1st in my age group in cat 3.
And they're Off!
Cons:
WATER!! I thought the flier was a joke. It says "We will have water stops, but they will be in the wrong places" haha, that's funny. No, not really. There is only one water stop only a couple miles in, unmarked, around a corner, so I missed it. I did stop and steal a bystander's water, she consented, but seeing as I was already opening it to drink, she didn't have much choice. If you do this race, come well prepared because it might as well say no water stops.
The course was tricky. Most of it was not hard, but there are some bits you absolutely have to walk unless you're just kick ass awesome on the bike.
Pros:
Some great hazards: Highway to heaven, that was so cool! You're like 5-6 feet off the ground on a bridge that might be a foot and a half wide and there are no side. The course was great, I nice mix of easy and hard.
Definitely go ride this course sometime, it was a blast. However if you have trouble with narrow passages, this would not be the course for you. There were a couple spots where you had trees on one side and a good size drop on the other. Also some very steep descents. Did I mention we had to go up on an old cement foundation and come back down! This course is so much fun!!
Nice shirt. Nice medal. Fun people. Would definately do this one again, but next time I will have loads of water with me.
Personal:
Well, that was interesting. My first official mountain bike race. How'd I do? Well, here is what one guy said to me afterwards, "You did a great job keeping up with us.... there at the beginning..." Thanks a lot. I was very proud of myself in the beginning. There is a tight tree section which slowed me down and I'm sure frustrated those directly behind me.
Picked it up again, but altered my line to let a guy pass at the worst possible moment. There was a hard right which sent me off the bike and dropped my chain. I had to stand there fumbling with it, while watching to see if anyone was coming down the incredibly narrow trail. I was standing in the trees on a slope, my bike on the trail and I had to pick it up to let people pass. ARGH! I had a hard time recovering after that, but I did have a good time.
I'm trying to spit out all the mud people were throwing up after the river crossing.
The water crossing was interesting. I'm glad the guy in front of me stopped to dismount, if he hadn't I probably would have tried to ride part of it which I wouldn't recommend. There were a couple of deep spots I could definitely envision someone biting it.
