Well, I raced my mountain bike this weekend. If you can call it racing, that is. I took my trailer and my dog, Jake, and drove to Portland. North Plains to be more exact. It was raining. I did this race last year and it was muddy. It didn't rain earlier this week so I was hoping for something better than last year. It was worse. Way worse. I did have a pleasant weekend though. I camped on the race course. Right on the course. The grass you see in the picture is not representative of most of the course. It was deep, sticky mud. The race was multiple loops of approximately 4.5 miles. I raced the beginner category and was supposed to do two laps. At about 3/4 through the first lap I looked at my watch and saw that it had been over an hour since I started. I decided that no way was I going to do two laps. I had pushed my bike more than half the time. I was pushing up and down hills. My bike probably weighed 50 pounds and the wheels just barely were turning. When I got to the finish line I said I don't want to do another lap but I don't want to DNF. They told me that if I quit I would DNF so I kept going, up to my trailer to have a beer. I returned later and finished. By that time the leader had finished and they were waving racers off the course. I didn't cheat. I told them I only finished one lap. It was okay. I felt like a sissy but I didn't want to go through another lap. There was a group of three young guys camping across from me with their families and they all quit after one lap too. They all finished behind me so I didn't feel so bad.
Here's the course. The part on the upper left side of the picture was all new. It was carved in by a Cat last summer. It was the worst mud, about 5 inches thick. All up or down. Nothing level.
I might race again in two weeks but the race is called Mudslinger. I've had enough mud. I'll probably forget how hard it was by then and do the race. I know that races are supposed to be hard but this one was more than hard.
I'm in third place in the OBRA BAR Age Graded 60 to 64 category. I'm a long way behind first place but a long way ahead of fourth place. When I start racing cyclocross I should get closer to first. It's fun.
1 comment:
Del Norte Dave!
It has been months since the race, and I hop eyou dontl let a littl mud keep you from coming back next year. We are hoping that a year of use will pack the trails in so there will be much less mud. We are also starting two weeks later in April. So more days of sunshine to dry things out.
Thanks for coming last year, and the beers on me when you come back!
Tom
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