This past Saturday was the New York State Endurance Racing Series (NYSERS) Finale. Held at Harriet Hollister-Spencer Park near Honeoye Lake. Having raced here and done well over the past several years, I was surprised to find out a few weeks ago that the course would be completely different. 2 new trails were added and the entire course would be run backwards sans “the rattler”. The rattler is an 800 ft brutally technical descent, on par with some of the best I’ve ever ridden (makes Mount Snow’s descent seem paved). With the rattler in poor shape, it was a wise call and after pre-riding the course it began to grow on me.
My training and preparation had been good and I was ready for a showdown. New to this year’s event was a nice little trophy for the fastest first lap overall (team or solo riders).
I wasn’t sure if I was going to take a chance at the trophy or ride my pace and keep consistent and steady. Lining up, the promoter was laying down the smack talk, trying to egg on a few of us. Goading us into going after the trophy….
When the gun fired, I shot off the line and surprisingly felt really well for a quick start. I throttled back and dropped into 2nd place behind Evil Steve. He towed me through the 1st section of singletrack in the pinewoods. I held his wheel and with him in the lead, I popped out of the woods with a few riders in tow. Up the first 2 ascents, I stuck like glue and passed him prior to the next section of long singletrack.
Flying into the singletrack, the Superfly was just chewing up and spitting out everything that was thrown at it. Dicey, off camber roots, bridges, steep transitions were no match. Together the 2 of us managed to pull away from the rest of the riders that were in tow behind us. Into the new section of singletrack, Evil Steve took to the front and set the pace. He managed to eek out a small gap for a bit, but I closed it up fast on the descents. We were really crushing it and putting out a blisteringly fast pace. As we hit the long double track climb, I was content to follow pace and see what would happen. Near the end where the climb shot up, I decided to make my move, overtaking for the lead once again and shooting into the high speed multiple s-curves section, I was able to get a good gap. Seeing that, I railed it into the final sections of singletrack, hammering it in the big ring and running the backwards course from memory. Out of the singletrack and 2 super steep climbs later, my gap had grown to around 20 seconds or more and mostly downhill sections to the finish gave me a little breather. I managed to cross the line somewhere around 37:45
My bling for turning the fastest lap
I certainly paid for my efforts though. Seeing as it was a 6 hour race, going full guns from the start was not the brightest thing to do. Sensing pending implosion, I had to back off the throttles and recover. Hoping I didn’t burn through my all my matches. 3/4 thru the 2nd lap I was caught by a solo rider. We rubbed elbows for a while, but when we hit the steep climb, I had to let him go and turn the throttles off. It took me another lap or so before I could find my groove. I then spent the majority of the race riding the laps with the duo team of my friends, Casey and Taylor depending on whose lap it was.
Coming through on the start of my 7th lap, I was given a time check to 1st, and it was around 8-9 minutes. I pushed hard for my 7th lap, but didn’t pull the gap down by much. With 50 minutes or so left on the clock and I had been turning between 41-43 minute laps by know, I decided the best course of action would be to turn the lap and call it a day.
I finished happily 2nd overall (1st age group), covering 8 laps and 95k (~60 miles) in 6 hours. I ended up winning my age group for the NYSERS and just missed out on taking the Solo Overall (a DNF at Plattekill cost me dearly).
I made all kinds of attempts to get outdoors yesterday and go for a big ride to piggyback on saturday’s race. However the legs were completely thrashed and I spent a simple 2 hours enjoying the sunshine and doing some easy spinning. Hopefully my legs will be ready to go for tomorrow nights series finale at Farmall!
