Mountain bike race.

This past weekend I participated in Flagstaff's Old Fashioned Mountain Bike Race. Let me first say, I finished... and boy was I glad I finished.

 

The race was a little over 10 miles but I think I walked my bike the majority of it. The first part of the race started out really great. I was flying up the fire road and passing people left and right. I even caught up to the men's group who started 15 minutes ahead of me. I was on fire and my ego started to get really big! But only to be shattered quickly as I came across the first section of technical trails. These were really narrow trails. So narrow that my pedals scraped along rocks almost the entire way. With every scrape I couldn't help but think "oh no my new shiny bike is getting beat up!" At this point it also started raining and I was not even halfway into the race. It was a cold rain too as we were up around 7000 feet. I was kicking myself in the ass for taking out my jacket (and leaving it in the car) moments before the race started. I tried to ride as much as I could but because I am slow and new, all the people I passed were now passing me and I had to pull over. Next the pros started coming around on their second lap so yet again to avoid being crushed and run over, I pulled off the trail about 106 times! I was frustrated, freezing and basically just hiking with my bike and wasn't having any fun. It started raining hard and the trails became giant mud pits. A little while longer when I could no longer feel my fingers someone yelled "only a mile to go!"

I finished- eventually. Then waited for Paul to finish. He was doing the two lap race and I just thanked god he didn't talk me into the two lap one.

Mountain biking has been really fun so far but I think these conditions were not the best. I will continue to hit the trails because I still really want to do the Whiskey Off road in April next year.

I better get out there and practice more single-track riding.