Strava MTX #1
The weather was nice but the trails were muddy for the kickoff race of the MTX series. Postal rules apply to these races so they go on rain/snow/mud no matter the conditions. I had been sick all week and was just starting to feel better but figured why not go give it a try anyway. The course started out with a quick rocky descent down an ATV width trail then ducked out into a field and back up some a single track ascent. First few laps went well even though the fast rocky descent was beating me up on a rigid. Every time I would hit the slight downhill field I was regretting the single speed as I started to run out of gearing. As the laps went by, the mud on the course started to get churned up more and more and slower riders started having problems on the single track, making it hard to keep momentum. I had a few minor slide outs and started to take my time on the last laps as the mud drained my motivation. Final results was 17th out of 37 racers, not bad all things considered.
The team hanging out on the tandem.
MTX #2
Race two was advertised as fast and suitable for a CX bike, so I strayed from the SS plan and went with my Specialized epic. I just couldn't see myself having fun spinning like a hamster on all those fast sections. This would turn out to be a mistake as I had made one of the classic mistakes of doing bike maintenance without testing right before a race. Just as I took off from the start I felt my seat shift to one side. Crap, I knew that I hadn't tightened the seat post bolt down good enough, but now hoped the seat would stay put. Nope, that wasn't happening and each lap it would start to drop a little bit further down. After 4 laps of trying to stand and pedal the whole time, I made the decision to stop at the start/finish and try to fix the seat. Of course, these races are short and I never think about bringing any supplies with me, so I didn't even have a tool to tighten it. After throwing everything around my truck hoping that somewhere I had left a multi tool, a nice spectator asked what I needed and loaned me an Allen wrench. I was back on track, but all this had wasted more than 5 minutes, which equaled almost an entire lap. Off I went, hoping to get in two more laps to try in make up the time lost. Coming around to the finish line, the clock read 60:09 meaning my race was over. I came in 24 out of 29 riders, a pretty bad showing, but with such short races even minor mechanical issues put you at the back of the pack.
MTX #3
The third installment of MTX racing was Saturday night, adding a little more fun and cold. I went back to the simple rigid single speed for this race. I'm much slower on it, but since the races are setup so that a junior or beginner rider will get on the podium, it didn't really matter. This course started off with a fast single track descent, then tight switch backs with roots, followed by a mild grassy uphill to more single track, and finally a road segment to finish off the loop. Only some minor mud, most likely because everything was frozen. After the practice lap, I figured I would be in trouble on the road since my max speed is only around 14mph on the SS (I'm to lazy to ever change the gearing from my standard 32X20). Once the race started, I found I was actually passing a fair number or riders on the road, but I was holding back on the first descent. I hadn't ridden rigid on real single track much and the skinny 2.0 Fast Trak tires didn't give me much confidence. Overall, it was a fun and uneventful race placed 11 out of 27 riders.
MTX #4
The final race of the season weather was great with temperatures in the 50s and the trails were dry. The course was a good mix of tight single track and wide open field sections. Overall, not much to say about this race. I did well for a rigid single speed, coming in 13th out of 29 riders.
Next up will be The Shootout in Danville on March 10th. It should be a pretty big field of riders making it a good test.
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