First Race weekend MBM and Great Dane Crits

So this weekend officially kicked off the season and I brought it in with style by punishing my body. Saturday was the Madison Basco Madison Spring classic. Much thanks to the Kitten factory for putting on this great event, that promised fun for the whole family.

Nine and I went out and scoped the course on Thursday which ended up playing largely in our favor. As we will soon see alley cats are half speed half strategy. We started out with Jesse Lalonde pulling off the pack from the get go and in a panick nine yell grab the fast wheel, so we sprint up to Jesse and he now has us marked and we are at the back of the pack, clever I think to myself. But Jason and I have a plan of our own, we fall way off the back and let the group ride away. We know that the best way to go is by the capitol and down the southwest trail.

Nine and I trade hard pulls past the capitol and down the southwest trail at speeds of 23-30mph the weekend warriors whiz by and I hear to cyclist say those guys need to start racing, I chuckle to myself if he only knew. Flying through red lights and and traffic a sense of confidence falls over us I think we are way ahead.

We hit the dirt and I start to pull at a pretty steady rate. I feel strong and confident that I can keep this pace for a long time. Jason and I trade pulls down the dirt road and start talking about where everyone is but there is no one in site. We make it all the way to Basco and hit the turn around this marks the first time we see another racer. Our pace seemed to drop as we hit the turn around I was pretty cooked hoping Jason had a hard pull in him I ask him to the front but he says he doesn't have much we fall off the pace. The talking and riding starts and a little strategy starts to come out then out of nowhere here comes Jesse hauling ass by himself. Damn! My next thought is ok lets work together but Jesse is not having that we takes some pulls and he sits in. Then we hit a down tree where it was neccesary to unclip. Jesse see's his opening and takes a pull then jumps the tree and takes off. I quickly unclip and start to chase but I look back and Jason is struggling with his road cleats. A moment of indescision rush through my head wait for Jason or chase the one of the main WORS guy I have always wanted to be as fast as. "If I can hang with Jesse here I can have some confidence going into the first WORS race but if I lose Jason I could be in no mans land and lose the race". Well as you can tell I waited to long and Jesse rode off but none the less I chase,and chase and chase some more. He gets a sizable gap and settles in. I keep the pace high and steadily chip away at it but I don't have much left in the legs. We hit the road and Jason finds a new energy and catch up to me. My first thought is lets get him but the roady in Jason is smarter then the mountain biker in me so we steadily chip away at his lead. We close just enough to keep an eye on him and hope he doesn't take our route home. We hit the bridge exit from the trail and he goes to the arboretum we are home free. We jump out of our saddles and attack like two giddy school kids fight for a snickers bar. 23 24 25 miles an hour I feel like I could push as hard as I wanted. We ride back to the park in a mad frenzy giddy as could be that we where home free.

We cross the finish line together in true alley cat spirit and Jason nobaly suceeds first to me saying I did most of the work and takes a second him self. Jesse finishes third and ex-teammate Ben Anderson takes forth. Thanks again to everyone involved and to Jesse for a great race.

Sunday I decided to do the great dane crit. This may have been a bad idea since I felt completly cooked from MBM but what the heck right. The race went off well and like all mountain bikers in road races I got bored and attacked too early. I ended up somewhere in the top 15 in a somewhat uneventful cat. 5 crit. Oh well good weekend all in all and a good workout.

posted by Crash Test @ 5:42 PM