This past weekend I almost completed my first mechanical free mountain bike race of the season. I say almost because I made it through the race without any mechanical issues, but failed to make it to the race without a mechanical issue. My car held up fine, but unfortunately I forgot to tighten the quick release of a front wheel attached to my roof rack. 400 yards after hitting the highway, I watched my rearview mirror in horror as the wheel flew off. If the impact of the ground didn’t destroy it, the several cars that hit it afterwards did. By the time I retrieved the wheel, the only salvageable parts were the disc brake rotor bolts and valve stem. Luckily I still had another wheel with me. Cahaba Cycles came through by truing my spare wheel and mounting a new race tire before getting back on the road to the annual XC mountain bike race at Tsali.
The trail was in great condition and the race went extremely well. I managed a great start and took the lead position going into the singletrack. I pushed a little harder than I normally would at the beginning of a 31 mile mountain bike race and managed to get out of site from all but one of the 19 deep field. The one remaining rider got by me on a climb about half way into the first of two laps. I held my position through the second lap and finished up in second place after a hard 1:59 effort. The course was configured slightly different from last year, but the terrain and difficulty were very similar. I was extremely excited to see that I averaged a 7% faster pace than last year. Great racing to come this year…
Omar
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