Dust Devil Series Race #1

What a weird race that was. I got to the McDowell Mountain Park fairly early, around 6:30ish, when my start time was not until 9:24AM. That gave me plenty of time to buy this year's year pass, and get all my stuff ready. It also gave me a chance to check out all the other racers, and their rides. I thought my choice of the hardrock was pretty cheesy already, but I was amazed at the range of bikes out there. People were riding everything from Wal-Mart bikes to this year's long travel Kona full squishes. The most interesting one would probably be a belt-driven single speed 29er.

As for the race, the bike performed outstanding, no chain falling off, the shifting was crisp, clean, and fast, and it held up great through the rockgardens. Didn't have any flats, or anything break on the bike. At 9:24AM the CAT3 women lined up for the start, and I took a good look at my competition, and wasn't really sure what to think. The girl behind me was on a Wal-Mart bike, so I was pretty sure she wasn't going to make it through the rockgardens. The other girl was a girl I rode with on a Luna ride, she rode with me in the expert group, so she was good competition. And there was some college girls that could or could not be serious competition. One of them had a fairly serious weight issue, and I felt bad for her that she had to pedal all of it around, up some serious nasty hills too.

The start-'horn' then sounded, and off we went. Somehow the big girl ended up in front of me, and bogged down on the first hill, right in the middle of the trail so I could barely pass her. Wasted a lot of energy spinning my back tire trying to get past her up a sandy uphill. Way to go. One of the college girls and the other one managed to stay in front and were gone, and I decided just to do my laps and call it good. The other girls I left behind, and never saw them again (literally).

Doing my laps I passed a lot of CAT3 guys, and actually, on the first lap I passed almost all of the 'rockcrusher' guys, that started about 15 minutes ahead of my category. Some of them seemed like total beginners, and I wonder if they had any idea what they had started, or if they had ever even rode the course.

The first lap went fairly easy, and was very fun. It was very swoopy and fast. The second lap I had to do the perimeter of the park, and it takes you through a neverending rock collection. It beat me up pretty bad on my hardtail with too rigid front suspension, and I lost the girls that were in front of me (who were both on full suspension bikes, darn!). Overall I felt pretty good throughout the race, and I could have pushed myself harder, but I was out there for my own entertainment and race experience. Overall I got a pretty good time of about 1:42:00 ish, the Dust Devil server is running overtime currently so I can't check right now. Anyway, it was good for 3rd place, YAY!