Rode my bicycle down to the local trails on Saturday for a mtb race. Its always better when you can ride to a race rather than drive. After the cruise to the trails I did a little preriding of the trrack. Trails were sticky from the rains but not muddy. Not nearly as fast as they were on Friday night though, which was probably a good thing because they were scary fast.
Took to the front and pulled the group along on the levy and through the grassy section before we finally hit the singletrack. Pushed the pace through the first little section and looked back to see a nice gap already forming. Put my head down and motored along. Crashed nicely on a very wet bridge and got some nice road rash.
Rode the next two laps at a solid pace which seemed to be holding the Ethos Train at the same time split of about a minute. Had many issues with traffic and lapped riders. Apparently I crashed one fellow at some point, he was pretty fired up after the race. I just typed out a whole rant about my views on passing, but Its not worth getting in to. To each their own.
Special thanks to Ann, the nice lady who did thank me after the race for passing her so nicely. It was appreciated. As was her perfect form of moving to the side of the trail without slowing to let me by.
Steinmetz might be semiretired, but Ethos still has a duo to tag team me with. Working together?Drafting? This aint road racing, bring it on.
Based on the opinions of some, I apparently wrote the book on passing guys (or gals) in races "aggressively". I won't even attempt to deny that one, but I never sent anybody cart-wheeling into the trees as it was described. Heather Jordan got an ear-full more than a few times about me. When the course is 99% single track, you are almost forced into being a dick out there. I never really believed or followed the rule about passing and the lead rider having the right of way. I would let somebody know I was coming up behind them and that I was going to pass them. Most of the time, they picked a side and I went by on the other. On those rare occations, I picked the side and move them over.
ReplyDeleteRe: passing. Dudes. I'm slow. I'm out there to do my best and I know that you are too... what would I gain if I get in the way of people doing their best at a very high level? Usually I get to learn something watching those people.
ReplyDeleteAaron - when you flew past me yelling "Up! Up! Up!" I thought it was a marvelous thing to have yelled at one, as it not only does the job of warning of racer up, but also has a very encouraging, enthusiastic sound. I pretended it was a coach yelling at me. I was on an uphill. I got up.