Mendocino Pt. Series

Well instead of doing CCCX#4 I choose to go to the race 1 of the Mendocino Pt. Series.  While it's a small event the race promoter does a good job and I enjoy the course.  Since I had to work until 9:30 PM on Saturday I had to drive up to Jackson State Forest by Fort Bragg Sunday morning, getting up at 4:30 AM just is not right!  But I made it up there in under 3 hours and it is a nice drive.  I arrived just after 8:30 AM, signed up and got ready.  I noticed not many people were there yet, I hoped a few more would arrive, last year the 1st race had 12 or 13 people overall.  Since I had the time I decided to preride the course even though it was the same as last year.  The course is just under 7.5 miles long, with sport doing 2 laps and experts doing 3.  The course starts of with a 2 mile section of fire road, flat or slightly downhill, a pretty easy way to start a race.  Following that there is a 1 to 1.5 mile fire road climb, that I'd call moderate.  Next comes the longest downhill, about 1.5 mile, of the race on an overgrown fire road that alternates between fire road, doubletrack and singletrack.  This section is fast, just watch the speed on a couple of corners, the plants trying to grab you on the overgrown sections and a few new sandy spots on the doubletrack.  At the end of this section, that course has a switchback and a steep fire road climb of a about a .5 to .75 miles begins, just make sure to pick the right line when going over the deep water bars cut across the road.  At the top of the climb you head on to a singletrack downhill of about .5 miles thru the redwoods.  This section is fun, but I have trouble with these 2 steep drops that I'm not use to riding.  I went over the bars on this section last year and I'm now too conservative on this section.  The singletrack drops you back out on to a fire road that is mostly level, this section is boring and last about .5 to .75 miles.  At the end of this section you turn sharply onto singletrack, cross a bridge, go thru some muddy spots and then begin a the final climb which was steep with some fairly deep water bars to cross.  The is not with out reward, a great section of windy downhill singletrack thru the redwoods that dumps you out about 25 yards from the finish line.

 

Well back to my race, after doing a warm up lap I get back to the start about 10 minutes before start time.  I was disappointed to see only a few more racers have shown up.  As it ends up there were 2 others in the sport class besides me and 4 experts.  When the races starts I manage to hang on to the experts for the first 2 miles, which was great, especially since a head wind had developed.  The experts drop me on the climb, that why they're experts and I'm not.  Near the top of the first climb I go through a switchback and notice one of the other sport racers is about 20 to 30 seconds behind me, so I push a little harder.  I'm feeling pretty good and pushing pretty hard, I put some distance on the guy behind me.  My only problem in lap one is when I reach the steep downhill and pysch myself out on the section that gives me trouble, this cases me to lose sometime.  As I begin the last climb I notice the other racer was made up some time and is now 20 to 30 seconds behind me again, damn it.  I begin lap to and I miss having anyone to draft.  The headwind seems a little stronger now and I'm 2 to 3 MPH slower on the 2 mile flat section.  The good news is that I've put more time on the one guy that was close behind me.  I push through the second lap and except for the slower beginning I'm going about the same as the first lap.  By the final climb I know I'm going to win the race, the other racer is no where to be seen.  I finish with a time of 1:21:10, my second fastest time on the course, maybe if it wasn't for the headwind I would have beaten my best time.  The 2nd place guy finishes just under 3 minutes behind me.  Talk with him after the race he tells me that I dropped him on the flat section with the headwind, I guess I wasn't the only one who didn't enjoy that.  I was nice for a change to finish in front instead of near the back.  After the race it was back to Marin so I could finish my shift on Mt Tam.  Hopefully more racers show up for the other races, I'll be back up there this Sunday.  Hopefully the cold I have right now clears up.

 

MAtt

On Sunday I went to race #2 of the Mendocino Mtn Bike Point Series. Once again I got up at real early for the 3 hour drive, had to work until 9:30 the night before, oh well.  I was a little worried about this race, I had felt off most of the week and even missed a day of work with a sore throat.  The course was the same as the week before, just a little muddy since they got 3 inches of rain last week.  The turnout was better, which was good.  There were 5 in the sport class, plus 5 or 6 beginners, 4 expert men and 1 expert woman. 

 

I had a really good start staying with (or at least near) the lead experts until about 1/3 of the way up the first climb and stayed with one expert until the last 100 yards of the first climb.  I felt really good through the first lap, but had a case of deja vu while starting the last climb of the 1st lap, I looked down and saw the same 2nd place racer as last week in almost the same place as last week, about 30 seconds behind me.  Right behind him was the third place racer, they had a tight race going on.  I completed the first lap in about 38 to 39 minutes, which was about the same as last week.

 

Starting the second lap, I downed some hammergel and really pushed.  I actually managed to catch up to one expert about 2 miles into the seconds lap and stayed with him for about another 2 miles until he pulled ahead of me on a steep downhill.  It was good to have another racer with me, it made me push harder then if I was alone.  I continued to ride hard through the remainder of lap 2 and finished in 1st for the second weekend in a row!  My time for the 2nd lap was between 39 and 40 minutes.  My average HR for the race was 180.  I basically tied my previous best time for the course and finished just over 2 minutes ahead of 2nd place. 

 

The second and third place finishers had a much tighter race, change places 5 times in the race.  The 2nd place finisher finally pulled away on the last downhill, after the 3rd place finisher crashed twice on it.  This time a reporter from the local Fort Bragg paper was there and I along with TWW might get mentioned in an article about the race!  Afterwards it was back to Marin and work, it was very nice on Mt Tam in the late afternoon yesterday.  I think I'll do the Santa Rosa Short Track this Wednesday, my next big race will either be the Tamarancho race, if I can get time off to do it or Downieville, which I planned some vacation time around.

 

Matt