Virginia DeRailer Series race number three gave me the home court advantage of being at Peaks View Park here in Lynchburg. Since the course is ten minutes from my house it’s where I have done most of my riding so I knew the loop pretty well.

This was only my second race and it was the first time in a race with so many freakin’ people. I’m not sure what the number of novices were but I am guessing around 40 and they sent us all at once. We had a good stretch of wide, paved track to spread out a little bit, but it wasn’t near enough to keep us all from getting clumped at the entrance to the singletrack. It also didn’t help that the entrance was about 30 yards of very steep climbing.

Pretty much everybody ended up coming off their bike and pushing it up the hill. Once up the hill and onto the trail everybody started going but we were still very clumped up. I ended up in this group stuck behind this guy that was climbing ok but rode his brakes down every freakin’ hill. The first stretch of the race was on a section called Steve’s Bowl-a-rama that has a lot of quick descents and climbs, so the way to go is to carry the speed on every descent up the other side. Well this concept was obviously lost on the gentleman up front.

I worked my way past everybody else until I was right behind him and then finally had him let me by and took off. I caught up pretty quickly with the next group and just bided my time cause I knew the Tomcat trail was up next. The Bowl-a-rama dumps out on a fast descent, then a creek crossing then a pretty long, rutted out, technical climb. I had already planned to get about thirty feet in and push the bike up the rest so I managed to get past another clump of people that was still trying to ride it up.

Once past that section everybody spread out pretty good and I was able to get into my pace from my practice runs. There were a handful of other riders who we all kept trading places with throughout most of the rest of the race. Besides a couple quick rests to down some water and let a couple people by I maintained a speed that I was pretty happy with. I stuck to my plan of dismounting and pushing a couple parts I am always unsteady on and then trying to gain some time staying fast on the downhill sections I knew well.

The whole race I was focused on the last three sections of the course I knew were coming.

The third from last is a crap section of trail called Ivy Ridge that is just a long steady climb. The only thing that really changes is the grade of the climb.

At the beginning of this section I came up on a guy that was maintaining a good pace and I settled in behind him waiting for the last stretch of singletrack. My fear the whole race was of busting out of the singletrack onto the long, paved pull back to the finish line and being cooked and having people I had stayed ahead of the whole race pass me at the end.

So when we took the last turn on the singletrack I asked to pass, kicked it into high gear and never let up. I kept the gearing in 3-9 the whole way back to the finish line, pumping my legs as hard as I could to stay ahead of anybody that might be gaining on me.

Well my fears were not only put to rest but something I hadn’t expected happened… I gained about four spots on the paved road home. So I think I jumped from about 15th or 16th place up to finishing at 11th.

Although it obviously wasn’t the best finish, I was very happy with how I ended up doing. I was able to keep a good pace. I stuck to my race plan and it paid off. All I wanted to do was hold my own and come up somewhere in the middle of the pack.

So I met the goals I set for myself, which I guess is the important part.

Notes for the next race…

• Screw being polite and hanging back at the beginning of the race. I’m gonna push my way closer to the front of the pack so I don’t end up in with a bunch of people just taking their time.
• I could have hydrated a little better. I was a little to lite headed and thirsty by the end of the race. Newbie mistake.
• I think I could have pushed myself harder throughout the race. I don’t really see this as a mistake as I’d rather error on the side of not pushing myself hard enough and finishing well then having my body give out halfway through the race. I just gotta learn what I can handle.

All in all it was a great experience and had a fun time. Looking forward to next year’s race.

I have all of the pictures Mike took up under this link to my Flickr account. The good… he didn’t get any shots of me pushing the bike. The bad… I don’t seem to be moving very quickly in any of the shots.

More pics from Carl soon.

Here’s a few select ones…