Sunday, June 28 was the 8th Race in the SERC cross country race series, held at the Raccoon Mountain trails in Chattanooga, TN. This is one of my favorite places to ride. Its typically a 17 mile loop complete with rolling singletrack, steep switchback climbs, and plenty of Tennessee rocks. My first time there was with Neal in '07 and snow was covering the ground, making the already tough rock sections even more epic. Each time I return it is more fun.
If you have not ridden these trails, I highly recommend you try them out. The drive from Atlanta is only 2 hours and the trails are only minutes from downtown Chattanooga. The views are awesome, there's a small museum at the parking lot, and the trails are well maintained. Chattanooga is a clean, contemporary city with no shortage of fun places to eat and drink. Everytime we go, we joke about how nice it would be to move there.
We were back only a couple weeks ago for a casual ride, which provided the perfect preparation for this race. Lining up Sunday morning, I didn't feel nervous at all about the tough rock sections or the tight singletrack. I was nervous, however, about the distance. We were going to race 3 laps on the 12.6 mile loop for a total of about 38 miles - a tough distance at race pace. With this in mind, I started slow. I was last in the woods in my wave of 11 riders and I stayed there (last). The only people I passed the entire race were mechanicals, crashes, and riders who would ultimately bonk and DNF. That added up to quite a few riders - 3 in my wave and probably 20 on the day. Still, my pace was pretty fast and I stayed consistent on each lap. Even though there's no glory in 4th to last place, I am content knowing I did 38 miles on a tough course at 11.5 mph.
The rest of the FM crew had nice finishes. Aaron beat me by about 3 minutes. Kurt podiumed in his class with a nice 4th place finish. Ed (muthafuckin) Frayer was 6th in a big class of 30 riders. Crazy Legs Crendogg (friend of FM:Race, racing for Quantum Mechancis/APB) finished his 3 laps respectably middle of his pack, turning in faster lap times than all of us.
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Lol, I didn't see Xtophers post and made a new one. Delete my other one and I'll add what I wrote below:
This past weekends race was up at Raccoon Mountain just outside Chattanooga, TN. This is one of the best courses on the XC race circuit in my opinion. It has a little bit of everything which makes for a great ride. This year it was a 12 mile course with base class doing 1 lap, sport doing 2 laps and expert/pro riding 3 laps. Racing for FM were Eric B., Kurt, Rage and Ed in sport class and Xtopher and A.Ron in expert.
I rode up early Saturday morning with my wife and son. My wife informed me she would not be camping with our 2 year old in 95 degree heat and I agreed. I followed my new found mantra of not pre-riding the day before a race and instead went to a children’s museum in downtown Chattanooga. My son had fun and it took up most of the afternoon for us.
I rolled up Sunday morning and met with the other FM riders as they were checking in and getting ready. It was already pretty hot around 8:30am and since I knew the laps were long I decided to carry 2 water bottles with me per lap, turned out to be perfect for me.
Pretty big turn out at this race and my class is always one of the largest. We had 28 on the starting line. Got the start I wanted and sat mid-pack for a couple miles. I knew this would be a race of attrition and my goal was simply to finish mid-pack. At around mile 3 or 4 the first riders in the class behind me started to catch me. No problem, I let 4 or 5 of them go by. On a slight uphill I knew I had a rider behind me so I told him that when he was ready to call and make the pass. He choose a place where the trail got tight and we collided and went down. We weren’t really going that fast and I landed on top of him and his bike but man I got rattled pretty hard. My knee must have gone in his frame because it was cut up on several sides, my elbow and shoulder were both bruised. It was one of those wrecks where you get up counting fingers and checking bike parts but all was well and he apologized.
After I took a minute or two to shake off the sore elbow I got back at it and quickly caught most of the people that passed me. Towards the end of the first lap I caught up with Namrita and rode half a lap or so swapping places with her. She dropped me toward the end of the second lap as my endurance was fading. With about 3 miles to go I got caught by the second place sport class woman who had dropped her water bottle. I gave her mine as she went by because she was fighting for position and needed it much more than me.
I finished 18th out of 28 which is pretty much where I wanted to finish. I may have moved up a place or two without the wreck but it was a pretty decent race for me and it was definitely a fun course. I think Kurt got 4th in his class and Ed got 6th in my class. Props to Xtopher and A.Ron for riding 3 laps out there.
Race Results: http://www.goneriding.com/2009/SERC/08-chattanooga/results.htm
Some Photos: http://gallery.me.com/architectx#100057
More Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/jshanewallace/RaccoonMountainRace09?authkey=...
fyi when you create a race
fyi when you create a race story it goes out all over the internet so be careful when creating them!
Oh noes not the internets. I
Oh noes not the internets.
I refreshed the page several times but his story never came up for me, only after I posted mine did it show. I blame Al Gore.
definitely Al Gore's fault.
definitely Al Gore's fault. Nice job racing!