The Cross Over

Starting out in the sport was a progression of several steps: first Boy Scouts and Backpacking, then Adventure racing (which I viewed as backpacking a backpacking race with other stuff thrown in for good measure), and then Mountain Biking. I stop here because this is the critical point. In my mind I started off thinking it was good for Adventure Racing to improve my skill’s etc. Then I started to develop and decided that I liked the effort and that this was something that I wanted to do. I became a Mountain Biker. Now repeat the last three/four sentences and replace “Mountain Biker” with “Road Racer” and “Adventure Racing” with “Mountain Biking.” Now I am truly a road racer. But once, maybe twice, a year I like to think that I am a Mountain Biker so I go to the local MTB races and show them what we brought back in the day. Usually I do pretty well at these and most of the time podium. This time I didn’t.

Last weekend I did the “Battle of Baton Rouge” MTB race. Well, I might have done better then the last place I finished if I had actually showed up more than 10 minutes before the start. Nonetheless I managed to get ready and get to the line with a few minutes to spare in which I spent riding up and down in front of the start line. Into the woods we went; last position. Cool, I need to warm up and will turn on the gas on lap two, right? Turning on “The Gas” evidently meant going 10 seconds faster on the 2nd lap than the first; I only found this out by looking at the results afterwards. Yeah so things were hard and I was riding as fast as I could. Fitness was great and skills really sucked; especially in the mud and wet conditions. So, on the 4th of 5 laps I manage to crash. Not a big deal – it’s an MTB race. Except this is how I know I am now officially a roadie. I find the only piece of concrete in the entire woods to fall on! Pretty lucky I know. SO, I’m all mad that I crashed and end up crashing again. This time not on concrete (I couldn’t be that lucky) but still going down in the mud. So instead of my lap times getting faster as the race course dries out they got 3 and 2 minutes slower respectively compared to the first 3 laps. In my defense, the last lap I was already out of it mentally and settled on riding it in instead of quitting (I really wanted to quit though). So in my final lap a guy caught up to me and I rode behind him until the very last stretch (where I decided to go fast again) and basically talked to him the entire time. He didn’t talk back (after all he was racing) but it kept me entertained.

So this might have been my last MTB race, I am pretty determined to sell my MTB. I will get another one eventually, but intend to ride for fun from now on.

Coming up this weekend is the CUBA Road Race. Its one of the three “real” road races we have around here. (The three being Rouge Roubaix, CUBA, and MS Grand Prix.) I am hoping to have a good result but twisted my knee last night running and it’s a little tender. We’ll hope for the best.