CPLSO Parkfield MTB Race

Finally for that mountain bike race report...

It's been a few weeks now and I think I can safely say I'm more or less healed from the first mountain bike race of the collegiate season in Parkfield, CA. Parkfield's a strange place. It's an old school western cattle town with about 45 minutes east of Paso Robles. It has a shipping container for a library, a single tavern, a one room school house and a town sign that says population: 18. It also has some pretty cool fire roads that make for an interesting mountain bike race.

The approach to collegiate mountain biking is completely different to what I'm used to with road racing. Usually everything and everyone is super serious with hotel rooms and well-rounded nutrition at specific time, early bedtimes, etc. Not to say some people don't take collegiate mountain biking seriously, it's general;y a bit quirky. There's beer, hamburgers, load music, and everyone camps out (or in our case sleeps on a tarp on the desert floor under the stars, an on this occasion inordinately bright moon).

The CX course for the B category riders at Parkfield was a little over 10 miles long with some very steep hills (which meant some walking for some riders). The race got underway around a short single track circuit leading into an extremely steep hill that is completely unridable. I got pushed towards the back of the field of 30 right off the line. After all this is just a fun off season thing for me and I don't have much technical handling ability on a mountain bike so I was happy to take it easy. I moved up into the top 20 or so coming into the hill, dismounted with everyone else and ran up. The B category of collegiate MTB is a surprisingly unfit bunch. I passed a lot of people on the run up and was sitting about 7th or 8th when I remounted at the top. I worked hard to pass a few more riders over a series of short rollers and was sitting about 5th going into a steep dusty downhill singletrack section. One thing led to another and on a tight off-camber right hand bend on the side of a hill, my front tire slid out and I was on the ground. All in all a pretty harmless crash. Unfortunately it was a very inconvenient spot for a crash as everyone was coming down around the corner with some speed and I had to wait for a space to remount and jump back in. I had fallen out of the top 10. I fought to make up some ground and passed some riders but ended up behind an extremely unfit guy on a singletrack uphill section with no room to pass. I could see the leaders pulling away. This section wasn't even steep! I could have flown up it and I was getting frustrated with this guy. Near the top he had to dismount! There was still no room to pass so I had to get off too which led to more problems as I struggled to get back into a rhythm on the short descent and almost crashed again after a botched log hop. At this point I was riding directly behind my only teammate in the Bs. I was going to have to pass him if I wanted to move up and I was a riding little frantic. Crashing and almost crashing again had put me on edge and I was weary of the lead group pulling away. I wanted to win. There was another slightly downhill section and we picked up some speed. We were probably going about 13-15mph along some flat singletrack when all of a sudden the trail turned left and I didn't. We had been riding along the bank of a dry river and before I realized I was supposed to turn I was in the air over a 6 foot drop off. You can do the math, 15 mph forward, 6 foot down onto a bed of large boulders/rocks...answer: scary and painful. I remember I screamed then I was face down with my bike on top of me. I was an awful fall and I should have been more hurt. Initially I was more shaken by the drop than the actual pain. I did the customary broken bone check and everything seemed in order. But my knees were killing me, I was winded and I was generally sore all over. I resigned myself to the fact that winning this one was out of my reach at this point, took my helmet off and just laid there for a few minutes. When I finally decided to get up, I picked my way out of the ravine and back onto the trail. I finished the race albeit gingerly. I'd damaged my front disc brake, which rubbed the rest of the 6 or so miles and I felt like I'd just been hit by a bus. I didn't care about placing anymore. I just wanted to be done with the race (I ended up 25th). When I finished I went straight to the medics who tended to my deeper and larger cuts. My knees were bruises and it had hurt to pedal the whole way back but there really wasn't much they could do for me. I took a 3 hour nap that afternoon and got to bed early. It was a hard crash and it had taken a lot out of me. I woke up the nest morning to very sore ribs. I started the short track race but the jarring of my bike on the course really hurt my ribs. On top of that my saddle was irreparably tilted sideways.

The following week I did a little at home test that I saw on WebMD and figured I'd probably broken at least one of the ribs on my left side. It's even now it's not 100% but it's feeling a lot better. What's really been bothering me is my left wrist. I must have sprained it in the crash and it's still uncomfortable to keep my hand on the hood of my road bike for extended periods of time.

All in all I still had fun. Thankfully there weren't any races in the area for a while so I've had time to recuperate. as of now, the plan is to drive up to Stanford to race their next weekend. I'm going to focus on keeping a cool head this time.