So, I was fortunate enough to have the company of Craig Evans on the trip with me. Craig is a professional triathlete and Xterra athlete. Needless to say, he's a hammerhead. The insane thing is Craig has IM Florida in less than two weeks and decided to race the BTepic on a whem. Pro's can do that I guess.
We left late thursday after I got off work, Loaded up in Craigs baddass Audi and headed to St. Louis. We stayed the night with one of Craigs friends, Matthew. Matthew was super nice, thanks for the hookup dude! We woke up and made the drive together down to the race venue site where we had a cabin reserved that was ballin' out of control. Super cool.
Matt, Craig and I wanted to preride the last 15 miles of the course. We drove to one of the checkin points of the race, ate lunch, geared up and rode a bit. It wasn't long into the ride that it became apparent this was going to be a very fast section of the course. There was a lot of leaf cover of the trail, it made some of the off-camber twisty sections difficult. And.... Not even 5 MILES into the trail I took a spill on one of those sections. After the crash I thought my race was over. I broke two spokes, bent my derailleur hanger and derailleur. The spokes breaking pushed into my tape and caused a flat as well. So, my preride turned into a 4 mile run! YAY! I wasnt giving up that easy. Back at the cabin, I was able to get the bike rideable for the short track race that evening. I was having issues with the threads on the derailleur being compromised but luckily it held up for the race that evening.
Here's a pic of Craig and myself before the short track race...
The short track didn't receive as many riders as I was expecting, but it was a freakin blast. 15+ riders would have been a mess on that course anyways. A crash in the second lap pretty much caused a break of 3 guys in the lead consisting of Craig, some pro dude from Colorado and myself. Garth Prosser of Cannondale almost bridged the gap back to us but came a little shy... must have been the 8 hour drive straight to the line up of the race that did him in! I haven't done alot of high intensity training in a while and the short track hurt so good. Craig and I fell into the green on the race with a 1-2 finish, we worked together perfectly and I learned alot during that race.
Later that night we had some s'getti for dinner and rested our legs. I was able to change my rear wheel so that I wouldn't have to race the epic on a wheel with 2 broken spokes, so I was very happy about that.
We woke up to a very cold Saturday morning. We knew it would warm up quick but freezing at the start is no fun. I overdressed and regretted it later in the race. I think there were around 300 racers totally. The start to this race was a 2.5 mile gravel road that dipped into missouri's best singletrack. The gravel road climb start saw alot of accelerations due to the $75 prime for first to the singletrack. No joke, this was the fastest start to any race I have ever been in, faster than any XC race, anything, period. I was happy with my position going 7th into the woods and felt that was optimal for trying to secure a top 10 in the race. Craig was 9th into the woods and quickly made it to 8th right behind me, so it was off to a perfect start. All until we come to the first climb(always the real deciding factor of any race)... I was still having shifting issues due to my wreck the day before and my chain got caught in between the spokes and rear cassette. I worked like hell to bridge back up the lead group and made contact to see only another climb with the same issue. It was here I realized my top ten wasn't going to happen. Due to my bent hanger and derailleur I wasn't able to use my lower gears and saw issues of my chain popping under heavy pedaling. I was able to finish the race but I was forced to walk the steep climbs... basically making my strength my weakness. Everyone that knows me, knows I love to climb. Midway in the race, I was still sitting top 20 and a group I was in made a wrong turn onto a fire road causing us to lose a total of 20 mins. I thought I had it bad, but later found out some guys lost 30. The race was marked well all but in this one spot. Craig finished a solid 9th with a few flats slowing him down. I limped in with a 23rd finish in the time of 5:01... All of the negatives aside, the top 30 racers all could have and should have broken 5 hours. That's one hell of a race and why I will be returning next year with a vengeance!! The same things you hate about MTB racing are some of the things you have to love. Racing is character building, to hang on, fight and never give in. Even being held back by things you have no control over, you put your head down and hammer the sections you can! Until next time, cheers!
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