Sunday it was back to playing in the dirt. What started out as a great new race at Lake Geneva with some good hard climbs and tons of twisting singletrack quickly became an ice rink when it started raining after the first lap. No joke, when hardpacked black dirt gets rained on the top 1/4" turns to grease and with lots of off camber climbs it was almost impossible to ride. Everyone started flailing around like we'd never ridden bikes before, I have bruises on just about everything today from hitting the deck multiple times and from thrashing around when the bike disappeared from underneath. Two wheeled uncontrolled slides were scary. The last two laps were mostly just riding/sliding the downhills, then trying to ride the uphills but realizing there was no way possible, trying and dismount but both wheels would go out from under you along with at least one of your feet, and then trying to claw your way up the hill using trees and roots for traction. Somewhere in there Lalonde got a good gap on me so I decided to let about 10 lbs of pressure out of my tires which seemed to make a significant difference. I then chased down Lalonde I ended up getting away from him and his SS on the 4th lap when he went sideways into the woods totally out of control. Suffered through the last lap and came home for the first Win of 2007. By the time we were loading up bikes the sun was back out.
May 21, 2007
Skinny Tire Racing and Getting In Shape
Sunday it was back to playing in the dirt. What started out as a great new race at Lake Geneva with some good hard climbs and tons of twisting singletrack quickly became an ice rink when it started raining after the first lap. No joke, when hardpacked black dirt gets rained on the top 1/4" turns to grease and with lots of off camber climbs it was almost impossible to ride. Everyone started flailing around like we'd never ridden bikes before, I have bruises on just about everything today from hitting the deck multiple times and from thrashing around when the bike disappeared from underneath. Two wheeled uncontrolled slides were scary. The last two laps were mostly just riding/sliding the downhills, then trying to ride the uphills but realizing there was no way possible, trying and dismount but both wheels would go out from under you along with at least one of your feet, and then trying to claw your way up the hill using trees and roots for traction. Somewhere in there Lalonde got a good gap on me so I decided to let about 10 lbs of pressure out of my tires which seemed to make a significant difference. I then chased down Lalonde I ended up getting away from him and his SS on the 4th lap when he went sideways into the woods totally out of control. Suffered through the last lap and came home for the first Win of 2007. By the time we were loading up bikes the sun was back out.
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1 comment:
Whew! a road race... Wish i could have been there... Nice work at that dirt one too...
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