May 17/18
So this race ended up being mine and Kyle's first experience with this race series. We chose this one to try out because it was the closest of all the races to Iowa. It is touted as being the biggest in the U.S. and after only racing in Iowa and only having one year of mountain racing under our belts, we were a bit timid (or I was to say the least). With no confidence in myself at all, I chose to do the Women's sport race. This is what my license says and I figured just because I can race expert in Iowa doesn't mean I have a chance of even doing well in a sport race here.
We get down there the day before in time to register and ride the course. It has a huge climb at the beginning, a couple of gnarly downhills, lots of windy single track, and at least 2 difficult uphills in the single track. I get 3 laps in before they yanked us off the course for the night. Before Kyle and I head to the hotel, though, he checked out my suspension fork, which had been giving me some fits. Come to find out, the damn thing barely had any air in it and anytime we tried to put more in, it would all leak out. Long story short, we went to Walmart and got a new valve core. This fixed it except that Kyle broke the top of the new core off in the fork, so it will not be coming out anytime soon or without professional help. But no complaints since it held air and worked great in the race.
The next morning, the day of the race, we got up and had a nice breakfast at the hotel. (We had to stay at a hotel at this one because it turned out to be really cold and rainy at night and Kyle had a terrible sinus infection.) We loaded up and headed back to the Grand Geneva. After a terrible rainy night, it was a beautiful morning and looked to be a beautiful day. Kyle and I both raced at 11:30. So, we rode around to warm up, made sure that Maddie went potty and then made our way to the start line. Oh, before that though we ran into an old friend of ours from Iowa City, who lives with his girlfriend in Madison now. We had wondered if he would be there since he is such a great mountain biker. He was doing the singlespeed sport race and would be starting with us too. It was nice to see a familar face among soooo many stranger. Kyle's group was maybe the 2nd or 3rd to go, but the women went off last. We had to wait 11 minutes after the start of the 1st men's group. Not only that, but of the 32 or so women at the start line, they called up over half because they were register for the series or something. So, at my start, I ended up on like the 3rd row back. The guy yells go and we are off. It was almost straight uphill from the get go. The women just seemed to be moving so slow, but I didn't know how to get around. I knew I had to get around soon because there was a single track downhill coming up after the first climb. I really wanted to be at the front 1-2 people before we got there and it bottlenecked. So, I start to the right...no good. Well, I decide I can take the line to the left, but I will have to ride though the uncut, tall grass. That's exactly what I did...and before the top of that climb, I was off the front. I then proceed to fly down the single track hill, I keep telling myself to stay the hell off the brakes. Before I know it, we are starting up the next hill and I am still alone. I push all the way to the top, then bomb down the next hill, and into the single track. It was not long before I started encountering the back of the men's field. Most of the guys were great about getting over when I asked and there was a lot of double track in between the single track sections, which turned out to be where I did most of my passing. All-in-all, I finished 1st overall by 5 minutes on the next girl and 9 minutes on the next girl in my age group. I looked like a sandbagger, but I didn't know better. I heard someone say as I crossed the finish something about that girl should do the expert race next time.
I got a medal and got to stand on the podium, but felt kinda guilty for doing this race, which I now knew I did not belong in. But who knew, right? Kyle did a great job as well. With so many men there though, he has a much larger battle on his hands. He finished 15th in his age group and 91st overall. He had to stop for like 5 minutes right near the end for a catastrophic mechanical, but luckily at least got things to a point that he could finish the race. We both had such a great time. The only part that sucked was not knowing anyone. When I race in Iowa, almost everyone knows us, and cheers for us. It's really weird riding by people and having them not say anything or say good job girl. I did appreciate that generic cheers though. Something is always better than nothing.
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