State Games of Michigan MTB Time Trial

State Games Time Trial – June 22nd, 2013 – Belmont, Michigan – Cannonsburg Ski Area

I hate climbing.  Climbing on a single speed is pure torture.  However, it's also your chance to blow the doors off of everyone else on the trail.  Cannonsburg Ski Area, home of the 2013 State Games of Michigan MTB time trial, has roughly 600 feet of climbing over a 6 mile circuit.  That doesn't seem like much on paper, but the way the course is set up, you're either climbing or rapidly descending - there's very little opportunity to spin your legs out and recover.  So, in preparation, I rode the course on 3 occasions prior to the race (for a total of 5 laps) to figure out which gear I'd be able to push for 18 miles.  I started with 34x16, dropped to 36x18, and settled on 36x19 following my final prep ride.

Speaking of that...

The Friday before the race, I decided to head to Cannonsburg for a nice easy spin to loosen up my legs and make a final decision on my gearing.  I wasn't entirely sure how the race course was going to be set up, so I opted to ride the entire loop, including the complete skills section.  The skills section is divided up into two parts - the first part has drops and jumps that you basically just avoid if you're riding XC, and the second part has a steep climb and then some fast descents (and more avoidable stunts).  One section that isn't avoidable has a quick descent that ends in a roller which pops you up in the air before immediately dropping into a downhill turn.  You can probably guess where this is going.  I hit that roller, popped up, landed on the decline, carried way too much speed into the turn, lost my line, and ended up slamming the left side of my body (including my jaw) onto the trail.  I sat up and took stock of myself to make sure I wasn't severely injured: my ear was full of dirt, my right wrist was somehow jammed, my knee was swollen, and my jaw had some road rash.  I had also twisted my bars around on my steerer tube.  Fortunately I was ok to ride, so I muscled my bars back into position and gingerly finished the circuit.  Not exactly what I had in mind for the day.

Anyway, on to the race.  It looked like we were going to have a pretty full field of sport SS riders competing, with Eric Wolting, Byrne Johnson, and about 7 other riders registered.  As it turns out, only 6 of us showed up.  With this being Eric's home trail, I wasn't really fostering any ideas of winning - I was going to go out, ride hard, and see where I ended up.  I was definitely sore from my crash, but I knew I'd loosen up as I rode.  The organizers had arranged the course so that we were starting right up the longest climb, and they had excluded the section where I had crashed the day before (which I was grateful for).  My start time was 12:03, and with just a handful of other riders in front of me, I was on course.

The first climb was rough.  I had warmed up, but I still felt a bit like wet garbage.  My goal had been to catch as many of the riders that had started in front of me as I could during the initial climb in order to have less trail traffic during my first lap, but I believe I only caught two of them.  I then spent about a mile on the wheel of a 50+ rider in the singletrack before I could safely get by him on a two-track climb.  I passed a few other riders during my first lap, and checking my time as I started my second lap, it looked like I was doing pretty well - and I hadn't been passed by anyone who had started behind me.  As I started my second lap, I ran into some heavy trail traffic from the riders who had just started their first lap, but it wasn't anything unmanageable.  I passed a significant number of people on the climbs, and was passed myself by a few riders who had fresh first-lap legs.  Oh, I should also mention that it was nearly 90 degrees out, so that didn't help anyone.  Other than increasing fatigue and dealing with traffic, my 2nd lap was uneventful.  Coming around to start my third lap, I heard someone yell something along the lines of "GO WOLTING!", which meant that he wasn't far behind me.  This was not good news, as he had started 3 minutes back.  My legs weren't feeling great, but I kept my pace up as much as I could.  About halfway through my third lap, he caught and passed me prior to the creekside section.  There was no way I was going to be able to make up 3 minutes on him during that last lap, so I made no effort to try to catch him.  I focused on maintaining my pace, staying conscious on my bike, and finishing strong.  I ended up with a time of 1:22:14, which was good for 2nd place in my category and 13th out of about 120 overall.  Eric had absolutely crushed the course with a time of 1:17:58, which was first overall for the sport class.

I enjoyed this race quite a bit, and I was definitely happy with my 2nd place finish.  And although I love riding at the Fort, these hilly races are convincing me that I need to do more of my training on trails with greater elevation.  - Adam Cefai