US Cup report!!
I’m very excited to give my report for the Cowbell Summer Solstice, the 4th race in the US Cup East, and my first traveling race, especially after the events leading up to the race. After a great trip to Tsali, returned home to find issues with my trusty Sworks Stumpjumper frame. It would have to go out for warranty with less than a week to go before the race. I was left with a plane ticket, a paid race registration and no bike to ride. Luckily I found a store in nearby Charlotte that had rentals available for a reasonable price. Race was still on!!
I picked up a 2009 Specialized Epic Comp from BikeSource on Friday and hit the trails in the afternoon to get the bike dialed in. I rode the Marathon course that was setup for Saturday’s race mainly to get used to the trails. There were a few technical sections and rock gardens similar to what we have in Miami, mixed in with the twisty singletrack. The rains from earlier in the week had dried up a bit, but there were still some slick sections to deal with. The course ended with 3 extended climbing sections, that just seemed to get progressively steeper with each one. One final punchy climb was thrown in to make the finish exciting in the last few meters.
Rode again on Saturday and the course was drying nicely. The XC course had been marked off after Saturday’s Marathon and I now had a better idea of what to expect on Sunday. I was in for a surprise on Sunday when I learned that some of the technical sections had been removed from my course (bad for me) but one of the climbs had also been removed (good for a flatlander like me).
Sunday came and I was ready to go. The banners were up. The trails were packed with racers. The weather was great. It was a perfect day to race. There were 12 participants in the XC3 30-39 class. All very friendly bunch of guys. We were having a ball in the staging area waiting for it to be our turn to go.
The countdown finally came and off I went. The race was only one lap so I knew I’d have to go out hard to do well. One rider came along with me, and I settled in on his wheel. After about a hundred meters I looked back to see that we had immediately opened a gap. I let him know that it was just the two of us and we pushed hard to get into the singletrack with a nice lead. As we started the singletrack we quickly started hitting some of the slower racers from the other classes, most of which let us by without slowing us. We eventually caught a group of four riders at one of the worst spots, up a short technical climb. They let us by, but we had to dismount to make it around. Unfortunately I lost my footing running up the rocks and lost contact with the leader. By the time I got rolling he had a small gap but was pushing hard. I pushed hard through the singletrack trying to minimize the gap, but we both seemed to be on the same pace, so I dind’t gain much. When I exited the singletrack I saw him about 20 seconds ahead, but backed off a bit as I knew the climbs were coming up, which I knew would not be my strong point.
The Climb that got me....
Sure enough, about halfway up the first climb I slowly lost 2nd place, and there was nothing I could do to keep up with him. Once the course flattened out I did my best to hammer and reclaim 2nd. I managed to catch up to the rider, unfortunately it was at the base of the last major climb. Again I’d watch him ride away. I risked blowing up the climb to catch him and hit it hard, but I just couldn’t keep the pace. I finished off the climb and made sure to not let up on the remaining sections and finished strong as I didn’t know how far I was ahead in 3rd. I punched it up the final climb and pushed hard accross the finish to finish over 30 seconds ahead of the 4th place rider.
While I didn’t hang on to 2nd place, I came accross happy with my result. 3rd place is my best result in XC3. I was riding a new bike, on trails I’d never ridden, with climbs that I never train on. With a little bit better strategy I truly feel I might have been able to hang on to 2nd and even compete for the win. Most importantly I had a great time, my competitors were a great group and the event itself was awesome. Thanks for reading.