This past weekend was the 2nd race of the Socal State Series and US Cup. It also happened to be the 1st national race of the newly created Pro XCT as organized by USA Cyling. This alone attracted a field of around 120 Pro XC racers from North America! It was a 2 day event with tons of action for everyone. The Fontana race is famous for it's Downhill and 4X events which also attracts top pros from the nation. For the amateur racer such as myself, this event gave me a chance to see why these guys are pro. Absolutely amazing how fast these guys can pedal.
My race weekend started on Friday with flu-like symptoms which carried on throughout the weekend. I knew this wasn't going to be good, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from racing. I arrived to Southridge Park in Fontana Saturday morning and met up with the Velosport club. Parking was great and the event was already attracting tons of racers and spectators with bike vendors all over the place. This will probably be the biggest event of the State Series for 2009. The XC course had to be modified for 2009 due to an endagered species of something stupid. The result of this modifcation was a much shorter lap (4.2 miles) while elimanating the paint ball park climb and singletrack sections. The layout of the new course was done well and was quite fun. The CAT 2/3 racers were scheduled to start at 11am which was already turning out to be a scorcher. The temps reached the mid 80's and with not much of a breeze. The CAT 1's and Pro's raced the following day on Sunday. My category was to do 3 laps of this newly created course.
My race started off very fast. I wanted to make sure to get out of the gate quickly and to get up the first initial steep/sandy climb. If I didn't, I would be caught up in the traffic in my wave of racers and would be running my bike up the climb because of someone else failing to pedal up the climb. Again, I made sure this didn't happen and I was the first out of my group to get up this climb as you can see in this video.
CAT2 30-34 Highlights
As I continued on I almost made a wrong turn that cut right to a singletrack that was used in last year's course. I slowed down and asked the guy behind me which way to go and shouted straight. I lost my current place to that guy and one other. I was to never see those 2 again. I was now sitting in 3rd. I finished my first lap in the 21 minute range which is a really great time. Of course I forgot to hit my lap button on my Garmin in the process.
On the 2nd lap I was already feeling more tired than normal and the legs just didn't seem to have the power I wanted. I was passed by a rider in my category on the 1st main road climb towards the water towers. We were battling it out for the 3rd and 4th spot. I stuck to his wheel on this climb until the very top turnoff onto the singletrack. I got out of the saddle and pushed hard to get ahead of him. It was very important to get ahead of riders on the singletrack that may slow you down because there isn't much room or opportunity for passing. There was alot of singletrack and alot of traffic out there with all the other racers racing at the same time. My strategy started to pay off since I started gapping the racer behind me. This was working great until I got to the open fire road which is generally flat. The racer behind me caught up to me and eventually passed me on the flat section. I thought to myself if I can make it up on the climbs and singletracks, I may have a chance to pull 3rd off. Just before the end of the 2nd lap there is a short, steep, rocky climb. There is only one good line to take and of course there are other racers in the way walking up this line. The racer now in front me is about 10 feet ahead of me and dabs towards the top of this climb and gets of his bike. I powered up the climb with no problem while passing him to take 3rd place over again. I wish that was the final lap because after that short climb, it is really hard to pass someone until the start/finish line. This lap was much slower for me as I believe it was in the 24 minute range.
The guy behind me in this picture above was who I was battling it out with.
Lap 3 was a decent lap and I felt good until the water tower pavement climb. The guy behind me decides to attack me again at this point and even though I was able to hang onto his wheel for some time, he gapped me towards the top of the singletrack turnoff. The heat was unbearable for me at that point as well. Sucking down cytomax just made my mouth all sticky and wasn't quenching my thirst. Lesson learned here is to not use cytomax for hot days. I wasn't able to catch up to him on the singletracks because I kept getting stuck behind slower traffic. I could see the gap getting larger and eventually I couldn't see him at all once I got to the fenceline fire road. At that point I lost my motivation to push and settled into a comfortable pace to the finish. I finished the race 4th with an overall time of 1:09:50.
I'm actually dissapointed with my result, but under the circumstances of being sick, 4th is a good result. I really was hoping to repeat my 1st place performance from Bonelli, but it was not to be that day. Turns out I lost out on 3rd place to the guy that got 2nd at Bonelli. I'm going to have to watch out for him from now on. The 2 guys that got 1st and 2nd didn't race Bonelli and I'll see if they show up to Sagebrush this coming weekend. As of right now, I'm sitting in 1st place overall by 1point.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot about my post race interview from Colt @ cyclingdirt.org. This guy has put together an awesome site with tons of video coverage from the race this weekend. Please check it out.
Post Race Interview
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