May 25th
Root 66
Expert 30-39
5th out of 19

This was my first time at Coyote Hill. The course was a fun six mile loop with one decent ? mile climb, a ? mile of field, and 5 miles of tight and twisty single track. Not enough climbing to be well suited to my strengths, but a fun course to race on. I had a good start and was third into the woods. Stayed in third for the entire lap, the front two slowly pulled away, and had four guys on my butt. The entire lap was spent riding red line and I was hurting. Had a choice of backing off a little or dying, chose to back off. Lost a couple spots throughout lap 2 and lost my ability to ride smoothly. The third and final lap I got the smoothness back and held my position, occasionally reeling in and passing folks in other classes. I ended the race in 5th out of a surprisingly large field of 19 riders. The new bike is going to be awesome once I get the nerve to let it do its thing.


Here are some pictures.
[url]http://www.team-pinnacle.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=08-Coyote-Hill[/url]

Here are the results.
[url]http://www.root66raceseries.com/results/index.php?method=search.results&column=race_id&race_id=69&race_date=2008[/url]
 
[img:7c60f52a7e]http://www.team-pinnacle.org/albums/bc_personal/120x90.png[/img:7c60f52a7e]

The weather was absolutely perfect for a ride. It was a welcome change from "how many layers should I wear?". We rode a full lap for a warmup, and I was sweating buckets at the starting line.

The sport 40-49 field seemed like it had a population explosion. It was the biggest field of the race, 26 finishers.

The start of the race goes across an uphill field, then up a gravel road hill. My group went off like they were shot out of a cannon, I redlined within seconds, and got to the hill feeling like I was darn close to dead last. About halfway up the hill a few riders started to fade and I picked up a couple of places before going into the woods.

Once in the woods, it was over a mile of downhill single track. I was riding way beyond my abilties. My foot hit a rock on a fast, straight section, and I went down, screaming like a girl in terror. I bounced right back up, only losing two places, one of which I reclaimed within a few minutes.

Somwhere along the way I came across Brian taking pictures and offering encouragement. I'm a sucker for a cheerleader.

I was fairly well convinced I was peddling my butt off for the privelege of some position reasonably close to dead last. Short, fast races don't suit me. But I soldiered on, the course was fun, the day was perfect. I was hoping Dan wouldn't pass me. He started three minutes after I did, but I decided I wouldn't be surprised if I did see him.


I finally caught up with the other rider that passed me when I crashed earlier. We went back and forth a few times, and at one point I offered to let him by again, telling him I didn't need to battle it out for 20th place. He told me that we weren't that far behind. I didn't believe him. I eventually pulled away from him in the latter part of the second lap in some tight, uphill single track.

I went through the finish line alone, saw Brian with the camera, and put my arms up in celebration of my not-so-competetive, but still personally satisfying, back-of-the-pack finish.

When the results were posted, I was surprised to see a tenth place finish. I'm still uncertain why I was so wrong, but I suppose it doesn't matter. I rode the second lap at my own pace on the downhills, and was much smoother overall, but both laps were almost identical time. Also interestingly, my HR monitor quit working after the warmup (the bike computer still worked, but the HR didn't) which was probably a blessing - I think I would have scared myself, it was up so high for the whole race.

Brian's race went by quickly. I was confused regarding his place within his field (do you sense a trend here?) so I wasn't much help.

The course was fun, it's reasonably close by (Thank you, Dan, for driving), I think this race can go on the "do it again" list.

MG

In the 50+ Sport race we had 5 guys enter. I felt good and rode a full lap with Brian and Mark before the race. I liked the course it was very fast and the long climb was not technical just long and fast. At the start I let two guys lead out thinking I would get a good fix on who to watch and their pace during the race. As it turned out both of the leaders started to fade a little over half way up the climb. I was feeling good so I shifted to a harder gear stood up and pulled away. I had a substantial lead into the single track and did a good job of staying up right and picking good lines. Just about at the end of the first lap I broke my chain. I was off the bike for about 5 min fixing the damn thing and ended up working my way back to 3rd. Then at the finish line it broke again. It was a wonderful day to ride and I'll be back here.