Justin – UCI Elite short track and UCI U23 XC
Just a few days after getting home from Puerto Rico, my Dad and I repacked our things and drove down to Temecula for the US Pro Cup at Vail Lake. I had a midterm in the afternoon so we didn’t leave until rush hour and got to our campground just after midnight. It was raining all evening but we woke up to sunny skies and perfect dirt conditions for the whole weekend.
My first race was the elite short track on Friday morning. It was an early morning and I was tired from all the travel the day before, so the preparation went quickly and I was on the start line before I knew it. I had the best start of my life from the second row, and made it into the first corner in fifth ahead of race favorites like Chris Blevins and Riley Amos. I definitely felt out of place at the front of this elite field and got pushed around in the first lap as riders forced their way to the front. Unfortunately I ended up gapped off the front group and pulling alone in the wind. After two all out laps of chasing hard my legs were burning and I couldn’t push. I considered pulling out but just continued to ride laps as I fell back in the groups to finish in 27th. This was the worst my legs have ever felt in a bike race, but I knew it was from all the travel and hoped that it was a good opener for the xc race the next day.
In the cross country Saturday, I decided to race the U23s and go for a result since a lot of the fast riders were racing up in the elites to chase UCI points. I was the 2nd call-up in a field of 40 riders and the pressure was on! Unfortunately I didn’t have a great start and got boxed in the middle as riders flew up the sides of the double track. When we hit the single track I was back in tenth and had to burn a lot of matches sprinting riders one by one as we battled for position on the first lap, but my legs felt great. Coming out of the first lap I found myself in a chase group with a gap to the two leaders, Raul and Landon. Colin and I worked together to close the gap, and dropped the rest of the chasers on the first descent. Colin was super powerful and put in an all out effort to sprint up to the leaders on the climb, but I couldn’t follow his wheel in fear of blowing up. I tried to close the gap consistently by pushing the pace on the climbs and descents, and made it as close as 8 seconds from the lead group, but ended up floating in no man’s land. After chasing as hard as I could for two laps I realized I wasn’t going to make it, and decided to save my matches in the race for the podium. I slowly let myself get caught by the chasers, and then put in a last lap attack to ride away and finish in 4th.
It was good to make a come back and finish on the wide angle podium in 4th, but I can’t help but think what would have been if I had a better start and been racing in the lead group. Either way this was a super fun course filled with flowy descents and jumps (see photos below), and I can’t wait to come back here next year to race in the elites!
Chris – Men 50-59, 10th
This race was a few weeks earlier than last year and I knew that all my time skiing the last couple of months did not set me up for great fitness. So my focus was on things that I could control which were my pacing strategy, nutrition plan, and having a clean race in the technical sections. I had plenty of time to pre-ride the course in the two days before the event since I was already there to support Justin in his races. The course is flowing with no long sustained climbs, and the dirt was grippy enough from rain in the past week.
I chose not to start super fast so I slotted into the first single track section in 7th spot and stayed with the leaders for half of the first lap. But the pace was slightly too high for me, so I had to back off knowing that I still had two and half laps to go. I tried to ride smoothly and keep the accelerations to a minimum so that I would not induce leg cramps.
I took a full bottle at the end of laps one and two, while staying on top of my plan of having one to two 20 gram gels per lap. I successfully avoided my usual early season leg cramps and rolled in for tenth place hoping for a bump in fitness for bigger events this season!
