Last weekend I headed up to NC to Warrior Creek campground for the Warrior Creek 6 hour race. I had a few friends doing the race, and heard the race as well as the trails were top notch and I wasn’t disappointed. Cathy and I headed up on Thursday night to Charlotte NC, and on Friday I went up to Wilkesboro (I also picked up my new S2000, but that’s another post)

I met Donnie and Alan at the trails and we preceded to do a little pre-ride. MAN the trails are fun. Burns galore and the dirt was in perfect shape. We were worried it was going to be wet, but no such junk. Perfect tackiness and I rocked out a quick 8 mile pre-ride and got a feel for the trails. Donnie was gracious enough to let us use his mountain cabin and we hung out there Fri night, got the bikes ready and talked some junk.

We woke up Saturday to snow! It snowed up in Blowing Rock but rained in Wilkesboro. Nevertheless, we packed up and hit the trails. Found the perfect last pit spot on the course and got our stuff ready for the race. With the rain, figured the course would be sloppy, but I wasn’t prepared for how bad it was going to be! Having learned my lesson on the start, I lined up on the side of the 2nd row, right behind Eddie O’dea. The whistle blew and we were off. I pushed really hard the first lap and kept a good position with all the expert riders around me. I got passed a good bit on the first lap, but didn’t have to stop or slow down because of anyone else. I did have a couple of slow speed “offs” as it was so muddy I slipped off the trail a couple of times and didn’t even have traction when I put a foot down. Came back DIRTY.

I settled in on the 2nd lap with the course in much better conditions. No idea how it went from racing in a mud bog to perfectly tacky, but it sure did. About halfway into the lap though, BAM sidewall cut. It was pretty bad and took me almost 15 minutes to do the repair, as I had to do it twice, and ended up ductaping the sidewall so it would hold the tube in. Took a mental toll on me as I was doing really well until that point. I was happy though as I pushed through and rocked out laps 2 and 3 at a nice settled in pace.

As I started my 4th lap, I realized that I won’t make the cutoff to start a 5th, and started to slack off too much. I slowed down, and you can see on my heart rate data, how I fall off. Then I got passed by a couple of riders including some girls which gave me inspiration to pick it back up and finish strong. Missed the cutoff by 5 minutes, dang. I could have physically done a 5th lap, just needed the mental oomph, and I didn’t have it after the flat.

Ended up 18th out of 99 riders in my class after the flat, so I’m pretty happy! This was “Men’s Open” so included the Pro guys like Eddie. No Beginner class here If I didn’t have that flat and rode out one more lap, I could have contested for a Top 10, which would have been awesome. Next time!!

I posted the data to Garmin. Really cool seeing my heart rate data jive with what I felt my body did, including the sprint at the start, flat, pit stops, and the drop off and strong finish. (Also 9000ft of climbing. Woah!) Data is so cool! http://connect.garmin.com/activity/77472825

The race this past weekend went awesome. Everything from the bike setup, to my riding, to my nutrition, to the weather was great. Resulted in a good, for me, finish and one tired ass Tom. Finished 4th in my class, 2 minutes off of the podium.

Bike: 29ers are awesome. Way awesome. This was a rough, fairly technical and up and down course without many switchbacks. I rode this course a month ago on my Fuel, so I remember some of the efforts, and remember the feeling over the roots. All of that is nullified on this 29er. It feels like a rocket ship over these roots, and especially up hills that come after a downhill. Once I get that momentum rocking downhill, it’s so easy for me to carry that up the next hill. LOVE it. The bike is very much a racing rocketship. It’s not that comfy. After setting up the suspension to the right numbers, I got no noticeable pedal bob and barely and suspension travel. Basically, I used up 20% of my rear travel with the sag, and then another 25% during the 6 hour race, leaving me with 50% of unused travel. I guess that stuff comes in handy when I do jumps, which I didn’t do any during the race. I had it on PP the whole time, and did some standing and mashing. This is exactly what I wanted. Enough suspension in the back to take the edge off (1″) but not enough to where it soaks up power or bumps very well. Perfect for a race bike.

I will still use my Fuel on fun rides and anything that requires comfort, as it’s way more comfortable then the SuperFly (as it should be). On that heritage ride a few weeks ago, I pretty much used up all the rear travel. I also could feel a different in front end feel between 100mm and 120mm, so I’m excited to throw that 140mm on the Fuel now.

2) Nutrition. I think I nailed it calorie wise. I ended up with a GU halfway through each lap, and then ~ 1/3 of a gatorade bottle and a Clif Bar after each lap. I then doubled up on the Gu and skipped the pit stop before my last lap. I felt great the entire day. No up and downs, no bonking. The right amount of calories + protein + water.

Now what I need to fix is the pit stop thing. I’m thinking about giving Infinit nutrition a shot as I got a coupon in the sag bag. That way I can line up bottles of “nutrition” for myself instead of the gu/clif setup and just hot-switch out the bottle each lap. Then drink water from the camel back to fill myself up with enough water. I lost about 5 minutes with pit stops and lost out on a podium by 2 minutes.

I got a bit of a cold over the rest of the weekend. Maybe coupled with the amount of exertion during the race or something. Going to take a few days to recover. A little night ride tomorrow, group ride Saturday, and then hit training again next week.

PS: did I mention how much I love that SuperFly 100 yet?

So back in December I bought myself a new bike for my birthday, a 2010 Trek Fuel EX8. I figured I would try out mountain biking as it seemed fun. I ended up getting way more addicted then I planned and have turned it into a full time hobby over the last 9 months. With as much riding as I’ve been doing, I’ve broken some parts and upgraded, as well as just having “shiny new thing” syndrome on others. I finally broke the frame on the last ride of my recent Colorado trip. I got real lucky in that I found a new carbon EX9.9 frame for sale and jumped all over it. I built up this new bike with the mix of parts there were on my EX8, and it turned out perfect. The bike rides great, and has a pretty bombproof component set on it.

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