NC Getaway

     The first week of April brought significantly better weather and another chance to race on the dirt before crit. season got into full swing. Tsali has always been one of my favorite places to race at. I've missed going there the past few years, so I was anxious to get back and ride some of the best trails in the southeast. It was also another chance for Shannon and I to spend the weekend somewhere together instead of running around like chicken's with our heads cut off like we usually do at home. Not to mention I wanted a little redemption after the previous week's disappointment at Chickasaw.

    It was a big weekend for us as LDS church members. We have a thing called General Conference where the church leaders from Salt Lake City speak in several different sessions throughout the weekend. They talk about what we should be doing as church members and the state of the church. We were pretty fortunate to be able to watch a lot of it, as our little cabin in the Nantahala Gorge was equipped with DirecTV.

Our cabin's front porch, complete with ceiling fan

     The racing began with a Saturday afternoon time trial. Four miles of blazing fast fire road and singletrack to wake up the legs for the following day's XC, and a chance to steal a few points for the SERC series overall. We had 9 Pros wanting a few of those extra points. I am a very poor time trialist, so I knew I had my work cut out for me. It was nearly all power on this course and that is not one of my strong points. I gave it my best shot and actually had a really good ride for me. I was super smooth and stayed at 100% effort the whole time. My goal was to finish in 17 minutes and I clocked a 17:02. I thought that was a good time until results came up and I was 9th out of 9 Pros and 18th overall. My time was a full 2 minutes off the winner Robert Marion. It was a bit disappointing, but I was happy with my effort nonetheless.

     Sunday was the XC and it was a beautiful day. It was chilly during warm-up, but the temp was perfect during the race. My start was awful as I started from the second row and got caught behind a rider who apparently wanted to be last into the woods. The pace wasn't that fast, but I still couldn't hold it and was popped off the group on the first long climb. I just didn't have the legs and I struggled the entire way around the first 14 mile lap. I was caught by many of the riders from the Cat. 1 classes that started minutes behind us.

Pro riders on the start line

Me just squeezing into the picture to the left of Alex Ryan

     I would like to forget about my first lap forever. I was the last Pro out of the woods and too many minutes back to count. I crashed on the first descent of lap 2, cracking my knee hard on the stem. I had to sit for a while just to chill out, let the knee stop aching and let my frustration calm down. I rubbed my knee for a minute and managed to get some of my Leg Salsa on my gloves. I then wiped the sweat from my eyes as I remounted. That was followed by intense burning in my eyes and on my forehead for the next 15 minutes. I was a very unhappy rider at that moment. Somehow, my legs came back around and I was finally able to settle into a good pace. I caught a lot of the Cat. 1s that had passed me, but never saw another Pro. I think the most important part was that even though my day was crappy, I still had so much fun! Those last few miles were some of the best I've ever ridden on a mountain bike. I may have finished 20th, but I sure had a great time and can't wait to come back and ride there next season.