Reflecting back on my Island Cup DH race season I can be reasonably happy with results:

Victoria 7th of 43 racers
Parksville 33rd of 68 racers
Duncan 25th of 29 racers (32 with DNS and DNF’s thrown in).

Riding as fast as you can is an eye opening experience. It is mentally challenging as well as physically challenging. The mental game was a big part of the results for Parksville. Mentally I wasn’t “on” during the race. I tapped the brakes before the jumps, and took it easy through spots where I have previously crashed. I probably could have moved up a few spots if I had let go of the brakes more. 2 years ago I certainly flew more than this year. I think the reason for that would be sprout. Either that or I have turned into a chicken 🙂

Duncan was a physical problem (then mental). I added air pressure to my tires the day of the race, and I think that messed me up a bit. Then I crashed and mentally I couldn’t hold it together. The goal of a DH race is to get down the course as fast as you can. When you crash you aren’t moving. This is bad. Getting up from a crash the instinct is to get going as fast as you can. The opposite should be done though. I tried to grab the bike, seat myself, calm myself then go.

When I just jump on and take off, the adrenaline is flowing so hard I push too hard and am in danger of crashing again.

It is a hard mix but definitely was fun. If I had been a minute faster in the Duncan race, I could have placed around 9th. That could have been a huge improvement.

Victoria was the perfect race. I knew the course extremely well. I was in decent shape, I got in some good practice, and I didn’t need to chicken out on anything.

The thing I like about racing DH is the fact that the whole goal is to push yourself and go as fast as you can. I just can’t bring myself to ride like that on normal trails, but during a race, this is not a problem.

I guess I am a little sad that the season is over for me (I can’t make the last race), but I am looking forward to next year.

So, ever wonder why mountain bikers wear armour? I can tell you why. Because when they crash it saves their sorry butt.

The Duncan DH was not my finest race. I got to signup later than I wanted this morning. That was a bad sign. I rushed, got my gear together and got on the first shuttle I could. I got to the top of the race course and did my prerun. My shoulders were tight, my feet were aching, and my arms were on fire. Other than that, I only made a couple mistakes on my pre-run.

The pre-run did point out that the finish line was not where I was expecting. This was good news since I was expecting an uphill sprint to the finish line, and this new ending saved me from that. 🙂 Whee.

I hoofed it back to the shuttle point. The sun was out and I was baking pretty good in my armour. My brakes felt a little off on that run too. Did I mention that this morning, before loading my bike in the truck I added a few pounds of pressure to the tires? Eh, no big deal.

Shuttling back to the top I sat in the back of the pickup. Besides being very dusty, it cooled me down nicely. I hiked to the top of the course and waited. And waited, and waited, and waited. Seems there was a miscommunication, and the beginners were sent to the wrong spot. They started late. My race number was 207. Thinking the intermediates were in the 200 range I thought I wouldn’t have to wait long for my run. Wrong. The numbers were doled out randomly, and I guess race order was signup order. I paid the price for arriving late, and was 3rd to last in the race order.

No big deal really. It was a nice day (beautiful blue sky, temps in the mid 20’s). But the bugs were out. My legs are covered in bites.

When time came to get in line I got my gear situated and got my mind thinking about the course. It was a long one, and I needed to remember that.

When I was next to go I felt pretty focused. I was in the right gear, I was amped, I wanted to ride.

I heard the 5 seconds to go and started my stopwatch. I heard 3, then 2, then 1, then nothing. They never said go, so I left anyway. The first section was really easy, and I had no troubles with it. The rest of the race was all downhill from there (pun intended).

On the next section I screwed up. My brakes were a little cooked, and on one section I reefed on the front brake a little too hard (carrying too much speed). The terrain was a shale like substance with tons of grip. Unless you lock your front wheel up, which is precisely what I did. The bars turned, and over I went. When I stopped sliding I got up quickly, and ran uphill to my bike (lame crash). My left lever had twisted so I put it back in the right spot, jumped on the bike and took off. My left hand hurt a little, and I could feel gravel underneath the armour on my left leg. I chided myself on that stupid mistake.

Not 30 seconds later I did the same thing again. WTF was I doing. I was pushing myself too much and needed to calm down.

Thankfully I reached a fun twisty bermed section in a clear cut. I was able to breathe a little, calm down, and pedal.

Regaining my composure I entered a zen like state. I flowed the course. Leaning into berms, gapping tiny holes to smooth out the trail, sucking up bumps, pedalling, letting the bike dance beneath me. I felt great. I loved the adrenaline rish of the speed I was attaining. The course just felt right. I knew the corners and relied on my instincts.

Until (always that stupid until) there was a fork in the trail. Take the high or take the low. I hesitated because I heard some spectator say high. That was enough to fuck me over. At that speed hesitation is bad. I wanted to go high, but my balance was set for the low line. In an instant my front tire dipped off the trail, and down I went again!

I got going again, but I neared the really steep sections. I was amazed during my prerun how much they had changed since the day before. Well, the steeps were even nastier again, and I made the cardinal mistake when mountain biking of looking at the obstacle you want to avoid. Sure enough I hit it, and went down again. I was super pissed off, and didn’t take my time. I almost fell again while trying to get going.

The last incident I had was a section of trail that I knew to look out for since the outside of the corner was getting baddly eroded during practice. Again I stared at it, and hit it. Thankfully I stopped before I fell off the trail, but it still cost me time.

From there I cruised to the finish line, completely disguted with my run. I was pretty pissed off with myself, and just wanted to go home. After remembering, I stopped my watch, and it said 8:55 (this was about a minute after crossing the line).

I figure my race run was close to 8 minutes long. If each crash cost me 30 seconds (some were more some were less), I could maybe have done a 6.5 minute race, or even 7 minutes. I might be way off on my timing though.

Any which way I look at it, it was not my best race, I could have done better, and I will try to do it again next year.