Recap of McDowell Race on 11/1/2008 (by Brian Willess)
This was a great race. The ride started off on a bad foot, I had not been paying attention to the starting grid, so by the time I got to the starting line, there was a group of 50 riders all crammed in, so I had to start at the back of the pack. The course for Beginner groups was Technical Loop, Technical/Long Loop, then a final Technical Loop a total of 14.8 miles.
The first lap consisted of working my way through the riders. The course is mostly nice single track trail that's hard to pass on. My strategy was to just ride behind the next rider, but as soon as that rider had a gap between them and the next rider I would make a pass. A couple of times I had two riders in front of me where the first guy was holding us both up. I would encourage the middle rider to pass with a friendly "You've got him, go for it!" when the trail would open up. I would sneak by at the same time "one more coming through".
After the first loop, all the riders got pretty spread out, It was into the second loop when I saw my team mate Dino a way's in front of me. I love riding the bike and can tend to kind of back off to catch my breath at times, but if I have someone in my sights I get a little more power, or maybe it's just more will to endure the pain. So when I saw Dino, I just kept using one or two higher gears. Eventually I caught up to him. He had been riding close to another guy who had his same pace. I told Dino I was with him and that we were doing great. After a couple of minutes the other rider passed Dino, and I went by shortly after.
So now this other rider and I were making some good time. I kept yelling words of encouragement, "dam you're riding fast, I can't hardly keep up", or "I caught you again, I guess you're going to get your next burst of power now" So we were pretty evenly matched. Towards the end of the second loop he got held up on a short climb by another rider and I passed him on the climb. I stayed ahead until the start/finish line to start the 3rd loop. This is when he passed me, we introduced ourselves to each other and kept riding. His name was Bill.
The third loop was hard, my legs had started to cramp, but I had Bill ahead of me and I couldn't let him get away. He got a few nice leads, but I would reel him in. By the last 1/4 mile we where riding together again and we finished pretty much together.
After the race Bill treated me to a cup of water and we caught our breath together. It turns out this was his first Mountain Bike Race, he placed 1st in his class (Beginner Men 50 - 59), and I got second place in my class (Beginner Men 40 - 49).