Crit and Single Speed

After my 16th place the week prior at the Motown Road Race 1/2/3, my next race on the schedule was the ABRA Mountaineer Crit in Clarksburg, WV on Saturday. I showed up when the College KIDS race was going on, and parked beside my team mate Ben K. As Ben and I where getting are things together for a warm up, my front tubular tire pops. I had dug a pretty good size rock out of it earlier in the week from Motown Race. Luckily, I had an extra set of wheels with me and swapped it out. Soon, Ben and I jumped on the trainers. I pumped some Tool in the iPod and was ready to go. Photo by Fred Jordan
As the 1/2/3s rolled out, I had teammates Gunnar and Ben to race with. The pace was set pretty fast from the start. I had to bury myself for the first 25 minutes, and then the pace let up a little. There were a few more attacks that mixed things up. Photo by Fred Jordan
Finally, it was the last lap and coming into turn 3 I was in good position about 6th back. Coming out of turn 4, there was a little up hill and I was able to snag 4th on the day. I was pretty happy with that, especially with all of the fast guys.

On Sunday, I found my way toward Parkersburg WV for the 1st WVMBA/OMBC race of 2011 at Mt Wood State Park. I showed up around 10:30 and the registration line was pretty long (212 racers for the day). I left my geared bike at home and raced the Single Speed. We lined up at noon and off we went. Right from the gun, I found myself chasing fellow Single Speeder Montana Miller and some other Ohio guy that I didn’t know. They were both on a bigger gear then me so I had to work hard to stay with them. The Ohio guy went in the wood with a good 30 seconds up after a long gravel section start. Once in the woods, I started to pass a few of the geared guys. Finally, after about 20 minutes, I bridged up to the Ohio guy. I could still see Montana behind me not too far back. After the road crossing, there was a pretty good climb, so I layed it down a little more and was able to get away from Montana and the other guy. I continued my way around the lake, just trying to stay smooth since this was only my 5th Mt bike ride of the year. Once on the other side and after climbing medicine man, I heard someone behind me. It was Montana… he was closing in. He finally caught up to me and we rode together for a while. I was trying to stay smooth, but I knew he could tell I was pedaling blocks and he attacked. There really wasn’t much I could do; I was out of bottles so I hit another gel and just continued to ride. I started to come back around a little bit, but by that time the race was over. I ended up 2nd Single Speed, 1 minute 24 seconds back; and 3rd overall on the day. Good day with the big field of single speeds and geared guys.

Posted by Nate