Rhinelander Rasta Rally

Jumped into my first mountain bike race of the season today. Rhinelander Rasta Rally, kinda goofy name but a good bike race.
Couple things I would not have expected....
--With it having been one of the warmest spring seasons in memory
--And one of the driest on record.....

Who'd of thought the first race of the season on Mother's Day weekend would start with temps in the high 30's and 2 inches of snow on the ground!! There's this expression that has a 3 letter acronym -- W.T.? I'll let you fill in the question mark but you can perhaps imagine some fine noun, adjective or adverb that will do the job (I'm no English major so whatever fits, use it).

What's snow do in high 30 degree temps? It turns into a potentially wet sloppy mess and that was the story of the day with certain areas of the single track. Different areas in the region had more snow while others less so it was hard to know what the best tire choice would be. I was banking on the latter for the Rhinelander race ... further south... less snow -- it proved to be wrong.

Still I can't put out a complaint about the race itself. Perhaps how I did yes, but not the course.

In what can happen on occasion, the Swanson-mobile got a late start & ended up getting to the course with 9 minutes to start. Enough for me to run in get my race number, toss on my helmet, put a water bottle on the bike and get to the start line.

You're sorta running on amped up adrenaline when put into a time crunch like that, so at the start I came around the left side and immediately went to the front. It wasn't like there wasn't already enough other very good racers to lead things out but it just happened. I felt good, the bike felt fast. That might have been for close to the first mile before Chris Peariso or perhaps Justin Piontek came around. I stayed in 3rd for the first couple miles of the race & there was a string of perhaps 6 or 8 guys total when I glanced back. Upon hitting the first bunch of single track... it became blatantly obvious trouble started brewing. The more heavily wood area of the course had snow that stayed on the ground & was causing some slip 'n slide issues. I did my best initially to dance around the hot spots but some of the stuff was unavoidable and the options were slim at best -- wipe out or slow down. Obviously that wasn't to the liking of 2 or 3 racers behind me who either had way better mud handling skills than I but I believe it was in more likelihood their delightfully knobbier & wider tires. So Seth Lens & Scott Golomski scooted by when I spun out on a hill, later I was double deckered by Adam Swank & perhaps Tom Carpenter when they both when for a pass on each side of me. Something that has never happened before -- I took two sets of handlebars into my kidneys, one on each side. Ugh!

It was just that ugly in some spots, you'd go from dry to super slick pretty quick. Think of when you drive your car on asphalt & then come across black ice. You wondering W.T.? ... just hit me? That's what the course was like for me at least.

So out front it was Chris, Justin, Seth, Scott & Adam. Tom Carpenter was content to sit on my wheel and push me up hills when his front tire would come in contact with my rear tire. Only time I've ever been helped in a bike race by someone running into the back of me. (Thanks again Tom!!)

From that half way point in the first lap, things spread out and made for the rest of the race pretty much. I pulled away from Tom shortly after that and towards the end of lap one I caught back up to Justin Piontek & was now in 4th place. Justin was running abit slower after apparently burping some air out of one of his tires. We road together for just under a half lap probably not fast enough -- as we were chatting up quite the conversation. Nice kid, I wish him well this racing season.

Upon hitting round (ie Lap) two of the slick stuff, we parted ways as Justin's tires were stickin' & mine were slippin'. About the same time, my energy levels are startin' to ebb -- it's probably 90minutes into the race and I was paying the price for not making drinking & taking in fuel a priority in lap one. (So much for the endurance factor my big pre-season of high mileage training was doing... pooh, pooh.)

Shortly after I'm feeling the heat of others breathing down my neck, seeing 'em on various trail cut backs & reversals. Paul Belknap at first, later two other guys. Paul wasn't able to catch on & later dropped off, but eventually the other two guys did. Between the slickness of the trail, plain old getting tired & fighting off a bonk I was so looking forward to wrapping things up.

There was a new section of fresh cut single track towards the end of the laps that took us off the double track fire/forest roads. If I had to give a negative mark on the course -- it'd be that stuff .... with an exclamation mark. Obviously it was softer & slicker because it was freshly cut, but the lines & design of the s-track was just plain wrong. For me I lost a good share of time each time through it.

Nearing the end of lap two, the course wraps up the single track & leads out to the finish with a mile or so of double track. Just coming out of the single track, I hear some gears clicking & shifting. I quick peak over my shoulder & I see in the blue & white SISU jersey of Tom Carpenter. Crap! I thought I was going to coast in to the finish. I locked everything out & laid hard into it immediately when things opened up to put the pressure on Tom to play catch up. Managed to maintain or maybe even slightly grow the lead to maybe 20 yards. Tom finally made a push as we came to the gravel road finish but the lead was sufficient to hold him off.

The finishing time was around 2:09, for a second lap according to Kate that was 10 minutes slower than my first lap.

I wouldn't say it was a hard race, but the conditions made it longer than anticipated. Finished 7th overall, Chris Pearsio dropped out somewhere in the 2nd lap after a 4th flat tire.... Either Chris has the worst luck of any racer I've seen with DNF's & mechanicals in the past 3 years or well, he's stubborn & likes his lightweight tires & equipment almost to a fault. Ah, heck, who cares, that's the beauty of MTB racing you can do what you like. Whether you want lightweight low resistance tires or race a single speed -- it's all good.

Up next definitely a more challenging race in the new Cable Off Road Classic race. Definitely not the speedy open course they made in '09. So if any Twin Cities road racing lovers show up expecting that ... think again. This years edition laces up more single track & climbing than any other Off Road Classic that I've road in the past. Kelly McKnight passed along the potential amount of climbing in the 25 or 26 mile course to be close to 2000 feet.

Lastly if you're going to the Off Road Classic.... watch out for a nasty big Snapping Turtle on the Rock Lake cut off. I ran into him sitting smack dab in the middle of the trail while pre-riding last Saturday. The dude is a monster! He's gotta be the size of a small coffee table. I stopped to check out his snapping/crushing skills.... he was taking out 1 1/2" hardwood sticks like they were a tooth picks. Awesome.