A&B Dirt Crit #1 in the Books

Monday evening Jim and I took our pop to a SGF Cardinals game and had a great time. It was a little steamy, but we were in the shade and a light breeze from time to time kept up comfortable. Always fun hanging out with them.



Tuesday morning was spent prepping the mtb for the dirt crit later that evening and taking a spin on the Blue at SBU for some research. I picked up a couple different stem lengths from my LBS on Monday and am trying to see if I can improve my balance for handling in tight areas. I'm pretty sure I found the one that will do the trick as I was able to cruise at a much higher pace through tight turny stuff with my new set up than with the one from last year; every little bit helps in my quest to be a professional armature mid-pack Cat 3 'cross racer (how sad is that - HA). Temps were already heading up even at 6:30am - ugh (and by noon Deb got the following from her car).

So Tuesday evening was the opening race of the A&B Dirt Crit series (8 weeks long) at the Sac Trails (just north of SGF and about 15 south of Bolivar). Ira picked me up a little before 6pm and the topic of conversation down centered around "...what the heck are we doing as we suck in the heat..." as the temps all day was hovering above and below 100* (core temp). I had kept a steady flow of liquids going all day in hopes to avoid massive cramps and dehydration.

Got to the course, pre-rode, and quickly figured out this was not 'cross bike friendly (at all) so it is up to the ScottyD antique Trek to get me through the next 8 weeks (take a look at the picture and see if you think I need more seatpost...). I love my mtb with it's 'too small for me' frame size, v-brakes, and entry level fork; it has never let me down in the years I hit AR's and mtb races. The course was a great mix of wide open 'passing' and singletrack (both open and flowing to slightly technical) with little elevation gain that was noticable. The ground was a little too rough to excel on a 'cross bike and the Trek (higher volume in rear suspension) took the edge off of all of it.

Not sure how many lined up in the A race (maybe 15), but I was surprised to see several folks not there. Maybe the heat or something else occupied that night and next week there will be more. Gun goes off and I happend by luck to get a solid start with the leaders and got in the single track in 4th and to sum it up that's where I stayed the whole race. The three up front (Cale, Mark G., and J Brackett) dumped me in a tight single track creek crossing area and they were gone. I stuck to my game plan and rode within myself to regulate effort and manage body temps and I worked to a T. Not sure how many laps (roughly 1 mile each) we did, but each one got smoother as I learned the 'flow'. On the earlier laps there were a handful of guys chasing me about 50 or 70 meters back, but I strung together a couple mid-race laps to open up a pretty sizeable gap which allowed me to not push too hard and keep a steady spinning pace. I took down a couple bottles of Nuun water (thanks to Mia for the hand-ups) to fend off potential cramps (which worked great). It was a hot one to say the least and I think I was sweating more after the race (standing around) then during.

Looking forward to next week and hopefully a bigger turnout. This is fun folks and well worth the cheap entry fee ($15).