CCCX DH #1: Scott Seery

Such great weather this weekend! I'm still sunburned from 2 days of bright, sunny skies.

Just a quick recap of the first DH of the 2007 season.

Arrived Friday afternoon and met up with a few others who had also taken Friday off to check out the course. I brought both a full DH bike (Yeti DH-9) and my new favorite, a Yeti 575 with Fox 36 Talus and DHX 5.0 Air, and DT Swiss DH wheelset. I brought them both, as one never really knows what to expect of a course, and the description on the website convinced me that it may be DH-bike worthy race.

The course essentially ran in a reverse direction on the trails used to get to the start of the race I ran in October '06. It began with a super fast rolling fireroad with two blind ski-jump style steep sections littered with moonscapes of erosion ruts and the like in the down slope transition. You'd approach each with enough speed (40+ mph) to unweight coming over the lip. The road then narrowed as it dumped into a series of tight 'n' twisty single track sections, some small ledges, some small rocky jumps, etc. Finally, the course popped out onto a paved section for ~100 yards, and then back onto single track, including a high speed, cobbly dry-creek crossing just before the final sprint to the finish. Although there were portions where a big bike would have reduced the speed pucker factor, I ended up racing the 575, a good choice overall.

I managed 2 practice runs before the park closed at 5 pm on Friday. The 2nd run I managed to snap a chain at the bottom as I sprinted the final couple hundred yards of gentle rollers on single track before the finish line. In 21 years of mountain biking, that is the first chain I've ever broken, a Shimano item with maybe 10 hours on it. Fortunately I scrounged a SRAM master link from someone at the venue and patched it up before I got kicked out of the park.

Race day came, and somehow I forgot to stop for breakfast before I got to Toro park. Darn it. So I drank tea and ate a few Balance bars and an apple. I saw Kathleen and her son just as I was headed up for my sole practice run, which I did late in the session. I had an early start time (13th racer down) and wanted to see the course in a condition that would be similar to what I would encounter in my race run. I donned most of my RockGardn gear (sans leggings) and full-face Azonic helmet to gain enough confidence for a practice run at race speed. It was no surprise that the tight, technical sections changed substantially from the day before, and so, too, did my tactics. Once seeing these changes in course condition/lines, I decided to race at a pace just fast enough to (hopefully) beat the competition that was there, and no more. I've learned the painful way that you only need to go fast enough to beat the 2nd place guy.

Once back to the bottom, I had just 20 minutes to rehydrate, eat a bit, and start the 30 minute, full-sun, push back to the start. I was already pretty fatigued and it took about 35 minutes for me to get the the top this time. I was drenched in sweat. Drenched. Someone managed to find and drink the water I had stashed at the top for my race run. Great. No shade and no water, and I had just 5 minutes to control the flood of sweat down my face before donning helmet and gloves. Before I knew it (and was ready), I was next to go. Dang.

Well, I overcooked the first loose turn off the high speed fireroad and got caught a moment in the branches of a scrubby bush, needing to downshift twice to get back up to speed. Not a bad mishap, really, but I lost a a good deal of speed. I was cautious through the new lines in the technical sections, but pedaled like a banshee where ever I could, sprinting all the way through the finish line. Soon I was looking for a good place to launch the contents of my empty stomach. My time was good (3:21.86), good enough to beat the guy I knew to be my main competition. I was 6 seconds ahead of him, and was certain I would be the winner, as the others in the class (45+ Expert) were 8 or 10 or more seconds behind as each came in one after another.

And then, I learned that some other guy - Brian Hughes, a Trailhead sponsored rider - had bested me by 2 seconds. None of us old guys knew of him before that day - Dang! Turns out he just moved up from the Expert 35-44 class, his 2007 racing age now 45. Darn upstart, gol' dang whipper-snapper! Although he had been in the top 5 in the 2006 Central Coast DH series, I had actually beaten his time at the October race, so I know I can beat him again. He's my new mark, although I still don't know who he is - he didn't show at the awards!

One down and 4 to go.