H2H Race #2
Ringwood Rumble
Saturday April 20, 2019
Men’s Cat 2 19+
After missing the first H2H race down in Florida, this was my first XC race of the year.
@Team Town Cycle had the course up on GPS a couple of weeks prior, and I managed to pre-ride the larger loop two weeks ago with a bunch of teammates. The Cat 2 loop is mostly similar, but shorter by about two miles. Lots of climbing and lots of rocks. A mix of fire roads and some sweet single track.
Friday, we were supposed to get rain all day, and most of Saturday also. By Friday evening, the rain had not started yet, so I was hopeful that we might be ok. The Cat 2 race was scheduled for 9am, so I hoped to be out of the house by 7am to get there with over an hour to spare. At 6am when I woke up, the rain was just starting. By 6:30am, it was coming down really hard, with lots of wind and thunder. I started to think of bailing. Rain is fine. Thunder and high winds are not. I sat around going back and forth between going and not going. I was mostly leaning to not going. Looking at the radar forecast on a few apps made me confident that bailing was the right choice. At 7:45am, I was right at the drop dead decision time. Leave now, and just barely make the start, or wait any more than 5 minutes more and miss the gun. The rain in Madison at this point had mostly let up, so I changed quickly and sped up 287 towards Ringwood. At one point I hydroplaned a little at 70mph, which was scary AF.
I pulled into the lot at 20 minutes to 9, changed into my shoes real quick in the back of my car, topped off my water bottle, taped a Gu to the top tube, ripped a Gu, and rode to get my number plate.
I picked my way thru the back of the other classes to get up to the starting line. 5 minutes to spare.
There are only 13 guys preregistered, and I think 11 of us at the line, maybe 12. We go off up the fire road, and it is a mess. The rain was still coming down at this point, and there were tone of puddles and streams on the starting fire road. I slowly drifted my way towards the back of the group. Up the first climb, down that sketchy descent going into the right left hander, I was second to last. Going down that fire road on a hard tail with all the mud and run off was super sketch.
Over the next mile or so, I was behind Tyler from Hb, never letting him get any more that 10-15 yards ahead. Going over a rocky stream crossing I think is where he dabbed and I was able to get by. I put in a little dig and opened up some room. There was so much mud, and the rocks were so slick I didn’t really look back much, for fear of making a simple mistake and taking myself out. I kept my HR in the upper 170s, trying to not go into the 180s for very long. The climbs hurt, and the descents were fun. I knew who was behind me in my class, so when others came up behind me I gave them all clear lines to pass.
Despite all the rain, most of the single track was in great shape. The fire roads, not so much. Going down the White Trail was friggin awesome. That trail is bulletproof. There was a bunch of rock sections towards the end that I needed to walk. They were super slippy. I know I rode more of them on the pre-ride two weeks earlier, but it was dry then.
With about 1.5 - 2 miles to go, I caught a glimpse of one of the two guys I knew were in my class that were behind me, so I pushed a little harder to try to keep him back there.
At about .75 miles to go, I slipped out on a small, simple rocky bit, and went down. It was hard enough to scrape up my shin, thigh, and forearm a bit, but not enough to do any real damage.
I got back on and moving without loosing more than a few seconds and hammered the last short section back down to the S/F road without any further issues. Knowing where I was on the course definitely helped manage any anxiety about how I would finish.
I rolled thru the line, in 7th place, out of 12 starters, totally gassed. Chatted with a few of the other racers, said good luck to other MTBNJ teammates that were just getting there, then went back to the car to try to warm up and change out of the mud soaked kit.
Great job by the folks at Team Town Cycles for putting Ringwood Rumble on.
Hope everyone can make it out to Mooch Madness on April 28th. The course is awesome. Climbs, rocks, flow. Register
here