Wow what a weekend. Friday night after all packed and ready for a trip to Oklahoma I just happened to notice on USAC's website that the race is CANCELLED! Thought about Iola for WORS, but thats quite a jaunt for overnight. Then found the Kansas Fat Tire Festival...and it was only about 4 1/2 hours away! They claimed that this course at Lake Wilson, KS reminds people of riding in Colorado...seemed a bit of a stretch for Kansas?! However...the area of the state park we rode in was called the "Hell Creek" area.
They were not kidding. I did not get a pre-ride in so I found out as I went. For anybody thats ridden the loose sandy rocky stuff along the foothills in Colorado...this was identical...and played in my favor. Decided to drive down Sunday morning- arrived 10:45am with 1hr 15 mins to race time. Register, change, check the bike, organize the fuel, short warm-up and lined up. I was running my XR1/XR0 setup...I was the only one like that- everyone else was running XR2s or 3s, Rocket Rons, and other luggy stuff because of all the sand and rocks. They've ridden here, I hadn't so I was a little nervous but whatever.
About 40-45 line up for Cat 2 mass start and we were off. Good start around 7th going into the singletrack when those ahead of me really checked up on the pace. All CAT 1, 2, and SS were doing one full lap of 21 miles and I guess they were saving, but maybe a little too much?? Not really used to this, but I picked them all off within the first few miles and found myself leading the pack...which was good, because it was about that time when we hit the technical sections...and they were serious gnarly rocky uphill and downhill switchback loose and sandy stuff- I was in heaven because typically I can ride this stuff a little better than others in my class.
I heard lots of "RIDERS DOWN!"s yelled out behind me and could only imagine the bikes stacking up behind. I was AMAZED at the performance of my tire setup. These tires worked awesome, and hooked way better than I thought in this terrain. My legs felt great and was waiting to feel them start to fade from the pace I was trying to keep but it never really happened! The workouts from TJ really showed up here!!
However, one point I was one of the guys that somebody yelled rider down for...over the bars on a steep rock sort-of-drop that I was surprised with around a blind corner haha! Some good trail-cred on the left shin and right wris but nothing really worth bragging about. One other "incident" was me showing off a bit for some cameras and a crowd at a road crossing that had a nice high speed ramp built up to it...that went well...however, I had so much speed off the landing that I didn't see the next ramp about 100 yards further down the trail...this was definitely the longest air I've gotten on a mountain bike...I had enough time to think "This isn't gonna go well" before the landing...but somehow I landed it, not gracefully and hoping nobody saw it haha!
Around halfway I hit some more rocks that either made a pinhole leak or burped some air out of the rear tire. Either way the off camber hill climbs and turns had to be taken very slow and the chase group started to catch me. I held them for awhile, and realized the tire was not going all the way flat so around mile 15-16, hopped off and stuck some air in the tire. Five riders went by but I had only lost about a minute or so to the leaders.
I was able to catch and pass three of them but just couldn't ride that much faster than the other two to catch before the end. Came in third overall in CAT 2 with a great time at 2hrs 4mins. Turns out my tire did have a leak because the last mile the rear tire was a little squishy in the turns...finished on 12psi.
Awesome time racing though- super cool group of racers and the course was amazing. If you happen to be driving across Kansas and have your bikes stop off here (~40 miles west of Salina on I-70) - the whole trail is really sweet. I'd love to race there again!
1 comment:
Nice work!
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