Good Weekend, Part 2

So today was the King of Burlingame Mountain Bike Time Trial. Kevin and I had said we'd do this instead of Marblehead months ago, and we were both eager to race for the first time in our National Champion's Kits. Kev won the cross country event at Natz last year at Mt. Snow VT, and while I finished 2nd in my age group in the Cross Contry event, I won the short track event for Expert men 30 and older. I got up at 4:45, had a quick breaky and hit the road in the darkness. I had packed everything the night before on wobbly legs so it was a clean get away. We were shooting for a 7:30 arrival and we rolled into the parking lot at 7:30 on the dot. Good so far. It's a 7 mile individually started TT. So we knew we needed to pre ride the entire course since we had never laid eyes on the terrain. We had gotten reports that it wasn't very technical, but I was skeptical because RI has always been rocky in the woods whenever I've ridden there. Sure enough, the first section is what I would have to consider very technical. It stayed that way for a while and I tried not to be intimidated, but everyone that mountain bikes with me knows I'm more of a fitness rider than a technical ace. I do OK, but if the obstacles come at me in rapid fire like a rock garden or lots of roots and water, I lose my momentum and dab all over the place or stop....or crash. I try to pick my spots and I try to improve at it, but it's tough when it's your first look ever at the trail. Anyway the second half of the course opens up onto some faster single track and some fire road and even 2 short sections on paved roads. The last few K has a lot of thin wooden bridges that are a blast, but you have to be careful at the beginning and ends of them. Some water, some mud, lots of rocks & roots, several logs jumps/obstacles, and some gradual power climbing really made it a pretty complete mountain bikers course. Kevin breezed through the technical sections, and I struggled. I studied the course the best I could and decided I could potentially win the event with hard power riding in those sections if I didn't make any big mistakes anywhere else. I was there to win, since my teamate Mark Stotz had given us the low down on our competition. I considered Kev my main competition and if he'd had a normal week of training instead of a (work related) stress filled week, he'd have been the clear favorite in my mind. We were respectfully worried about the legendary Paul Curly and his teamamte, technical ace, Chris Borello. We finished our pre ride and I had a snack and pretty much rolled right up to the start which was a couple miles up the road and down the trail a bit. There was a great old timer (I can say that because I'm one) doing the starts and adding some very colorful commentary with a nice Irish brouge. He made me smile and relax. Guys were flying off the start in true time trial fashion and I kinda laughed to myself, because I've probably done 2000 TTs in my life, and never once on a mountain bike. I had decided the smartest plan for me was to get from point A to point B as fast as I could without taking the risk of the big mistake. I would do a planned cyclocross dismount before the spots I wasnt 100% confident with and run through and then remount cyclocross style. I knew I could win if I just rode the technical sections at my skill level and than kill it when I could. I also told myself to not think of it as a TT in the tricky spots, but to go into TT mode after I was done with the first part of the course where it was so challenging. I knew that would also help to prevent going out too hard and blowing up. I got my start and my teamates, (Kevin and Gray) were starting a minute behind me and a minute and a half. I more or less did what I planned. I made a few mistakes, but avoided the big one and I even rode a few sections much better than I had in warm up and on different lines. I really made myself suffer near the end and crossed the line thinking I had done a really good ride. Kevin rolled in just after me, and I thought he was around the same time as me, but he thought he had a bad ride. I knew he was close though, because I wasn't there for very long at all before he rolled in. I didn't time myself, so I had to wait to see the results. The beginners went last so we had to wait quite a while, but we had some laughs with friends and it was really a nice day, just a bit windy. In the end, I won the event outright and set a new course record and Kev was about 25 seconds behind me in 2nd. So we went 1,2 and took home the course record and a bunch of schwag, including this little gem...

It's good to be King!

C-Ya, JB