First Bike Race of the Season

Hello Everyone,

This is Matt. As many of our loyal readers know, one of my passions in life is racing and riding downhill mountain bikes. This will be my 11th season of racing and I thought that since we like to post blog reports, what better thing to do than to give everyone a little window into my life as a bike racer. I'd like to let everyone know that I will be posting a race report after each mountain bike competition or otherwise noteworthy cycling event that I attend this coming season.

A couple weekends ago, Olivia and I braved the elements for the first race of the season which is held at the Fontana Village Resort in North Carolina. This is the 6th year running that I have competed in the Fontana "IceCycle" event, and it certainly lived up to its name this time! This is a unique event, not only because it takes place during what most people consider the off-season, but also because the downhill event that I specialize in takes place after dark! I had hopes of it being unseasonably warm and dry but to our dismay, it rained and snowed all day and the temperature had dipped below 20 degrees by the time I was lining up for my race. Olivia, Kenah, and I arrived at Fontana at about 2:30 in the afternoon, checked into our cabin, and slouched around for an hour or so. Usually when I come to a race, I can't get changed into my race gear and get myself out on the course for practice quick enough, but not this time. Finally, after much painstaking deliberation, I mustered up enough motivation to sluggishly pull out all my gear, layer up and make my way outside and into the snow to take a few muddy practice runs. Not to my suprise, there were only a scant few people out on the course. I did chance to run into one of my teamates, so we got together and sessioned the course 3-4 times together. It was nasty. I'd bought a $5.00 rain suite at walmart that I had hoped would keep the mud off of me so that I'd have a fresh Jersey and shorts before the start of the race, but that suit didn't make it through the shuttle ride back up the mountain the first time before it had torn from heel to crotch.
The course at Fontana is for the most part made up of narrow fire road or wide open single track. From the top, it is super fast- at its fastest, your propably pulling 35+ mph. It has several sweeping turns and big sections of roots that you can bunny hop at speed. Towards the second half, it levels out, with several short up hill sections and long, flat straightaways. These always presents a real mental challenge after the exhileration of the speedy top half of the course. I really have to stay on myself to keep pedalling hard throught the flat stuff. The thick winter mud even further intensifies the pain of the last part. At the very end, it goes into some really tight.twisty, and super slippery singletrack. Fitness is the name of the game on this course. I knew that the temperature was only dropping and that things were really going to be interesting by race time!

After a few practice runs on the course, I realized that I had totally forgotten about the burrito dinner that started at 4:00. Of course Olivia had to come down to find me, and then I had to sprint my bike back to our little cabin, take off all my muddy layers outside, and then throw on some clean duds. We met all our buds and enjoyed some pre-race burritos, and watched the snow continue to fall. We took way to long eating our burritos and when I realized this, I had to rush back to the cabin to get all my stuff ready again.
When I got back to the cabin, I realized that I had left all of my gear outside in the snow after my practice runs, so now I had the to face the misery of changing back into my muddy, frozen, wet race gear. I was absolutely frozen stiff. Once I had gotten all my gear on, I had to rally up the last bit of dexerity out of my fingers so that I could mount my lighting system onto my bike. Finally I was ready to go, so Olivia and I drove my truck on down to the bottom of the hill, where she got to spend the remainder of the race, with the option of staying in my warmed truck or basking beside the glow of an inviting communal fire can, with holes punched in the bottom that served to warm the toes of its guests. I, on the other hand, had to go climb into the back of the smelly shuttle truck that would take me to the start of the race. I must have looked like a jewish POW on the way to some unknown terror.
At the top, I tried to get into my normal pre-race ritual of warming up by sprinting around but all I really wanted to do was stand there and shiver. I did however realize that my gears were completely frozen and I had absolutely not shifting whatsoever. It didn't take me long to figure out that I wasn't the only one beleaguered with shifting woes, as it seemed to be a widespread problem. I really had no excuse to suck, so just got in line and made up my mind to try to pin it during my race run. I rolled up to the start gate, turned on my lights, put on my goggles, and thought about the course while the timing official counted down.5..4...3..2....1...CRANK!!! I got a pretty good start out of the gate, but with the course being so steep and my not being able to shift, I quickly spun out my gears, so all I could really do was to try get down low and coast and try to pump as much speed out of the course as I could. As I came into the second, flat part of the course, I mashed on my pedals and tried to sprint as hard as I could but I ran out of gas in that thick mud! By the time I had reached the flats, It was all I could do to even turn the the gears that I had been spinning up top. I nailed the twisty rooty stuff at the bottom and crossed the line to finish up in 8th place. Kenah and Olive were there to meet me at the bottom and I understand that my doggie was very concerned about me while I was at the top of the hill. I hear that every time a rider crossed the finish line, she thought it was me and she becI was suprised at how well my lighting system worked! After the first few seconds of getting used to riding in the dark, you really forget that there is anything different! Not my best, but hey, look at the circumstances. I guess its good to get a good kick in the rear at the beginning of the season so you can see where you are weakest. I know I need to get my fitness back on track before the meat of the season gets here!
After the race, I went straight back to the cabin to go take a nice hot shower and change into some warm clothes. As soon as that hot water hit my frozen toes, I almost cried! I had to sit down in the shower because my toes hurt so bad! Anyway, the promoters threw a pretty fun party with a band and a few kegs of Highland Oatmeal Porter, one of my all time favorites. I got to hang out with a lot of my good friends that I haven't seen all winter, and despite the bone-numbing cold, I always have a great time at this event and I think I feel just a little bit more hard core everytime I come home after the wintertime night race at Fontana!