The weekend of October 2nd & 3rd witnessed two teammates, posing as roadies heretofore, throw off the masks and return to their roots. Chris Bilowich and Tal Mincey flew the Orange and Grey flag at Haile’s Trails in Gainesville for the mountain bike race known as Florida State Championship Series Race #3. This is not the 1st appearance Cycle Logic has made in the hairy-legged, baggy-short contingent of our sport this year: Chris Bilowich and James Penrod took on the dirt at Haile’s Trails and Tom Brown Park in the spring and fall respectively.The weekend began with a pre-ride of the course on Saturday. We elected to wait until the afternoon and allow a line to develop to remove some guess work. Also spotted scoping out the tread on Saturday was Cycle Logic’s own “Big” Phil Bailey with a hotty in tow.
We were warned from the outset by those familiar with the course to skip the 1st mile or so on the 1st lap to allow a warm-up. We, of course, did NOT heed that advice because we are super-fit fearless roadies. Much to our chagrin, our intended 70% max warm-up lap was shot in the pants three minutes into the lap with four extremely steep ramps (hike-a-bikes for mere mortals) that pushed our HR north of 90%. I’m not sure we ever recovered because my average HR for the 3 laps we rode Saturday afternoon was 86%! On the way home, I personally was wondering if I shouldn’t have forgone the whole pre-ride deal; now I knew the next day would be painful.
The yellow wave, of which our category (XC-2, 30-39) was a part, went off beginning at 11:30 Sunday morning, each wave in 2 minute increments. Chris and I were diligent in arriving at the start line early, since I, for one, have not experienced a MTB race start in 13 years. As we looked around, it seemed that each category was lining up according to start order and we were the 7th group to go in the wave, so we played it cool; no pushing or shoving. WE SHOULD HAVE PUSHED AND SHOVED! As it turned out, our group was significantly bigger than all of the other categories before us. There was not enough room for everyone to put a front tire on the line. “No problem”, you say, “there’s plenty of time for things to get sorted on the roll out”, right? I wish.
As the countdown to blast-off commenced (they literally count-down), I checked my gear selection and teed off. I did my best to slither through the bar ends with mild success. As things got lined out heading into the singletrack, I took the hard row through the tall grass and managed to gain a couple of spots. Chris and I ended up around 10th and 11thgoing in, as I hear him say “Dude, we’re screwed!”
I tried not to panic, noticing that the group remained tight, anticipating the parts of the course that would allow an easy pass. Panic did not stay away for long as we entered the 1st bit of technical trail. The rider directly in front of me was tip-toeing around like he was afraid to get his bike dirty. I, and others, began to encourage him to pick it up as we knew those in front were opening a gap. Slow poke then spins out and comes off his bike on a relatively easy rise and, rather than stepping aside and letting the guys that had been “encouraging” him to go on through, he blocks the whole trail with his body and bike like he was the only guy out there!
The upside to this was that adrenaline is good, anyway you get it. Unfortunately, passing other riders on course is not just a matter of who’s faster, but will the course AND the rider ahead, allow it. My “go faster” encouragement got louder and more frequent until I took a chance at passing and subsequently got shut out by this guy. I then asked if he had a teammate up the trail that he was blocking for and promised that if he did that again, “I’m gonna knock you down!” Not one of my finer moments, but I’ll blame the adrenaline.
The 2nd attempt was barely successful through the weeds and briars and slow poke’s muttering about “there's always one [jerk, ed.] in the race” or something like that. The rest of the 1st lap and 2nd were at time-trial pace, passing lots of riders, some of whom must have been in our cat, and all of whom were very accommodating when a pass was in order (what a relief).
Not too far into the last lap, I caught what I knew to be the rider in 3rd place (based on feedback from the Cycle Logic support crew: Holly and Millie). I was able to get by him at the first doubletrack section, but could not get out of sight. More than once he closed the gap in a hurry and made me think he was only keeping it close in order to pounce in the finishing straight. But it wasn’t to be. The gap finally stuck and I went into “don’t mess up, flat, or drop a chain” mode and cruised in. 2nd place was within sight, but we ran out of race…
Chris held his own as well, also moving up several places to finish 7th (consistent with his spring finish). One race, two “top ten’s” for Cycle Logic!
