Subaru Cup Day 2

Sunday morning dawned bright and warm with low humidity, as apparently the weather gods had acquiesced to the mountain bike gods request for another day of perfect weather. The short track course was all doubletrack with a pair of modest power climbs. There were some rocks, some sandy sections, some long sweeping high speed turns, and one really sketchy gravel covered sweeper. Cat. 2 was split into 3 heats for the men based on age divisions with my group in the middle of the order.

After the first race finished we scrambled to get a good start position. As we lined it up I got that queasy nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach knowing that right from the start we would hit the opening climb at full gas. Don sent us on our way with the usual spirited “goooooooooooo”, and we all went appropriately ape shit. As we crested the first climb I was sitting right around 4^th or 5^th wheel, and by the time we hit the pavement on the lower portion of the loop I had weaseled my way up to third wheel a few bike lengths behind Bryan Frazier (Wildside Velo) and Jason Ruesch (Rib Mountain Cycles). Jason overcooked the sketchy gravel corner and went down almost right in front of Bryan.

Slightly freaked out, I maneuvered around the down rider and Bryan and I charged to the front. After that it was pretty much a “mano a mano” slugfest. Bryan hammered me for another lap or two before I made a move for the front. I let it all hang out on the climbs, but Bryan hung tough. Eventually I was able to create a little separation and eke out a 5 second gap. I knew I had to keep the pace high and avoid any major mistakes, as one significant bobble would quickly erase the lead. Bryan has been riding really well this season and was 5^th overall in cat 2. at the Trek Big Ring Classic (WORS #3), so I knew he wasn’t going to fade.

With one lap to go I hit the line clinging to a slim lead. As I hammered up the first climb a woman who had been spectating the race whispered “bury yourself”. It was an interesting contrast to the usual cacophony that is present at races. For some reason this got me really fired up. I couldn’t tell how close Bryan was going into the last turn but I was scared as ‘ell that I was going to blow the win on that corner. I slowed down quite a bit and made it clean. As soon as I was clear of the gravel I got out of the saddle and put the power down on the final straight, crossing the line in 1^st, just a couple seconds up on Bryan. In the overall standings my final time was 2^nd overall behind Paul Mumford (Kinky Llama racing) , the guy who had taken the overall win in the XC race the day before (with a ~3 minute margin of victory!).

The 2011 Subaru cup weekend was good despite…or perhaps because of the disappointment endured. I’m a firm believer in the value of experience, and that applies to races where everything goes right as well as to races where everything does NOT go right. So I’ll take the good and the bad from this weekend and consider it a worthwhile experience that will ultimately benefit my racing in the future. Next up is some more local Psycowpath action with the Tranquility/Lewis and Clark stage race weekend followed by a week in Canada for work, and then the Omaha race weekend, where I’m looking forward to racing in the Cat. 4 road race. A big thanks to Emily for being an awesome superfan this weekend.