Today I raced my first MASS race, the Hibernia Short Track.  The race was at this little park in Coatesville, and it was running about 25min late when I got there.  I warmed up then just chilled out until my race started.  During my preride of the course, I lined up, with a few of my friends, at what we thought was the starting line.  Unfortunately it wasn't, and my friends and I rolled down the hill to find the actual pack of like 30 more riders waiting.  I lined up all the way in the back.  I mean all the way in the back... there was no one else behind me.  Pretty freaking crappy position.  We went off and one guy sprinted off and a few meters ahead of the pack.  The pack rode together for the first two laps, and I slowly made my way through the field, picking my way through the riders and drafting when I needed a short recovery.  I still had about 20 min to kill.  After a while I settled into a good, fast pace and began to ride defensively, since the only people I was passing were people who were a lap behind.  I had no idea where the leaders were and I only hoped that I could catch them.  I kept pushing forward, increasing the gap to the riders that I knew were behind me and wanted my spot.  I still had no idea what position I was.  I began to crank it up again with about 7 min left, to see if I could at least bridge to someone that I hadn't already passed.  I was feeling good, and my Spider was performing even better.  I had cranked the ProPedal up to the middle setting, increased the pressure in my tires, and locked out my fork for maximum efficiency and speed on the bone-dry, dusty, gravely course.  The locked out fork actually worked quite well in the loose corners, even those with large gravel in them.  I was surprised; maybe there is a TerraLogic fork in my future.  My legs still had plenty of power in them and I kept clicking up gears to the top of my range for the descending sections (I had been hammering the big ring the entire race); I like my cadence a little lower than most, my legs seem to work better that way.  Anyway, at the bell lap, I kicked once more and hammered for home.  At the top of the climb I maxed out my gears and put as much wattage through my pedals as I possibly could.  The spider didn't even flinch, it just sprang forward and accelerated to the finish line.  The end result: 4th place out of something like 30 riders and I started from the back!  I am pretty excited about that.  Next time I need a better start position though.



Anyway, that's it.  I can't wait for the Intense team jerseys.  They are going to be awesome.  My next race is the Michaux Maximus 11 miler on 5/6, only because I have an exam the next day and can't give up the studying time for the 50 miler...  poo...



Peace...

Well my first race has come and gone.  My friend and I went and raced the Y-Riders Race #2, a local youth race series run out of the Carlisle, YMCA.  they have a Senior Open category.  This was my first race on the new Spider.  It was sweet.  The bike performed admirably, soaking up all the bumps and accelerating and climbing with gusto.  I started out in third position, riding behind two brothers from the Bean's Bikes team (the shop that hooked me up with my Spider).  I rode most of the race with another Bean's rider, on a singlespeed.  He out-sprinted me at the finish for a Bean's Bikes 1-2-3 sweep.  I felt good, but I need to refine my top end speed and turning abilities.  The turning abilities kinda suck a lot.  Like a lot.  That means more riding twisty-turney stuff.  Yay.  Talk to you later...