There were fireworks at Sunday’s race alright – right in my legs. Because about an hour into the race they went POP. Then for good measure when the legs weren’t working I tried the Superman approach to flying down the trail….
Surprisingly enough I had the gumption to think this day would be different. Though I didn’t feel all that splendid on the ride down after 8 hours Saturday working on cutting trail for next weekends Mudrutters race. Once I got on the bike in Eau Claire the legs felt loose…. could have been the almost 90 degree heat by that time however.
Anyways a quick warmup, got to say hi to the Adventure 212 ladies, Di, Michele & Sarah. Then got my son Marshall over to the kids race. He did pretty good and had a fun time. Racing in the 6-7 yr old race, he got 4th with a sweaty smile on his face. Can’t help but love it.
At the start line, it appeared to be a smaller field of racer than I ever remember for a Firecracker race, 50 or so. Couldn’t have gotten to off to a much worse start. The guy in front of me, who shall remain nameless, falls over before even crossing the start line. I’m stuck directly behind him as guys go by on the left and right. So needless to say I’m DFL as racers head into the first corner by 30 yards. It’s a long race so I don’t panic and just jump as far up as I can over the next mile without burning through too much energy. Probably land in low 30’s position by the time we enter the single track.
Now regardless my race was bound to go up in flames but the first lap of the 4 lap race was driving me nuts. A couple guys in front of me were challenged in riding single track with any kind of speed and it didn’t take much time for them to lose contact with the group in front. Coming from a guy like myself who once the corners start getting tight has his own challenges that’s saying something.
So needed to bid my time and hope once things opened up I could do some more passing and save it for the remainder of the race. I did end up passing another 10 guys or so that lap without spending too much energy. On the start of the 2nd lap it was me, another guy and Jon Lirette. I thought to myself, “Good, now we should get somewhere with this.” Well probably half way through that 2nd lap I started to feel taxed in my legs on the harder efforts. Gee, that’s weird, I haven’t been cooking them in this race so far. I looked down at my power tap, we were just under an hour in.
Never a good sign when about 1/3 through a race you start going into the red zone. On a punchy climb I tried to follow another racers momentum up the hill and my legs blew up altogether. I honestly thought I was going to have to quit the race right there. I had absolutely nothing left, it all happened in less than 10minutes.
I soft pedaled until I could get some kind of comfortable pace going, by that time Nikoli Anikin & John Gatto & 3 others guys came up on me. I was able to stay with them for awhile and try to draft a bit but on a second trail incline I had to drop back & lost them for good.
So I just cruised around the remainder of the race trying to enjoy it for what it was and get some good single track practice in. The course at Lowe’s creek is fun and pretty fast. I have to admit I preferred it a few years back with less single track, not because it wasn’t fun but because it kept the race more open and with more opportunities to pass.
On the 4th & final lap somewhere along the way air burped out of my front tire, I could tell it was mushy (at the finish I discovered it had only 12 psi vs. the 25psi I started with). I figured I could work with this. However on a faster downhill single track section, the tire must have rolled on me because I literal do not know what happened because the next thing I remember is flying through the air like being shot out of cannon. Over the handlebars downhill with my arms extended. I gotta admit it caused a degree of anxiety because of the steep hillside I was on and how quickly I was approaching a 14” diameter tree. After flying why felt like almost 20 feet I skidded on my arms & legs and came to a crumpled up stop against the tree. I did a quick check to make sure every body part was still attached & working and scrabbled back up the trail to get my bike. If only a video camera would have caught it, it’d of made good youtube footage.
So I took it down one more notch and finished out the race on the safer side of caution. Finish 38th out of 52, not exactly the day I would have liked. Hot day, the powertap recorded temps between 90 & 100 throughout the race. Some guys pulled out some great races though. Todd McFadden scored a top 10 with alot of the usual suspects rounding out the top 5.
Next week unfortunately may need to skip the always fun Duluth DirtSpanker due to festivities & reunions in Ashland. I bummed as I really like that race. Good luck to all that day.
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