WP#2 - Mountain Circuit One

The second Winter Park race was on June 16th. It was a cross country circuit race which means it was a loop that you do several times. Our category did two loops for about 15 miles of racing with 900 feet of climbing per lap. I also talked my friend and coworker, Derrick, into racing with me. We were in the same category and lined up against each other at noon.

When they blew the whistle I used the same race strategy as I had last week. I fell in behind about the 5th rider and just held on to see what the pace would be. They started out a little faster this week since there was only a short climb at first and then a flat section on fire roads before we hit the singletrack.

I slowly moved up until I was sitting in second place and could see the turn onto the singletrack section. Since it is much more difficult to pass people on the singletrack I made up my mind to get in front before we were there. I was successful and started the singletrack trail in first place.

I held this position for about a mile, but was unable to shake the racers behind me. I was using a lot of energy to lead the way up the climb so when I hit a fairly technical switchback to get around, I had to put a foot down and gave up my lead to two other riders.

I kept pushing to the top and don't think I was passed again. I caught up to some of the guys in front of me by the top of the hill and then we started descending. I was passed by two guys on the descent, but stayed with one of them and passed him again on the uphill part of the next lap. This uphill section was even longer than on the first lap! It was a long hard climb to the top, then we had a very long downhill to the bottom.

When I was almost to to the very bottom, I was going around a tight switchback a little too fast and lost traction on my front wheel. My bike slipped out from under me and I went down hard, scraping up most of the left side of my body. It hurt pretty bad, but I got up right away and got back on my bike. I pushed hard for the finish line and didn't give up my spot. I ended up finishing 4th which I was happy with.