Rockyhill Roundup

Smithville, TX 11/09/2008. This mountain bike race was only special because it was attended by none other than Lance Armstrong himself. I did not get to race against him, but I thought it was cool anyway.

As far as races go, it was another poor showing for me. The heat I was in had 40 people in it at the start, so I needed to be fast out of the gate if I wanted to finish well. I made a critical mistake by starting out in to high of a gear. So everyone pulled away as I struggled to get up to speed, putting me behind some very weak riders. To make matters worse, this course started with some pretty strenuous climbing, which would not be a problem for me, except all the people walking their bikes up the hills.

Once I was at the top, there was a bomber downhill, and another big climb riddled with more bike walkers. After this, I found myself alone in the woods, as all the better riders that had good starts were able to put some distance on me. After a few lonely miles, I caught some riders that made this a race.

Actually, a rider caught me towards the end of the race, so I had a good battle to retake my spot. One of the things that made this battle interesting is that while I was trying to take my position, a kid from the kids race ended up between us in the single track. I found this very frustrating, and is one of the reasons I will be moving from Cat 3 to Cat 2 next season, even though I'm not sure I'm ready.

Any way, I got past the kid, but not without rubbing his tire. Now before you accuse me of intimidating a twelve year old kid, this happened on accident. I would never do that on purpose to a kid.

Once I got around the kid, I shifted into the big ring for the last climb, because the race ended in a huge downhill sprint. As it turns out, I reclaimed my position right at the finish line. Even though, it was only 19th place.

As a side note, since there were 40 people in my heat for this race, and none of them could ride a mountain bike very well, and having kids on the course during the race, I have decided to cat up to Category 2. I had always envisioned winning a bunch of races, and being forced to cat up, but instead I'm moving up without fanfare because of snot-nosed kids. Maybe I'm just a better racer in my own mind