The Pinnacle MTB Race 2013: Should Have Brought Training Wheels

by Rob Paton - I'm a blur because I'm so fast.

By definition a pinnacle is a high point.  For me, this race was nothing of the sort.  While I can't complain too much (I made the podium in a group of really fast and talented ladies), I know that I wasn't at my best on Sunday.  Coming off of two weekends where I felt in top form, it was inevitable that I'd have to come down a bit at some point, and I'd much rather have it be for this race than the pro xct race in two weeks.  Here's how the day went...


Tracy and I had a nice quiet ride up, and all was going well until we took a wrong turn.  Now, if you've ever driven up 202 through New Hampshire, you probably can understand how this might happen.  What a ridiculously obnoxious route!  If you aren't paying attention for even a second, you'll end up off in the wrong direction, and you won't realize it until you're 20 miles off course.  Yeah, we turned the GPS on after that, and all was well.  We even made it in time to hand our pal Tim his bottle at the start of his last lap.


We both got in a decent warmup between the little bit we managed to ride of the very beginning of the course and then cruised up and down the road, and we were able to ride the plummet a couple of times to get a feel for it.  The plummet is part of a ski jump. There's an actual jump on it that I suppose some people were launching off of during the race, but since there was no actual need for those shenanigans, I chose the smooth line to the right of the jump.  It's rather intimidating when you're at the top of that thing looking down, but it's a blast to rip down - you just let go of the brakes and fly!

by Laura B. Kozlowski - Ladies at the line

by Laura B. Kozlowski - Clustered start

Going into the race, there were 5 of us preregistered, but at the start, it was hard to tell who was racing elite and who was racing expert.  Seeing the results, I can see we had a whopping 7 elite women!  That's not too bad... in addition, there were another 6 women racing the expert category.  For once, we were starting the race with a decent number of gals.  It should have been a competitive start no matter what, but for some reason, when the countdown to takeoff ended, we found ourselves starting with the masters men and the juniors.  Ummmm.... what!?  Yeah, what a mess. This course only had a short section of double track to thin out the herd of riders before we were sent into singletrack for what seemed like an eternity, so it would have been nice to have broken up the fields.  Yeah, it's probably good practice for the bigger races, but the bigger races usually include more passing room.  I am definitely not complaining about the awesome singletrack we were racing on... I'm just saying that I'm unimpressed with the fact that they chose to stuff us all together like that considering the layout of the course.  Rant over.

Before I start to sound too whiny, I want to add that this course is unbelievably awesome.  There's a whole lot of climbing and a whole lot of really great trails.  You basically climb forever and then descend, but it's nothing at all like Pat's Peak was the weekend before.  This course has a lot more singletrack and a lot more tight twisty sections.  It also has a brilliant downhill complete with some pretty remarkable berms.  I wish I'd gotten up there to pre-ride the course because I had not raced there in at least three or four years.  I have to say though...  it's a well-designed trail system.  Everything on the course was rideable, and the mud was pretty minimal.

by Rob Paton - Put that tongue away. 

I had a decent start, and went into the race with Hattie up in front of me and expert racer Sheila Vibert right behind her.  I had both of them in sight for most of the first lap, but I also had to deal with a bit of traffic on the first lap, and meanwhile my ability to ride my bike had taken a catastrophic turn for the worse.  I kept doing that thing where you look at what's immediately in front of your wheel rather than down the trail at what's coming.  When I'm on group rides with new riders and dishing out pointers, I constantly lecture people about letting their peripheral vision take care of that stuff closest to them on the trail.  The brain will remember what's there while it simultaneously processes what's up ahead. Ugh.  I'm happy to say that I got that out of my system by the end of the race... for the most part.  Kim Quinlan, a girl with one heck of an awesome attitude, caught up on that first lap and tore by me on the downhill.  I kept her in and out of sight on the last two laps, but she took off like a rocket on the last lap passing Sheila and almost catching Hattie.  This week, Hattie had three and a half minutes on me (Kevin, I hope you're keeping score because she got me this week, LOL).  Kim was just a little over 30 seconds behind Hattie so she must have really hammered that last lap, and Sheila was about 40 seconds behind Kim.  So, I managed 3rd place for the elite women and fourth overall with Kate Lysakowski was less than two minutes behind me.

by Denis Laliberte - Post-race smile

As far as how I felt physically during the race, I can safely say that I felt strong but not as strong as I did for the last two races.  That's to be expected.  I'm in the middle of a big push to add miles because not only is the New Hampshire 100 coming up in the middle of August, but I decided to add another 100 miler to the mix July 7th.  Since I don't want to completely wreck myself for the Windham Pro XCT race at the end of this month, I'm trying to wreck myself now instead.  There's only so much time to prepare, so I've been pushing it hard the past couple of weeks so I can take it easy next week before I face the national field at Windham in the pro xc race and my first super D.



I've been wanting to race my Singlespeed again this season too...  it's looking like the perfect opportunity this coming Sunday at the Westhill Shop/Grafton Ponds XC race in VT.  I'm trying to get the most out of the deteriorating fork on my Fate, so racing my Soma SS will preserve that fork a bit longer (although my wrists will be taking the beating instead on my SS's rigid fork).

Happy riding...  this week looks like it's going to be good for it!