The Wilds

Gorski and I raced at the OMBC Race called the Wilds this past weekend. The venue is near a wild animal preserve called the wilds, hence the name. The course was on a 13 mile loop of some pretty sweet single track. We did two loops, or about 26 miles of racing. The course was technical without being too grueling on the mind or body.

Since I have been doing the single speed thing this season, I decided to stick with it at this race. Apparently, I was the only one that actually registered for the single speed class. I did not learn this until after the race was over though unfortunately. I could have sworn I saw many other single speeders riding around before the race, so I am not too sure what happened there. Anyway, the race promoter called the experts and single speeders to the starting line and off we all went. I raced like I was leading my class, which I was because I was the only one in it.

At the end of the race, I ended up taking 5th in the expert class....the 1st (and only) single speeder. Of course, only the top 4 expert riders got paid. If I would have known that I was actually racing with the expert class, I might have raced a little more aggressively, or maybe even chose to race in the vet expert class. Oh well, it was a fun race and the $10 seat bag I got off the prize table certainly made my trip a worth while experience....

My angry little travel buddy, Gorski, was able to take the vet expert win, so that was cool too. The picture above is Gorski grabing his cash and a view of the huge prize table from where I got to pick my finishing award. One last mentionable note about the race was seeing SteveO make his 2009 mtn bike debute. Always good to see SteveO, especially since he was able to snag 2nd place in the expert class!

I can't seem to find any nearby XC races this weekend, so I think I will do a few long and hard days of training before tapering off for the Mohican 100 on June 30th.

Happy Trails Friends, Gerry