Farmall Spring Series #1

Permalink | No Comments (0) | Share This

Last night kicked off the Farmall Spring XC series, just outside Rochester, NY. RVE Bike is kind enough to host the Spring and Summer series right at their own property.

The course, while only 2 miles in length or so; offers up some great power climbs and the racing is only intense. 7 laps for the Expert/Pro categories and the 7 climbs per lap add up quickly and don’t ever really allow for any recovery. Last night was no exception…

I’ve been participating in this weeknight series for almost 5 years now. I think with warmups and racing I’ve got far over 100+ laps on the course. It’s fair to say that I’ve got the terrain down pat. Regardless of the terrain is the difficulties found in the race itself.

Last night kicked off, with an unusual start. Half of us on the line though the starter was just telling us how the start would go, while the other half actually started. Caught in the confusion I missed out and had to jump up to the front and close the gap. I surged to the front and lead around the little start area, but was overcome by Steve Johnson (Park Ave) and settled into 2nd with 3rd (Corey Knowles: ROG) on my wheel and 4th (Andy August: Park Ave) shortly behind. I overtook and led the group through the start/finish and back into the woods. Halfway through lap 2 I was shuttled back into 2nd by Evil Steve. Corey and I gave chase with Andy shortly behind. Evil Steve took off and his gap grew, meanwhile Corey surged past me and shortly thereafter Andy made a nice attack around the 4th lap as he passed me. Andy grew his gap to about 25 seconds at one point, but I managed to pull him back in and put him behind me.

Once I found my legs and caught Andy, I kept on trucking and finally made it past Corey at the end of the 5th lap or so. Next task was to try and catch Evil Steve (who was out of sight) and fend of a hard charging Andy who moved into 3rd at this point. I fought it hard and never did bring Steve back into view, but kept Andy at bay (he brought the gap down to a few seconds at one point). Andy fought off a bridge attempt by Corey in the final meters, but had enough to pull away and finish 3rd.

Looking forward to some more intense racing next week, meanwhile this weekend is the NYSERS Kick-off at Highland Hex.