Grafton Ponds MTB Race: Another Lesson in Singlespeed Racing

As I've mention in past posts, I've been wanting to race my singlespeed again.  The perfect opportunity came yesterday at the Root 66 Series' Grafton Ponds/West Hill Shop XC race in Grafton, VT.  Rather than try to learn anything about gear ratios or ponder what might be best for the course, I just went with the same thing I had for SSAP - 32X18.  Okay, okay...  I asked a little bit, but Charlie told me I'd be better off just not worrying about it.  He was right.  If I'd worried about it, I'd probably have realized just how hard that gear setup was, and I'd have made it easier.  As it turns out, I had only one option out there yesterday, and that was to just push through the pain because that setup was just at my limit.

In the past week, I've been struggling to do my training rides.  I did a decent road ride Monday morning on tired legs - something I don't normally do but thought would help better prepare me for the 100 miler in a few weeks.  I tried to do a solo MTB ride Wednesday after my job interview, but I just couldn't seem to get out of my own way.  It was one of those rare moments where I probably should have just done more mindless like go on a road ride.  Anyhow, if it wasn't for my teammate, Tracy, I probably would have had another bad day on Thursday.  I'm grateful to her for inviting me up to Wachusett for some climbing.  We got in 3 base to summit repeats, and I went home feeling mentally recharged.  Friday I went to Foxboro on the SS to explore and try to get my MTB mindset back to normal... ehhh....  whatever, I got to ride my bike someplace new.  I need to get back over there when I have more time because I missed a lot of the good stuff.

Because it's always important to be prepared, I washed my laundry Saturday evening...  "Sure, my clothes will dry overnight in this humidity... I'll just point this fan at them." Yeah, they were still damp in the morning.  If you passed me on Route 30 in VT, I was that crazy lady holding my bike shorts out of the sunroof into the wind.

Skyler brought a friend along this weekend; Grafton Ponds Outdoor Center is the perfect venue for racers with kids!  The girls were hula hooping and swimming all afternoon... unfortunately, this meant that they weren't doing a very good job handing up bottles.  I will give Skyler credit for being ready with one handoff - the one I didn't need... as I took off from the start line.  From there on out, I was pretty much on my own, and I had to stop and reach into my cooler every lap but the last one.  Usually I can go a couple of laps on one bottle, but yesterday I drank almost an entire bottle every lap.  The heat was pretty oppressive if you weren't in the shade, and the effort I had to put in to make all of the climbs on the singlespeed left me overheated after the first lap.  I was consciously trying to cool myself down on the descents by unzipping my jersey and relishing every bit of cool air that hit my skin.  Another conscious decision was to spin my legs as much as possible on the descents and flats to push the acid from the climbs out of my muscles - it seemed to work.

Karen Potter, Bryna Blanchard, Kate Northcott, and I made up the pro women's field, and based on past races, I knew this would be a competitive race for all of us.  For much of the first lap, Kate and I were close to one another and not far off from Bryna while Karen had already pulled away a bit.  Somewhere at the beginning of lap 2, I was forced by my singlespeed to pass Kate on a climb, and I continued to pull away from her.  I was hoping to close the gap that Bryna had made on us, but by the last lap, I was down to survival mode and didn't have anything extra left to work with.

Looking at the finishing times, I had thought I was closer to Karen and Bryna, and the results were good - but not as good as I'd hoped.  However, I looked at my Garmin time, and the proof is in the pudding.  I started my Garmin thirty seconds before the start whistle, and I stopped it immediately after crossing the finish line.  (I also semi-successfully pushed the lap button).  Anyhow, the timer on that thing doesn't lie like the satellite GPS function tends to, so my real time should have been closer to just under 2 hours and 7 minutes which would put me only 2:15 behind Bryna and 4:20 behind Karen.  I wonder if their times were messed up too...  All I know is, I still had Bryna within a minute of me on the third lap, so I couldn't have lost that much time on the last lap knowing that my lap times were consistent.  Yeah, I know this is boring and probably insignificant.  The point is, I don't think I've ever finished this close to either of those ladies, so this is rather exciting for me - especially since I was completely out of my element racing a rigid singlespeed.



The most important thing about this race is the course.  I cannot stress enough how well-constructed those trails are and how ideally set up the course was.  While I'd heard the course was flowy, I had no idea just how smooth it would be.  Sure, there were rocks and roots, but with the right amount of tire pressure and the proper finesse, those trails rolled like they were made for bicycles (which they were).  I had a blast.  There was nothing unrideable, and there were a number of really nifty bridges that added to the fun of it all.  In between sections of stellar singletrack were wide fire roads that either went up or down and provided room for passing. These were interspersed just enough so that we weren't stuck behind (or in front) of anyone longer than absolutely necessary.  Sure, we had a few areas where we were held up every now and then, but we got around it eventually.  I'm looking forward to making that race my singlespeed bitch on a yearly basis.

Next up... a week of recovery rides and my first Pro XCT race ever on Saturday;  this will also be my first UCI MTB race, and I'm doing my first Super D Saturday afternoon.  The Windham Mountain XC course is a blast, and I feel like I've got my climbing legs this season, so my goal is to avoid getting lapped by the real pros and stay in the race to finish.