12 Hours of Santos 2/20/2010
I made my annual trip down to Santos again this year. The trip this year provided some perfect weather to finally get some good riding and a chance to really get some good miles on my new Chumba. I didn’t have the geared on finished yet, but since the geometry is exactly the same for both bikes, I looked forward to riding the single speed down there.
My wife and dad came down for support again, and this year I was doing a team event with some friends of mine, Pam and Dave Forshee. We got to Santos early in the afternoon on Friday, we had plenty of time to set up and get in a lap or 2 of test riding. The weather was perfect (around 70 degrees) and the course was nice and dry. The test lap went great, it seemed easier this year than it did last year, and felt really good on the new bike. I was running a 32 x 16 and actually considered putting a 15 on the back, but decided to wait and see. Pam had a little difficulty with the really technical sections, but did great on the course.
On Saturday I was a little late getting to the race because the GPS wanted to take us on a sightseeing route from the camper. Pam decided that she wanted to do the run and the first lap, which worked out well for me too. She took off in the middle of the mob and held position on her lap. I took the next 2 laps and I wanted to see what I had at this point. The first 2 miles or so are very technical and did not give me a lot of room to pass riders, so I took what I could until the trail opened up. When I got to the open section, I got to a pace that I could keep for a few hours if I needed to, but could still gain time. I passed my wife, taking pictures, about 5 miles in and let her know that I had passed 29 people so far (it turned into a game for me). I was spinning like crazy on a couple of really open spots on the course to keep my speed up, the bike was perfectly stable and stuck to the pine needles and sand like glue letting me keep all of my momentum with almost no drifting. I was having a blast!
Dave went next, the Pam again, and I knocked out 2 more laps. When I came in to hand off to Dave, Pam let me know that she was done for the day and Dave would only be doing one more. I was okay with that, we decided before we got there to do it for fun and do as much as we wanted too. I was just hoping I had enough left for the last 5 + hours. I got in one more lap before the night laps and could tell that I was already a little slower, but I still felt good. I put on lights and had a good first night lap and I was stoked that it was still warm enough to ride in shorts. On my next lap, I started to feel cramps on the really steep stuff, but tried to take it as easy as I could on a ss in those areas. I got to the flats and just kept it smooth, some of the faster geared guys started getting around me now, but gave me a good update on my pace. When I got to the last part of the course, which is also very technical all muscle strength had disappeared. I piled it up on the first really steep section and offered some skin to the trail as a sacrifice, then scraped a tree really hard on the way back down and gave up a little more skin. After my 4th time of testing the firmness on the ground I decided to pull in to the pits and call it a good day. The race got me really motivated for the rest of the season!! The new bike was awesome on both the really technical and really flat stuff.
You can check out more on Owen's blog here :http://www.owenjsimpson.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment