Bedford County MTX Race #2

Fun course, fun race, great comraderie. Wrong bike for the day. I lived through 4 laps of the 1.5 mile course. I had a blast, and I loved being there. I think I could really like singlespeeding one day, but today was not the day to have a 33t/16t. It funny that everyone has now begun to point out how hard a gear this is. I honestly have no clue really what to compare it too. All I know how to do on this bike is sit, stand and push. I do ok as long as the course is fairly flat or a descent. Even slight climbs I can do. The harder stuff forget about it. I'm walking. Speaking of walking, I did a fair share of that today; but I'm happy to say that I rode a lot more of the uphills than I thought I would or could. It took about all I had at times, but I managed. I happily let faster people by me today then I made a game out of trying to catch back up to them. I'm realistic and know that I'm out there to do what I can do. I did let a couple of people by then caught back up to them. I couldn't pass them, but oh well.

This bike is weird compared to Ritchey because it is a hardtail. There is a distinct handling difference between the bikes. Where Ritchey would roll over stuff, this one gets bounced off of it. It's definitely a rougher ride. At one point in my third lap, I was thinking of how I really didn't want to have to climb stuff for a fourth lap; but much to my dispair, I made it back before the time cut off and was sent out for the fourth lap. The winners today rode 5 laps. Paula won the day! I'm proud of my Chicky friend. It's been fun to harass her about being a sandbagger, but she deserves a lot of praise for her performance. She's awesome.

During one of my laps through the start/finish line, I went to get off to jump the barriers and my shorts got hung up on the front of the saddle. I nearly busted my butt. I did manage to clear them quite well - at least I thought so. I'm sure I looked totally stupid, but who cares. I have learned to jump back on the bike and get clipped in pretty quickly. I guess it's all the practice I get from getting off and on because I suck at riding obstacles some days. HA!

I was completely out matched today and finished 26th out of 32 (at least I wasn't DFL). Soooo, this brings me to the third and final race of this series which will be held on March 1st. Here's my delimma. I have my geared bike back, and I would like to use it in the last race because it supposedly will be a longer and more difficult course. Then again, I've used the single speed in both races so far and could finish the series on it. I really don't think it's a good idea to try to race the single speed again without some modification. It was really hard today to keep going, and it was discouraging to drop farther and farther back when I know that I can handle that course. It was not all that technical of a course. I have an 18t freewheel in transit, but I will have to change the chain as well and I don't know if I can change out the freewheel. I also don't know that there is much difference in the 16t and 18t. Hmmmm... As it stands, my conclusion is that I am going to plan to run the geared bike at the third race unless it is a mud hole. In that case I will hopefully be able to find and change out or get some help changing out the rear cog on the SS. So I guess I'll be modifying the SS while hoping that it stays dry.

Advice, suggestions, comments are welcome...

{pictures shamelessly stolen from Cliff's facebook page.}