Last weekend I raced my first Cat-1 Masters at the Yacolt Burn Enduro, which is stop number 1 on the Cascadia Dirt Cup series. Holy crap, was I outgunned in that division; but I'm sticking with it even though I'll probably finish DFL overall in the series.
I had a great time, but I was very much unprepared for the level of competition I'd be up against. After placing in the top 10 at last year's Tiger Mtn Enduro in the Sport-Open division, I thought I should step up my game and race with the big boys. Yikes, these dudes are fast. Like, forget-about-the-bike-even-having-brakes fast. I was 6 minutes out of first, in a race where first place came in just under 20 minutes.
Anyhow, I'm still happy with how I did; especially since I didn't get a chance to pre-lap the course at all, so I knew NOTHING of what to expect. The terrain was pretty much a DH course: Start off into a trail of baseball sized rocks on a 35% pitch with some sweeping curves, then through a flowy but pedally section of wooded trail, out onto 300 yards of softball-sized talus on an off-camber downhill and back into the woods for some loose, loamy tight turns before getting spit out into the silty clear-cut timber area for the final 1/4 mile of the trail. The second descending stage started without a transition stage between, and went right back into the forest for some heavily rooted and tight technical trails with some aggressively steep drops. The bottom section was very pedally with a few short climby bits before hitting the finish line.
Then there was a long transition stage riding all the way back to the top in the 91F heat and exposed sun on the logging roads. It was around a 5 mile ascent with 1600' of gain before reaching the summit. Then after barely recovering, we got to hit "Thrillium", which is a straight out DH run. Big jumps, huge drops, insanely steep pitches with ridiculous berms to keep your speed up... You can watch it below. (
kill the volume after I cross the finish line if you don't want to listen to me swearing.)
I finished second to last in the Cat-1 Masters for this race, and I can't wait to go back for more.
https://vimeo.com/69430099