I'll try to keep this one short. So: we're on the east side visiting family again, and I decided to race. Based on basically nothing but my own hubris, I changed up my gearing to 36x17, which ended up being a slight mistake. Bloomer Park has a lot of technical switchbacks and tough, punchy climbs, along with a decent amount of roots. And not much flat. I would have been better off with 2:1, maybe a bit lighter. The east side had a lot of rain the week prior, so there were some pretty muddy sections as well. It's a 6-mile loop, and the Sport SS class was doing 3 laps.
I hadn't ridden Bloomer Park before, so my plan for the first lap was to stay on the leader's wheel to get a handle on the course. And then I remembered I hate riding behind people in a race situation. I was 2nd into the woods and, as usual, we got caught up in traffic from the age groups starting before us. After about 3 miles of tight singletrack and some strategic passing of slower riders from other groups, the course opened up a bit and I passed the SS rider in front of me. For the remainder of the 1st lap and the entire 2nd lap, I led two other singlespeeders around the course. I tried to keep the pace quick in order to drop them, but they didn't seem to have any trouble staying on my wheel. I tried not to think about that. During the 3rd lap the traffic cleared up a bit, and on one particularly long climb about 2 miles in, I decided to drop the hammer to see if I could put some distance between us. I believe it worked for a bit, but they caught me again shortly when we came into another section of switchbacks. With about 2 miles to go, we got to the water crossing/mud pit that was followed immediately by a 3' steep root ledge and a long-ish gravel climb. On our previous trips through this section I was able to unclip one foot to kind of hop up the ledge (which was unrideable due to the mud), clip back in quickly, and start up the climb. On this occasion I messed that procedure up, and the gents behind me were able to make a pass. When I tried to go after them, I realized my legs were toast. I had made two mistakes: my gearing was just a bit too heavy, and I shouldn't have tried to drop them on the long climb early in the 3rd lap. As I finished the last two miles, I glanced behind a few times to see if any other SS riders were around, but I was well clear. I cruised in for 3rd place in the Sport SS class with a time of 1:27:18, which was also 4th overall.
You didn't even know the trail and placed 3rd...great job!!!
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