Bob and I had a fantastic opportunity this past weekend to attend a UCI World Cup mountain bike race, "Race the World," at Windham Mountain in the Catskills. Apparently this is the only World Cup MTB hosted by the States this year. As title sponsor for the event, Stan's NoTubes had an expo booth on site which also supported the NoTubes pro racers-NoTubes sponsors both men's and women's elite teams as well as several individual racers. I bought a MTB license and raced the cat 2 women's MTB race on Sunday for the heck of it-another great experience. I figure a late race report is better than none, so here goes.
 |
| Dirt bike as pace vehicle. Yes, World Cup MTBers are that fast. |
You can also watch replay of the Men's World Cup race here:
And the course map is here: http://www.racewindham.com/trails/
And if you really want something to blow your mind, just check out this insane downhill racing. I have the utmost respect and awe for these guys.
After the men's U23 race I helped out Bob and the NoTubes crew in the feed/tech zone for the women's World Cup race-NoTubes riders Mary McConneloug, Krista Park, Kaila Hart, Zephanie Blasi, and Kathy Sherwin. I got chills watching this race up close and personal-it featured the best of the best in the women's pro MTB world. Katie Compton's "game face" is pretty intimidating. I took an extra step back every time I saw her coming because she kept nearly nailing me discarding bottles (the Rabobank support crew was just a few feet up the hill from us so I just kept handing the bottles back to them).
 |
| Flying by in a blur, Katie Compton gets ready to unload again. |
 |
| Katerina Nash coming through. |
NoTubes rider Kaila Hart, at age 19, was the youngest rider on the team and competed in the women's U23 race which started just a few minutes after the elite race. She had a moment of panic in the feed zone when she came in gasping that her chain wouldn't stay in the big ring when she shifted to it. The guys worked quickly on her bike and Bob told her to just do the best she could (she thanked him later)-and after a few seconds they sent her off again. Mary Mcconnelloug had spent something like ten hours in the hospital having tests done on Friday, but she still raced Saturday and finished 32nd. She had been feeling sick for some time but the medical establishment hadn't figured out what was wrong yet.
After the women's race I spent some time hanging out in the NoTubes tent and listened to the women talk about their races a little. Then after lunch Bob went up to the men's feed zone to support the pros again. I wandered around in the pavilion, checked out all the vendors, picked up my race numbers for the next day, then went to VIP Happy Hour and had a drink with a few random bikers from Long Island while watching the men's race. They had had maybe a few more drinks than I had and tried to convince me to jump off the building onto a giant air pillow set up next to the lodge. When they commenced throwing themselves off it, I decided that wasn't for me and went back down to the NoTubes tent to hang out again with everybody there-people came and went but Stan and Cindy spent a good deal of time there since their company was title sponsor for the whole event. They also presented awards after the men's and women's races. After the men's race ended Adam Craig and Jeremiah Bishop showed up to talk shop with Stan and autograph a few posters.
 |
| Jeremiah Bishop talks shop with tubeless guru Stan Koziatek of Stan's NoTubes. |
Beginning the winding descent down the mountain, things got interesting in the Patch-a short steep drop from bright sun into shadow which I only ever saw one line down over and through the rocks-scary at first appearance but easier to ride over than to look at. There were a few other very steep drops in the woods where you had to drop back behind your saddle and really NOT be all over your brakes constantly, just GO DOWN-but control speed just enough to get the bike through the zigzags. I flubbed it, grabbed brake and endoed on the tougher of these during my first preview lap. A sign with double downward-pointing double arrows gave some advance warning I immediately learned to heed. One of these sections bore the name "Kabush Falls" because he did once, right there. The Rip's name was mostly self explanatory, being a downward section that flowed over smaller rocks and roots to take you into a fast right-hand turn-if you really let it rip you came out into a high banked turn that tossed you up into the next climb with some momentum for the first few seconds. Stan's Rock Garden. Oh, boy, now it got interesting. I struggled with it on that first lap and it seemed there were two possible lines through it but I couldn't get it right. Big, big sharp rocks. The answer to the question of riding this came the next day-you have to hit it faster and just flow through it. The Gravitron and MiniWall also tested your descending ability. Obviously (for me) this course fell a bit on the technical side, because after the first lap I almost talked myself out of racing, because I had no friggin' clue how to ride a damn mountain bike. The female World Cup riders I talked to about it, and the ones I also overheard talking about, said it wasn't too technical. Not for them, I guess. I decided that rather than wuss out it would be better to ride another lap and then I'd probably stop feeling sorry for myself. On the second lap, I followed another more skilled rider and realized I needed to get a grip and find some conviction. If I thought I could ride something I definitely could. But I had to commit. Lack of commitment (especially on the steep twisty drops) meant ambivalence, brake-grabbing all the way down, and either crashing or running. I did much better my second lap around but still concluded I'd probably do some running on race day, if because I was a total head case. No matter what, I expected to build some character. I noticed some T-shirts for sale in a tent that depicted a MTB rider dropping off a small cliff. They read, "Don't Punk Out." Something to think about.
I went to dinner with Bob at the condo where Stan, Cindy, the NoTubes crew, and the racers were staying. I met a lot of new faces this weekend-Mary McConneloug, Mike Broderick, Krista and Todd Park, 3/5 of the NoTubes women's team (Kathy, Kaila, Zephanie) plus Mike, two Riches, and Stan himself. Pete Pelychaty and Vicky Barclay were also there. Vicky would race the women's Cat 1 race the next morning. Paul Speranza, Margaret Thompson, and Tamara Lewis were all racing Sunday morning as well. Margaret would take on the Cat 1 Master Women, Paul the 50+ Cat 1 men, and Tamara the Cat 2 Master Women.
On Sunday, I went out and made some noise for Paul, Margaret, Katina Walker, and Vicky Barclay-all racing in the first wave of non-UCI events. Margaret and Paul raced in their respective cat 1 Masters groups and Vicky raced Cat 1 women. Vicky won, Paul and Margaret each placed 9th. Bob and two of his fellow NoTubes staff started going over my bike and checking everything they could. Brakes, suspension front and back, derailleurs, tire pressure. They worked on it so seriously you would have thought I was racing a World Cup event. My race (Cat 2 women age 12-34) had all of five starters and although scheduled for 10:15am, ended up delayed until 10:30 for some reason we never knew. I knew absolutely nothing about the other people in the race and only guessed I was *probably* in the right category for this race (this used to be called the "Sport" Category before USAC decided to just use numbers) but even so still thought I'd have to run parts of the course. Or maybe just slide down the steeper parts on my rear end-since running them maybe wasn't so easy, either. I would definitely learn something during this experience. Maybe I'd learn I had no business racing mountain bikes. Bob kept nudging me while we waited to start and insisting I take off cyclocross style at the whistle. Good idea. Regardless of what eventually happened I might just freak the others out for a few minutes. So I bolted and opened up a bit of a gap on the other girls who must have wondered what I was doing. I went fairly hard up the first climbs and off into the woods. A look over my shoulder told me I had only one chaser who looked like she meant it. Her steady pace seemed calculated. I had better watch out for her. Oh well, I had to worry about actually riding over things and not playing Walk-A-Bike so I needed to change my focus a bit here. I figured I shouldn't go all out because I would need some blood in my brain to ride through the harder stuff.
I pedaled along and rode everything. What the heck? I guess that all of a sudden just because somebody put me behind a line and blew a whistle I was going to really commit to riding everything. I frightened myself just ever so slightly over and over and over (the voice in my head kept telling me to brake! brake! ) and I would find myself thinking "wait, I can't ride that but something else took over and by the time it occurred to me that something might be too hard, I was already halfway through and realized it was better just to continue. Maybe momentum is a state of mind, and in a pinch, instinct occasionally filled in where experience was sorely lacking. But everything kept working out. I made it through the first lap with just one or two bobbles, one where I forgot to shift and got stuck on one of the short steep climbs, and one where I got caught behind one of the men and when he got bogged down in the Frog Bog so did I.
About the men...maybe a minute or two into my race I ran up into the back of the men's field (I don't remember which field-actually it was probably a couple of combined fields). The entire race, I had to keep passing men. This became mentally fatiguing because on most of the climbs you had a certain amount of room to pass and as soon as I came up on one of the guys I had to keep on trucking and go around quickly before we went back into one of the wooded singletrack sections. If you didn't pass immediately you risked getting caught behind someone who would slow you down in the woods. So. Much. Traffic. Right before the start, I had chatted with a tall masters rider in a grey Audi kit from Connecticut. I came up and around him and said hi, and he graciously moved over into the looser gravel to give me the hard-packed dirt path. Not all the guys acted so accomodating. On one climb, first lap, I came up behind a group of three (the fourth or fifth such group I'd encountered) and said "on your right" and the last guy in line looked at me, horrified, and said "SHIT. SHIT!" Wow. I left him behind as fast as I could because he seemed a little unstable. At least mentally. I didn't hang around to observe his technical ability. And then more than a few times I would say "On your left" and then either these guys rode so hard they didn't notice I me, or they heard me and it didn't register, OR they heard me and didn't want to move over. The fifth or sixth time this happened I got annoyed. "FINE. ON YOUR RIGHT THEN!" LiLynn tells me they did the same thing to her when she raced mountain bikes. She says the solution is to pitch your voice a lot lower so you sound like a man and that way they'll let you by. Maybe I'll try this.
I pedaled along and rode everything. What the heck? I guess that all of a sudden just because somebody put me behind a line and blew a whistle I was going to really commit to riding everything. I frightened myself just ever so slightly over and over and over (the voice in my head kept telling me to brake! brake! ) and I would find myself thinking "wait, I can't ride that but something else took over and by the time it occurred to me that something might be too hard, I was already halfway through and realized it was better just to continue. Maybe momentum is a state of mind, and in a pinch, instinct occasionally filled in where experience was sorely lacking. But everything kept working out. I made it through the first lap with just one or two bobbles, one where I forgot to shift and got stuck on one of the short steep climbs, and one where I got caught behind one of the men and when he got bogged down in the Frog Bog so did I.
About the men...maybe a minute or two into my race I ran up into the back of the men's field (I don't remember which field-actually it was probably a couple of combined fields). The entire race, I had to keep passing men. This became mentally fatiguing because on most of the climbs you had a certain amount of room to pass and as soon as I came up on one of the guys I had to keep on trucking and go around quickly before we went back into one of the wooded singletrack sections. If you didn't pass immediately you risked getting caught behind someone who would slow you down in the woods. So. Much. Traffic. Right before the start, I had chatted with a tall masters rider in a grey Audi kit from Connecticut. I came up and around him and said hi, and he graciously moved over into the looser gravel to give me the hard-packed dirt path. Not all the guys acted so accomodating. On one climb, first lap, I came up behind a group of three (the fourth or fifth such group I'd encountered) and said "on your right" and the last guy in line looked at me, horrified, and said "SHIT. SHIT!" Wow. I left him behind as fast as I could because he seemed a little unstable. At least mentally. I didn't hang around to observe his technical ability. And then more than a few times I would say "On your left" and then either these guys rode so hard they didn't notice I me, or they heard me and it didn't register, OR they heard me and didn't want to move over. The fifth or sixth time this happened I got annoyed. "FINE. ON YOUR RIGHT THEN!" LiLynn tells me they did the same thing to her when she raced mountain bikes. She says the solution is to pitch your voice a lot lower so you sound like a man and that way they'll let you by. Maybe I'll try this.
I managed to make it through my first lap and starting thinking I liked the course. The girl chasing me (light blue and white jersey) caught up (I'm not sure if it was on the first lap or the second. Probably some time in the first lap). I let her by and then rode around on her wheel for a while. On my second lap I kept going fairly hard on the longer climbs but I probably should have gone faster the first lap. Too tentative. Live and learn. I lacked the confidence to use my roadie fitness in this different arena. I didn't feel too thrilled about the steep descents but I kept getting through them OK, just marveling at how I could momentarily lock my back wheel and skid, yet be in control. How could this happen? How could I do this? Bob kept passing me bottles in the feed zone and yelling at me to catch Blue Jersey, who slowly opened a gap on me but I just tried to keep it from growing too much. She wasn't Speedy Gonzales but she didn't have to be-she rode the technical sections faster. Confidence and experience move faster on wheels. I had an awful lot to think about (riding everything cleanly, not wrapping myself around a tree or eating dirt). I passed another girl wearing the same blue jersey as my competitor and thought momentarily that I had caught up. Nah. I also passed another four or five men in gray Audi kit at various points on course. I had to be hallucinating. Didn't I pass that guy already? I told this to Team Audi after the race, and they cracked up. What made this so funny? They ranged in size from maybe 5'3 to 6'2 and all different shapes and weights...
On the third lap mental fatigue set in and I started bobbling in the easier sections I had had no trouble with before. I took this as a warning sign that I needed to use extra caution on the steepier and rockier downhills in the trees. Finally in the steepest, most technical descent two guys came through yelling-apparently dueling to the death/to the crash because neither would give way to the other and I jumped off and scrambled to the side. One brushed me. I ran/scrambled/slid down the rest of the way, jumped back on (cyclocross remount) and into the last section of screaming downhill one more time and I then-home free. Vicky Boughton (Blue Jersey) had over 3 minutes on me at the finish. Maybe I'll get her next time. I had a lot of fun, and it would take some time to absorb the experiences of riding things during a race that frankly terrified me beforehand. I am kind of interested in this whole MTB thing.
Back in the Stan's tent I slowly got my bearings back. Adam Craig had come back to hang with Stan and talk some more shop. He asked if I'd raced, and then how it went. I felt kind of funny having Adam Craig stand there in his Rabobank kit asking me how my little amateur race went. But I said I had a blast and might do it again. I just might. Apparently I learn the largest number of new things the fastest while racing.
Big, big THANK YOU to Bob, Stan and Cindy from Stan's NoTubes-and all the NoTubes staff who were there. I have about 15 new Facebook friends, and I hope I get to see them some time again. I also really got see first-hand how much Stan and Cindy are directly involved with the cycling community, and how popular they are with the racers they support.
We also just found out today that Mary Mcconneloug has been diagnosed with Lyme disease. Unfortunately, she will miss MTB Nationals right now, but hopefully she'll have a speedy recovery.
