Lost Valley Luau

Thanks to Mesa Cycles for hosting the first official mountain bike race of the year. And a special thanks to Gorc and it's volunteers for all the hard work that went into the new trail section that now bypasses the defunct bridge and washed out hill. It took two work days and a ton of man hours to make it happen. We pre-rode the new section before the race and I raised my eyebrows with concern. It was very soft in places, rough in others and the bench cutting in some places was not "cut in" yet. At speed it turned out to be just fine and I looked forward to it(get me off those gravel roads!). It was funny, as we encountered traffic-riders in other classes and some lapped riders, I heard a lot of moaning and cussing especially in the long "soft" section. All I could do was smile, chuckle to myself and motor on. Here is a shot of Nico rounding the switchback near the old bridge.

The Marathon class races until 3 hours passes by and then you finish what ever lap you are on. Last year this class was the bastard class. Today it was THE class. Not to take away from Cameron Chambers, Mike Best or Chris Ploch which in this order, put the other Experts to shame, but we had 31 in the Marathon class today! What's cool about this is that a lot of these people just wanted to try it for the first time and see what they could do. Compare the times of the top three Marathoners and they aren't far off from the experts and we still had two to three laps to do. Yes, I had the pleasure of ending my day in this top three. Dwayne won, Dave Breslin took a convincing second and I pulled off third.

The race started at a pace that I could handle, which was surprising. I was way behind a few, but still with the bulk of the riders. I passed several riders on the first climb which again, surprised me. Dwayne looked like he was shot out of a cannon, gone. We formed small groups for the next gravel road section but I knew I wanted to be ahead of these groups before we got to the first single track. Near the end of the gravel I stood up and attacked. Dwayne, Dave and Brad were out of sight by now. I entered the new trail GORC built and just tried to "flow" through it. It wasn't long and I caught Brad and then I was following him into the older single track, which I am very in touch with. I requested a pass on the left from Brad and he obliged. Swoopy descent over, I found myself on Dave's wheel. He bobbled and I was in front of him. Knowing that we had a moderate climb ahead I suggested that he go around me, so he did. I kept him in sight and was able to bridge back up to him on the next descent. We rode the double track together and stayed close until the creek crossing near the end of loop one.

Dave put a small gap on me before starting lap two. He kept that gap until the new single track again where I caught him again. Then right where it ends, he flatted. Sounded like a cut sidewall to me, but it turned out that the bead popped off and after remounting it, a blast of CO2 got him going again. Lucky! I had no idea, so I pressed on. I finished lap two in second, by myself and rode all of lap three alone. I didn't look back but Dave and Brad were closing in on me at the start of lap four and caught me after the first climb. I first saw Dave and asked him if he knew where Brad was and he said,"he's right there!". I turned to see Brad only a bike length behind me. I could tell Dave was on a mission so he was gone, never to be seen again. Brad passed me but I didn't let him get too far. I caught him on the new single track and we rode together for nearly half a lap. I could tell he had worked really hard to ride with Dave and I had backed off and felt a second wind approaching. I led into the last bit of single track. Another racer crashed right in front of me at the "waterfall" creek crossing but I managed to hobble past him and keep going. I guess Brad ended up crashing also.

I cruised the downhill and began the push up to the end of the lap to start lap five. Brad was only seconds behind me. I knew this was it, the last time up the "prick-of-a-hill" gravel climb so I gave it what I had. When I got to the top I locked out my fork, put my head down and "mashed". I blew by a group of five in a pace line and I think I startled them. When I got to the end of the gravel I looked back and could not see Brad, it worked! I rode carefully the rest of the lap for it was raining a little and I didn't want to crash. We were riding through tons of other riders now, which slows you down a bit. I crossed the creek at the waterfall climbed up the other side of the valley and looked across the valley and no Brad. At this point I was pretty sure I had it. Nice easy pace back to the finish for third. Third to Dwayne and Breslin, I'll take it! Nice job everyone. Greg did awesome also taking 6th and a few duckies too!