The hands down least unjoyable race of the season for me.
To give you an idea of why, I reset my trip meter when I left home on friday afternoon and this is what it was when I pulled up into the driveway on sunday night.
So, the huge amount of driving aside, Carlsbad is a mixture of very deep sand, and extremely rocky terrain, being as such, the loops are usually a tad shorter than most races as there isn't a lot of time spent on straight aways to catch your breath, this year the loops were 19 miles long.
The night before it rained, and at this point you're probably going oh yay you get hero dirt! wrong. It makes the sand sticky, great for cornering, but when you pound the many deep whoops that litter the course it tends to grab and suck the bike down a lot more than usual.
Race start was at 8 a.m, I was up at 6 going through things on the bike, making sure it was good to go, I had 2 buddies there that are just getting their start since I told them to get off their asses and go race and are racing C, both of them gave me crap for being so anal about how my bike was set up and making sure everything was in good working order, someday they will understand.
We left the line one at a time, the rain made the course "feel" different than what I remembered during the pre ride and as a result I made a few mistakes, running off the track and what not, so as a result, my 1st lap, which should be the fastest because you're fresh was my slowest, My 2nd lap was my fastest, I managed to flow good and not make very many mistakes, another rider from pro whom is infinitely faster than I am and is involved in race organization, being one of the people responsible for the decision to move me up to pro this year ended up behind me due to having to replace a tube commented "you were riding really smooth, It took me longer than I thought it would to catch you, riding like that is why we felt you were ready to start learning the pro class"
I got passed by a few fellows from the Pro Am class, (3 lap too fast for amatuer class) lap 1, and between lap 2 and 3 I managed to reel them back in and pass them, a favorite moment would be in a rocky downhill, one of them was moving way slower than my pace, so I went to the outside and launched myself off a small ledge, down a rocky down hill past him.
Lap 4 I could see the next guy in my class ahead not too far, and attempted to ride a little faster so as to get it over and done with, it didn't work, I stalled the bike, tried to move that pace again and was doing good until the final whooped out straight before you get into the fast flowing section that will take you to the finish, I came down a blind downhill that led into the whoops in 3rd, trying to focus on getting through the whoops at a decent pace rather than blitzing them as fast as I could and possibly riding over my head (these are not mx whoop sections, but rather 1/4 mile long whoop sections) and well, someone in probably over 50 C was just rolling them (not knocking him) and was in my line, and as everyone here likely knows when you chop the throttle in the whoops you usually don't make it. I didn't. Front end dug into one, rear end came up, and over I went.
Defeated in my goal of not being the last pro to finish, I still got up and rode the same as before, just because the moment you quit because of a set back is the moment the other guy suffers the same thing.
Final Finish: 10/15 Overall AA Pro
To give you an idea of why, I reset my trip meter when I left home on friday afternoon and this is what it was when I pulled up into the driveway on sunday night.
So, the huge amount of driving aside, Carlsbad is a mixture of very deep sand, and extremely rocky terrain, being as such, the loops are usually a tad shorter than most races as there isn't a lot of time spent on straight aways to catch your breath, this year the loops were 19 miles long.
The night before it rained, and at this point you're probably going oh yay you get hero dirt! wrong. It makes the sand sticky, great for cornering, but when you pound the many deep whoops that litter the course it tends to grab and suck the bike down a lot more than usual.
Race start was at 8 a.m, I was up at 6 going through things on the bike, making sure it was good to go, I had 2 buddies there that are just getting their start since I told them to get off their asses and go race and are racing C, both of them gave me crap for being so anal about how my bike was set up and making sure everything was in good working order, someday they will understand.
We left the line one at a time, the rain made the course "feel" different than what I remembered during the pre ride and as a result I made a few mistakes, running off the track and what not, so as a result, my 1st lap, which should be the fastest because you're fresh was my slowest, My 2nd lap was my fastest, I managed to flow good and not make very many mistakes, another rider from pro whom is infinitely faster than I am and is involved in race organization, being one of the people responsible for the decision to move me up to pro this year ended up behind me due to having to replace a tube commented "you were riding really smooth, It took me longer than I thought it would to catch you, riding like that is why we felt you were ready to start learning the pro class"
I got passed by a few fellows from the Pro Am class, (3 lap too fast for amatuer class) lap 1, and between lap 2 and 3 I managed to reel them back in and pass them, a favorite moment would be in a rocky downhill, one of them was moving way slower than my pace, so I went to the outside and launched myself off a small ledge, down a rocky down hill past him.
Lap 4 I could see the next guy in my class ahead not too far, and attempted to ride a little faster so as to get it over and done with, it didn't work, I stalled the bike, tried to move that pace again and was doing good until the final whooped out straight before you get into the fast flowing section that will take you to the finish, I came down a blind downhill that led into the whoops in 3rd, trying to focus on getting through the whoops at a decent pace rather than blitzing them as fast as I could and possibly riding over my head (these are not mx whoop sections, but rather 1/4 mile long whoop sections) and well, someone in probably over 50 C was just rolling them (not knocking him) and was in my line, and as everyone here likely knows when you chop the throttle in the whoops you usually don't make it. I didn't. Front end dug into one, rear end came up, and over I went.
Defeated in my goal of not being the last pro to finish, I still got up and rode the same as before, just because the moment you quit because of a set back is the moment the other guy suffers the same thing.
Final Finish: 10/15 Overall AA Pro
