somehow on top of the ridge.
There were some more extremely steep and narrow descents which I was extra cautious (read SLOW) with and lost more time on, but I survived and pressed on.
Finally finishing my first lap, I was amazed to get a white flag instead of the checkered. Seeing it I spun out and dropped the bike in the grease, struggling to get up I slung my leg over and crossed the line. I looked up at the screen but didn’t see my name or place. Assuming I was last I didn’t really care, but another lap of that rascal was going to be a serious test. I was disappointed actually that I wasn’t done, but remembered stopping a lap short at Graves Mountain and it costing me points plus a season high 4th place finish. Not doing that again!
So I started my second lap.
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LAP DEAUX (DOH!)…
Did I mention I had forgotten to eat lunch before the race?
That first climb actually went better on my second attempt with no bodies on my line. I did get a wheel pull from the last volunteer to stick around (my hero!), but didn’t need the full strap treatment. The second big hill climb I failed on after numerous futile attempts that left me gasping for air and finding the by-pass. The single track up top that had been fun last lap had been freshly showered on by the localized rain storms passing through and what was previously’hero dirt’ became decidedly less so. This found me making lots of mistakes and dumping my bike in less than ideal places, always to the downhill side where picking it up was necessary and nearly impossible.
The race winner actually joined the sweeper crew to help shepherd us remaining wannabes racers off the course. I was bonking, which was making normally doable challenges unimaginable (standing, talking, squeezing a clutch, pressing a brake). I slowly recovered and pulled it together enough to ride out and manage an improbable 5th place, 3 seconds out of 4th!
That’s twice this year I’ve been too sorry to hold onto fourth place and ended up fifth because of self-detonation.
Still had fun though.
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Henry had a great day testing out his new Rieju MR RACING 300 for the first time, and probably his last race till football season is over. I was pretty stoked to finally get some hardware on my home track.