USRA Round 10: Sage Riders Dam Good Race

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-yq5c2LJ-Y (be sure to click "watch in high quality")

After reading and hearing about this race from last year I had all but decided to skip it this year. Didn't sound like a good time to me at all - there were horror stories of whoops, sand, whoops, sand, more whoops, and lots more sand. But I had to chance to take 3rd in points for the year in my class by going to it so I figured I'd take that chance. I have improved significantly over the year and learned a lot so I figured I'd be able to tackle this one and do well.

I had a great start but quickly got out of control and lost a lot of places. A mile or two into the course we got next to a road where I started making up a lot of ground. I was doing great and going fast and passing guys left and right when I suddenly found myself looking at the guy behind me, and he was upside down! Actually I was one upside down, midway through going over the handle bars. I really have no idea what happened to make me do that. Seemed like I was in the air for the longest time, then I finally smashed down hard on my head.

This made me pretty delirious for a time. I sprained both wrists and hands in this crash due to my stubbornness of not letting go of the handlebars. The front part of the bike crashed down on part of me when I landed as well. The guy behind me either jumped off my bike over me or actually drove over me or something, but he did stop a moment to see if I was okay before going (kinda funny - he knew it was a bad crash which is why he asked if I was okay, but he didn't stick around long enough for me to give him an answer, not that he could have heard me since we were in the middle of the pack of Amateurs).

All those people I passed passed me up until the last Amateur went by me (excluding Carlo - he was still in the pits I think trying to start his bike). I stood up to get my bearings wondering if I could even finish at this point and kind of bummed about it. I looked over at the start and saw the dust from the Novices and thought I should at least get out of the way when they come through.

Trying to start the bike wore me out even more...I felt like I had done 100 miles already at 100% - in other words, I was spent already. However when I got going again I felt like I could ride okay. The sprains weren't that bad (haha thanks adrenaline!) so I figured I could finish. If the guy I was hoping to take 3rd place away from DNF'd, a finish should give me enough points to beat him for the year.

Surprisingly I was able to ride plenty fast and caught up and passed a lot more AM's until crash #2. The course had about 50/50 of sand (meaning deep sand dune type sand, usually accompanied by whoops) and slick rock. The slick rock was pretty cool, but also very technical. There were several spots where there was a one to two foot ledge you had to go up. Those aren't something you can climb - you just pop the front tire up and over and gas it to have your back tire come up and over with momentum.

It was one of those 1-2 foot ledges we had to climb in the slick rock that caused crash #2. It had a bit of a bottleneck on it, so in an attempt to make several passes at once and show my expertise I took a little more difficult path through it only I did not have enough speed. As I was about to go over backwards, I instead just gassed it and threw the bike forward and watched it bounce off the rocks a few times. It didn't stall though so I just picked it up real quick and kept going, obtaining my goal of making those passes, but not looking so expert.

Didn't take me long to figure out I had bent the handlebars (further inspection proves I did not in fact bend the bars, they just felt like I did I guess) by doing that, as well as the clutch lever. Took me a while to get adjusted to that.

I kept pushing and made more passes. Surprisingly I was doing really well with the technical slick rock, and not so good in the sand. While sand is tiring to ride I DO know how to ride it and have in times past been pretty good at it, but whether it was the back tire on my bike (which I have come to not like a great deal), the weight of the Blue Tank (a likely culprit!), or maybe my new bent handlebars, I was struggling in the sand a great deal to say the least.

I made a pass on two guys on a corner going into one of the slic krock areas, and these two guys figured they were faster than me so they pushed hard to get the pass back. In one of my more genius moments in life we got to a point where the course markings had fallen down and it was harder to tell where to go. I could tell they were just following me and not actually looking for the markers due to a few attempts to pass me on corners and missing the course as a result.

I took the opportunity here to deliberately get off the course a bit. I then stopped, looked around, and shook my head. They figured it out pretty quick that we were off course and turned around. I then turned toward where I knew the course had gone and got rid of those two pests. :) I didn't see them again until I had a stall that cost me a lot of places later on.

Making more and more ground on some of the more difficult climbs in the slickrock made me feel good, and my day was really made when I saw number 101 Open Amateur - he's the one I was fighting for 3rd place overall in points. I put the moves on and got by him and then forgot my wrists were hurting and my bike wasn't normal. I was now ahead of him and all I needed to do was make that distance greater.

He didn't like that though and he turned it on as well. Despite the fact my 4 stroke is a loud beast and I generally can't hear 2 strokes behind me, I could hear his 2 stroke right on me as he was staying right with me. I pushed it and started hearing a couple other bikes in the mix so I thought I might be gaining some ground. Then I came to the spot where it was a 2-3 foot drop into the wash.

It caught me off guard so when I landed in it I stalled the bike. #101 got by me here and I never saw him again sadly. I couldn't start the bike for the life of me and I lost probably 15 places.

Finally getting it going again I took off with a vengeance in hopes of catching him again but it was to no avail. All the kicking I had done between that stall and several others, in conjunction with the first crash was starting to take it's toll on me. I was exhausted.

I still passed a few people on my way back to the pits despite the fatigue. I got a nice rest getting gassed up and headed out for a second loop. I was still making some more ground when I got back into one of the slick rock areas where my fatigue worked against me and caused me to have a stupid tip over. It couldn't have happened in a worse place though, because my boot got caught on the peg on my way down trapping my leg under the bike, making the Blue Tank's heaviness essentially throw me to the ground with the bike on top.

My right thigh hit the slick rock just right - gave me a nice bruise that is super deep. Trying to start the bike after this was an exercise in self-torture. It was my right leg that I had landed on and bruised and now kicking the bike was like stabbing myself with a knife. I basically called it at this point, making it my only goal to just finish the race and hope #101 gets a DNF (terrible to hope for another racer to have problems, but when you're out for points, it's a shark tank out there!).

I rolled through the rest of the course at a leisurely pace, occasionally turning it on when my leg wasn't hurting so bad. My wrists were starting to come to life as well in terms of pain - every bump and every whoop and every variation in the slick rock was just pure pain in several places at once.

I had a couple more dumb tip overs due to washing out in corners and going to put my right leg down to keep myself from falling only to have it give out on me. Stalling it and trying to bring it back to life just more torture.

Then I saw a sight that made me oh so happy - an Expert...one of the leaders. In fact the leader had already passed me but since I didn't recognize his number I wasn't sure if he was the leader. But the guy coming up was someone I knew - #2, Jason Gomeric. I was now certain that no matter what I would only be doing 2 loops.

I through the rest of the course getting passed by several more experts. The course was drawing to a close as was the race and with it the 2008 Desert season. I had done much better than I think was realistic to hope for this race after that first crash, but not as well as I know I am capable of.

The last few miles of whoops were pretty brutal on my leg and wrists, but I rolled in and got my finishers pin. The Sage Riders put on a great race, and had I not injured myself and worn myself out so early on with many preventable stalls and the crashes including the over the handlebars crash spectacular within the first couple miles of course, I'm sure I could have finished pretty good and possibly good enough to have clinched that 3rd place overall in points for the season. But that's the nature of racing, you never know what will happen and when things go South you have make the best of it.