Mountain Bike Racing - Anybody racing Captain Thurmond's Challenge
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Just checking in to see if any one here is in CTC June 10. A guy I work with asked me to ride the bike leg for his team (it a triathlon that allows teams). I have rode the coarse a few times and its not bad, just muddy as hell in places, and its 14 miles long. At any rate wish me luck.
Good luck! Sounds like fun; I love relays and multi-discipline ones are even better. Be sure to give us a post-race report.
Well just finished my first race, the bike leg of the CTC. Oddly enough, I was way worse than the lead pack riders and WAAAY better than more than half the field and ended up racing (more like riding) by myself for 3/4 of the race. I'm not for sure of my overall position until they post the results online, but my time was 1:20.30 for my 14 mile leg and my team finished 16th overall which put us way up in the field (someone said about 75 teams).
I learned alot about racing and even more about riding a mountain bike like it should be rode. My Hardrock shocked me at the abuse it took, I thought at one point it was going to break at any second, but it kept going. I lost only one position on the part of the trail I thought I sucked at, and gained three during the sprint at the end (one guy had a flat, one guy had a branch in his derailuer and one was standing over his bike wheezing). At any rate I beat more than beat me. I'm glad its over, but I'm proud of all the effort I put into training and riding the race at the same time.
Oops: The course was a climb for about the first 5 miles, with muddy rocky single track for about three miles in the middle, followed by an insane fast downhill access road for about .7 tenths, 3 more miles of flat single track, and about a two mile sprint out a flat DNR access road. MUddy, fast in places and sore all over.
Good job! Always feels good to reel in more people than get by ya. Congrats to both you and your whole team!