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ASU MTB Race Report

I had a solid weekend of fun and bike racing at App State this past weekend. On Sat, we raced a XC and ST race on top of Beech Mtn, and then on Sunday raced a TT and SD at Rocky Top in Boone, NC. Boone is right in the mountains, and the trees are turning in fall, so it was really pretty scenery from the trails all weekend.

Friday night we went to Mellow Mushroom in Boone for dinner, and it was quite good. The pizza was excellent (veggie supreme) and so was the beer. They had like 40 taps, and we split pitchers of all of the good local and season stuff. After dinner some of us went downtown to check out the scene in Boone NC and it was cool. Lots of mullets and mustaches.

The cross country (XC) course was fun, it was hilly and rocky/rooty but very rideable. Men's B [I] did three laps, and on the third lap I cleaned the course, there were two small rooty, and very steep sections that were tricky because they were after some water. The start was kinda crazy, we took off up a big fire road climb and I fell from third back to like 20th as we hit the single track, but most of those people hit the hill way too hard and it wasn't long before I was riding in something like 7th-8th. ASU's Ashley James was ahead of me, and I caught her on the first lap, and we rode pretty much together for the remainder of the race, myself finishing about 30 seconds ahead. It was a bummer when I saw Andy W on the side of one of the very steep sections, because he had crashed and broken his chain.  He let me know that I was actually in 5th place which was pretty cool. Toward the end of the third lap, I heard someone catching me and saw two ASU jerseys not far behind. Thinking that they were some Men's B, or Ashley killing it, I sped up and tried to hold my place. But they caught me in a few minutes, and it was two ASU dudes. As they went around (I let them right around because they were clearly going a lot faster) I asked them if they were Men's Bs. They replied that "No, were A's." The A race had started 5 minutes before ours, so I was confused and asked "How did you get behind me?" And then the way he said it made it funny because I was clearly very confused, when he "Nah, we're lappin you brah." The 'brah' was pretty funny how he said it, just real chill.

All of us were tired from the XC, but with less than an hour we had to race the short track (ST). Usually my favorite discipline, I wasn't particularly excited to compel my legs into pedaling hard for half an hour. The gun went off, and I sprinted off, going into the trail in third place, behind Bill Lucy who was behind Zion from ASU. The course went like this: S/F line on gravel road, 200ft more gravel, sharp right onto single track, loop through a couple trees, down a rooty steep little thing, dodge a couple trees, roll up around a tree, steep little uphill switchback, gradual climb to a rocky/rooty section, then back out onto the gravel road into a 180 turn, then the straight until the right into the woods again. Perhaps that was too much detail, but anyway I was right on Bill's wheel for the first couple laps and ASU was opening up a decent lead on us. I told Bill to hit it, and we sped up, but I went around him the next lap on the fire road. I pedaled hard on the road and braked less in the woods, and gradually chased down ASU. We were both hauling, and by the time I'd caught him, we were both pretty far from anyone else. I went around him, and continued to jam. He got about 300ft behind me, and I was hurtin, and he started to pull me back in. He eventually caught up to me, and there were about 8 laps to go. We rode hard together for a couple, neither of us able to open up a lead, and then together we slowed with 4-5 laps to go, anticipating the sprint finish. I told Zion (I had learned his names from ASU's cheering him on lol) that we needed to make sure we didn't go too slow that we got caught as I sat on his wheel resting for a few laps, and he assured me that we had a half lap on the field. With two laps to go, we began to ramp it up, and I was on his wheel up the small steep climb when something on my bike went snap, and I was suddenly without a chain! AHHH! I shouted out of the woods "VT get me a bike!!" as Zion rode away and ran with my bike. I was slightly freaking out, and kept hopping back on and trying the pedal because that's the instinct after running with the bike. I came out of the woods pushing my bike, and at the S/F the official let me know that I couldn't borrow a bike, I had to finish with only the equipment I started with. I was sooo frustrated, ready to finally win a short track with a good deal of certainty that I had Zion in a sprint. Running the final lap, I finished in 6th place... Eventually I cooled down, but dang was I frustrated. But, that's how it goes, and I certainly wasn't the only one on our team that had mechanical failures (the only one winning while it happened though), Robby and Andy had both broken chains earlier in the day.

I should get to HW, but quickly the races on Sunday were super fun. The TT was an 8-minute hammer fest, with a suuuuuper fun and flowly downhill that was also part of the Super-D course. The downhill course itself was sick, with table-tops and even a question mark berm. It amazes me that in a TT so short, and myself crushing as hard as possible, that Jake A and Christian could do that course 30 seconds faster. They took 1-3 in Men's A, and Andy W and I took 3-1 in Men's B, respectively.

Cross practice tonight at 6 on the MTB? Sounds like plan. Algebra till then.