My first ever mtn cross race

April 03, 2006

My first ever mtn cross race

<- 4x course diagram.

Ok - on Sunday morning I work up early (extra early due to the time change) and drove down to Nathrop. It was 3 hours to get there and 2.5 hours into the drive i was thinking "ok - this is dumb to drive so far for less than 1 hour of riding. PLUS you don't even know what you are doing. what kinda of *great* idea is that!?!"

I get to the venue sign up, gear up and ride to the course. I get there and I see people pushing there bikes up the hill to the starting gate.

The stating gate looks like this .

I line up with other riders and start practicing. I'm pretty slow to start off with and after about 5 or 6 runs - I'm getting to know the course and getting a bit faster.(still slow - but it's all relative, eh?)

Seeding started at 11am - bascially everyone runs the course by themselves and the race officals time the runs. The run times are called qualifying times. Based on qualifying times - the riders are put into brackets.

There were 5 women - 3 experts/pros and 2 beginner/sport (my category). My qualifying time was the fastest of us 2 beginner/sport by a whopping 2 seconds. I was ~10 seconds off the other experts - a HUGE amount of time in the 4x world.

The way it was gonna work for the women is the 3 slowest women would race and the top 2 riders would advance. Knowing my qualifying time was faster than 1 of my competitors made me determined to be one of the top 2.

Are the starting gate I was nervous - I didn't want to risk track standing on the gate - so I clipped in my right foot applying pressure to the gate. The gate dropped and off we went. I couldn't get my left foot clipped in and was fiddling with that and watched the other 2 riders pull away. Uh -oh! I started pedaling as fast as i could without my left foot clipped in (note to self- get platforms!) in the 1st turn I passed my competitor. Knowing I was ahead I rode as fast as I possibly could. My competitor must of had a lot of friends there as in every turn I could hear them hollering "get her! get her!" Little did they know that hollering for their friend made me focus even more. The other rider was way ahead, but I finished 2nd. I was pretty stoked as that meant I would ride in the finals with the expert/pro girls. :)

The finals went as expect - again I couldn't get clipped in and lost time. But in addition I'm lot slower than the other girls. Look at these pics and you can tell the difference in us coming over this hill. No air under my wheel!

In summary - I had a blast - yes it was worth all that driving for a little bit of riding. I can see how this can definitely help me in my XC racing. Learning how to rail the turns, pump the terrain and not being afraid of getting air. Next 4x race is 4/23/06. I'll be there!! :)