Excruciation Exam (E2) 1/3/09

E2 Race Summary 1/3/09

(Sorry - no pictures for this entry yet...)

The second event in the TMBRA Mountain Bike Marathon Championship Series is appropriately named the “Excruciation Exam” or E2. The length of the race this year was just over 81 miles and the distance was made up of single track and dirt/gravel/paved road sections between two mountain bike parks here in Central Texas. The parks are Bluff Creek Ranch in Warda, and Rocky Hill Ranch in Smithville.

The race started at 7:30am with a 7-mile loop within BCR before we hit the road towards Smithville. I had a mellow start and got caught up in some traffic on the single track. No big deal…as there was plenty of distance to make up some time.

I had a pretty good strategy for this race. I decided to change my tires to some that would roll well on the road sections and also work well in the dirt. (No full knobbies for this type of race!) I chose a WTB Vulpine 2.1 for the back tire and a WTB Nano 2.1 for the front. The Vulpine is a semi-slick with small knobs on the side that help with cornering in the dirt. The Nano is a great all purpose race tire with practically a solid bead that runs down the center of the tire. Again, great for the road sections and perfect in the dirt as well… This combination worked perfectly on my 29er.

My first real effort came when we approached a relatively steep incline on the road. I noticed people were down shifting their bikes and slowing down as they got close to the hill. I am lucky to have some great hills where I live and I’ve been training on them all year, so I put that training to good use by up shifting my bike, standing up, and dropping the hammer. I cranked up the hill passed everyone that I saw. I kept up my tempo, and thought that I had my friend James with me…but when I looked back, I noticed that it was a guy on a cyclocross bike that I had passed. (It turns out that James didn’t see me take off…and I was too far ahead to make up the gap.) We separated at this point and I ended up riding the race 85-90% by myself.

We had one checkpoint to go through before we got to Rocky Hill Ranch. At the checkpoint, you could fill up on water or Gatoraid and they put a colored zip tie on your handlebar and recorded your number and time.

At RHR there was another checkpoint before you started one of the two laps on the course. They had a neutral feed zone setup there where they transported your drop bag. (The race is self supported with the use of the neutral zone for eating, drinking, and fixing your bike if needed.)

I knew the course at RHR pretty well – because despite a couple of changes and some re-routes, it was essentially the same track they used for the 24 hour race. The laps were ten miles in length.

I completed my laps in just under an hour each time. I was glad that I brought Fig Newtons, Bananas, and Nuun tablets with me in my feed bag.

One last zip tie, and I headed off to BCR again…

I had two riders leave with me from Rocky Hill Ranch. The route back started with a long paved climb. Again, I used the hill to my advantage and kept up a steady tempo. When I crossed the top of the hill I looked back and did not see either of the riders…

It was pretty windy at this point in the day. I seemed to pick up a good tailwind for a while, so I used it and maintained a fast pace. I was surprised to see that I could hold speeds between 20-25+ mph. Not bad for a mountain bike w/big tires!

There was only one check point on the way back to Bluff Creek Ranch. The park was about ten miles past the checkpoint. Once I made it back to the park, we still have another shorter single track loop to complete before crossing the finish line.

I felt great right up to the end of the race.

Here are my results:

There were 125 people that started the race. 42 people were entered in my class (40-49) and I came in 6th place and 17th overall with a time of 6hr, 6min, 42sec. The fastest pro rider came in at 4hr 51min – so I felt pretty good about my time and my place.

I’m already looking forward to the third race in this series called “Miles of Discomfort” on January 24th.

Stay tuned…