Coming down from the first climb

Saturday, I raced my third XC mountain bike race of the season (and ever), this time equipped with my new-to-me Surly Karate Monkey.

With how much rain we have been having, trails have been unrideable, and so I hadn’t even been on this bike in a couple weeks. Luckily, Ponca was dry, and after a beautiful night of camping, I lined up with the other Cat 3s, Juniors, and Masters. Since I was the only Cat 3 female, they seeded me in with the Masters 45+ men, a nice group to start with. After the Cat 3 Men’s Open and Masters 35+ rolled out, we were the next to take off.

A nice section of wide doubletrack/open grass through the playground preceded our first climb into the singletrack.

Lining up at the start

Once we started climbing, I discovered that the adjustments I’d tried to make on my front derailleur after a chain-dropping warm-up lap had not been successful — I had no granny gear for what would be several long climbs without the benefit of gravity-assisted rollers. Bummer. After losing position and admitting defeat to the mechanics, I settled into a groove with my middle chainring and cranked as hard as I could past a few who had already started walking. I ended up running/walking up more sections than I would have liked to, but hey, that’s cyclocross practice, right?

After those climbs, the long descents were really rewarding, and the big wheels let me fly down at speeds well beyond my comfort zone!

I came around to the finish line 34 minutes after starting, and all things considered, had a good race. It was a beautiful venue to race in, and a great little weekend trip!

Coming in the last turn to the finish