Rider in reverse! Sea Otter 4/8/06

STAGE THREE: SHORT TRACK Saturday, April 8, 2006

The third stage of the Sea Otter Classic is the short track race. Short track is similar to a criterium (see my San Dimas Stage Race posting to learn about criteriums). Basically, short track is on a short circuit on the dirt. The women were set to go off at 1:15pm and race for seven laps. Similar to the super cross race on Thursday, all riders in danger of being lapped would be pulled. All pulled riders will receive a finish time, plus a penalty. This was going to be my first short track race ever.

Bike Update: Luckily, the Answer/Manitou mechanics were able to put a new shiny squashed caterpillar green casting on my front fork so I would be able to reattach my front disc brake. The bad news was that the bike builder used the wrong length of bolts for my brake which may have caused the stripped threads. No big deal, I just had to hoof it across the Sea Otter festival grounds back to the SRAM tent to get more bolts and washers. Finally, my bike was put back together and in time for today’s race! Yeah!!

After getting my bike back in working order, I headed back to the car to relax and prepare for the short track event. My warm-up went surprisingly well. Last night when I went back to the hotel, my legs were seizing up. Yesterday I had not had an opportunity to do a cool down ride after the time trial because I was so focused on getting my bike fixed-then I did not have a bike to ride. So I learned the hard way the importance of doing a recovery ride after a race.

The short track start was a mass start. In the picture you can see the sea of helmets. Now where’s the squashed caterpillar green fork? If you found it, that’s me. Women were crashing and sliding all over the place right from the start. Since it rained yesterday from mid-afternoon through the night, the course was very soupy. I did a pretty good job picking my lines through the wrecks and sloppy riders until I got stuck behind Kelli Emmett on the Ford Cycling Team. She was taking a bad line in a grassy muddy downhill section and going slow-half riding, half walking her bike. I mistakenly thought she had picked a good path and followed. That set me back a few spots.

Quickly after that I found out that the course was much like a cyclo-cross aka “psycho-cross” course in my dictionary. Cyclo-cross is a type of racing where racers use road-type bikes with knobby tires and jump off their bikes in pre-determined sections to hop over knee-high barriers and then get back on their bikes and ride again. Ugh! I am not a fan of psycho-cross; bikes are made to be ridden, not carried. In this short track race there were two areas that you had to dismount. Again, I learned the hard way. I tried to ride some of the puddles to only find out that they were shin-deep bowls of squishy soupy mud that sucked half my front wheel in and took some force to pull my bike back out of. I had also stepped in it and almost lost my shoes trying to pull my feet out. Yuck! Backwards I went again as I watched racers go around me on each side.

Powering through other muddy sections took a lot of energy. Some areas I rode well and then others I just kept getting sucked into the mud bog trying to get around other racers. I felt like I was riding in reverse. My bike was accumulating mud and kept getting heavier on each lap. It was a struggle to hold it upright. I think I raced for three laps before being pulled by the officials because Gunn-Rita was hauling around the course without a hitch. I finished today in 50th place. I cannot wait until I have more pro racing experience under my belt so I can lap riders too. Until then, I will be at the bike wash cleaning the mud off my bike with Chrissy.