Hopbrook Dam Race Reports

If you'd like your race report added, post it to the site as a blog and send me a message. -Colt From Cyclingdirt

[From Matt O'Keefe at www.mattyojr.blogspot.com]

"Once again the bike racing season has begun in New England. What better way to get after it on a cold, wet, April Saturday morning, than slogging around on a Mtn Bike. The Root 66 New England Race series is a goal of mine this year along with some Nationals and Canada Cups. The competition is always stiff and you can guarantee on any given weekend a hard fought race.

Leading up to race weekend here is my week; get up (of course), work emails, out the door for a quick session, get home, off to work, get back home, maybe another session, go see Trey, say hello to my wife, then some more work emails and off to bed! My point, not a lot of time to think about the race, how it will play out, who will be there, the weather etc. Speaking of weather, hello up there, spring anytime soon? Help us out, we're freezing and wet!

So I meet my training partners and friends Tim J. and Lyne B. and become pleasantly surprised that they want to race Mountain Bikes this weekend in the New England Opener. This is a huge relief because they are true professionals, prepare properly which allows me not to have to think as much, love that!

Off we go to CT, both envious of my new Team Cannondale Scalpel, especially Tim because I let him borrow my 5 year old Scalpel that has been ridden into the ground, still races great though! He complained a bit but with some good Slapshot Jokes, Lyne's knitting, and my constant pee breaks, the mood was lightened and he was ready to race.

The Course was great! Fast rolling single track with some open double track that made for a suffer fest right from the beginning. The start line was packed with the New Pro category riders, great to see! Mountain biking is definitely making a positive turn in New England, not quite to the tune of the early 90's when I was racing full time, but I see it coming back, awesome!

Tim and I didn't know what to expect from the rest of the riders. The nice thing about New England is we have a lot of up and coming pro riders in addition to some fast Canadians that usually make the trip south to race, similar to cross.

We (Tim and I ) did get away on the first lap with a couple of guys not far behind. We stayed smooth and fast to increase our gap over an hour and 48 minutes. Tim and I have a lot of fun on the bike but at the same time we stay focused and ride hard. Toward the end of the race with about a mile or so to go there was a good little grunt climb maybe 2-3 minutes long that the Tour of California legs in Tim definitely showed. He slowly dropped me and I fought to stay, but the 2 hour mtb all out fitness, at his pace, isn't there yet.

The surprise ending:

With about a 1/4 mile left we both thought it was wrapped up, no one in sight, and a nice little descent into the finish. I made a mistake in the mud, grabbed my bike off the ground and vrooooom, Andrew Frye goes blowing past me! I thought, holy crap, where did he come from and we were pretty much at the finish. When I came across the line, a little disappointed with second never mind third, I asked Frye how and when he made contact and congratulated him on a great race. He said he started seeing us on the last climb and that he grabbed Tim also at the line, what!? Great riding by Andrew to stay focused and keep driving forward. Life lesson for Tim and I never think its in the bag!

Andy 1, Tim 2nd, Me 3rd.

Thanks for reading!


Ciao for now.
Matty O."

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[From Cathy Rowell at www,twoadventures.blogspot.com]

"A week ago, the nerves started. I was sure that despite all of the hard work, I wasn't going to be ready. What if I went, and I stunk? Mike had spent a lot of time and effort on my bike (which was beautiful BEFORE the race ;)) and my coach had spent a lot of time and effort on my training. I KNEW in my head I was ready, but the butterflies still insisted on their version of the Olympics.

Oddly, as we made the drive to Connecticut on Saturday for the first race of the Root 66 series, I was calm. I think I figured that at this point, it was too late to worry and be nervous - whatever was going to happen was going to happen. And what happened? As we got on our bikes to go out and pre-ride the course, the skies opened. Yup - rain and cold the entire day. An auspicious beginning to the MTB race season!

Mike and I suited up and went out to hit the course for one lap prior to the race to see what we would face. At one point, we ended up pre-riding behind none other than Tim J, Lyne B and Matt O! Imagine our surprise to see the pros out at this race - especially Lyne, since we haven't seen her in this type of race (yet). And Tim must be home prepping for Battenkill next week... Since Mike was racing in the Pro category, he was going to have some tough competition. Me? I'm used to getting lapped by Lyne on the road and in 'cross, so was half expecting it here too ;).

First impressions of the course were good. I liked the mix of power sections with technical. The consensus back at the car, however, was that we needed to be careful and safe - the downhills were going to be slick, and sliding out on a corner in the mud wasn't going to get anyone anywhere fast.

We made our way over to the staging area since Mike's group was going off first. There were a huge number of racers who turned up despite the weather, and the Pro/Cat 1 fields were packed with talent. The Pro men's field had 25 starters lined up! I cheered as Mike got underway, and then stood and shivered until it was time for the women to head out - at the end of the entire wave of racers.

Standing in the back of our field (Pro and Cat 1 women get sent off together), I looked at the talent ahead and beside of me - besides Lyne, my coach was on the line as well as two of my training partners - Linnea and Kate, and next to me was Sue L, who won the overall series last year. I still managed to remain calm, knowing that my goal was to try to stay with the pack of Pros as long as possible, and then to bury myself to hang on to Sue as long as I could.

On the whistle, we were off, and I managed a decent start into the first corner, and then was swarmed hitting the first narrow single track. That meant that heading into the woods, I was second to last, with only Sue behind me. It was a single file trudge up the first hill, but I managed to pass a couple of the pro women once things flattened out. I still had Lydia (who was the other racer in my category) ahead of me, and Sue close behind. As we hit a technical uphill, Lydia didn't make it, and Sue got caught behind her. I had the MOST SPECTACULAR 'cross move ever at that point, dismounting and running past both of them to remount at the top of the hill (not sure why I can't pull off this move during 'cross season...). I was now leading my group, and had another pro racer in my sights.

Unfortunately for me, soon thereafter the course started uphill - Sue's specialty. I have gotten better at the hills, but Sue past me and quickly put a gap into me here, and now I was chasing again with Lydia not far behind. The good thing for me was that I could make up time on Sue anytime we went downhill or hit a technical section of the course; the bad thing was that Sue regained any time I made up every time we started uphill... I kept Sue in my sights for most of the first lap before losing her for the remainder of the race - an improvement over last year!

Lap 2 was difficult in that this was where most of the Pro men's field, and some of the Cat 1 men started lapping me. Now, I'm ok with being lapped, but there were some places where it was just plain difficult to get out of their way. I tried my best not to hold anyone up, but also to not give up any time myself - I still had my own race going on! Despite the lapping traffic, I believe that lap 2 was faster for me than the first lap. The bad thing was that at that point I could no longer see Sue in front of me, nor Lydia behind me.

By the third lap, course conditions had completely deteriorated. I now know what it must feel like to ride around in peanut butter - sticky, and no control over tires, steering or braking. Sections I was making in the first lap in my big ring I was having to run with my gearing now in the middle ring. I ran some sections I had ridden cleanly in the previous two laps - more for fear of a major injury than anything else. I also gave up some in this lap. Not being able to see the people against whom you are racing is detrimental to my motivation. That, and I really didn't want to get hurt, it was still pouring, and by now I was cold. I was also wondering if it was possible to get an infection from all the mud that was in my shorts (my mind goes to some strange places when it is tired...)!

So, the end result for me was second place in my category. Second out of three. Not great. BUT, let me now put that in perspective over last year. Last year, Sue was consistently beating me by 10 to 15 minutes in our races (I upgraded to mediocrity, you might remember). Saturday - Sue was a scant 5:30 ahead of me - not insurmountable before the season is through! I also finished ahead of Lydia and two of the Pro women. I rode the technical sections of the course, and didn't crash. I drank from my bottle, AND ate food (this was a big problem for me last year). Overall, I am happy with my result and have left some room for improvement.

Mike had a great race as well, finishing 8th in the Pro/Cat 1 Open category (in a starting field of 25). If you want a play-by-play colorful description of his finish, go read Thom's account - it's pretty funny.

After our races, we de-mudded as much as possible, and waited for teammates in the Cat 2 race to finish. Unfortunately, that means that even as I type this on Monday, I am still trying to warm up! And the kits? One wash with the garden hose and then two times through the washing machine (which needed vacuuming when finished) got MOST of the dirt out... Here's hoping for drier conditions in two weeks at Winding Trails!"

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[From Jonny Bold at www.jonnybold.blogspot.com]

"Yesterday we decided to get in an early season mountain bike race and it was race #1 of the route 66 series. The forecast was grim, but we never let that stop us. I was in Providence friday night so I met Kev just off the Mass Pike near rt. 146. It was dry for the moment even though it had rained all night. We got to the venue and got our #s and not 30 seconds after we started to kit up it started to rain. It rained steadily all day. We got in a lap for a pre ride before it got too bad and the course looked good. Mostly a fitness course, but getting slicker by the minute. We had 4 guys in the cat-1-40s field, which is pretty amazing in mountain bike races these days. Troy Kimball from Westwood Velo got the hole shot and was kinda drillin it early on. We followed and after hardly any time at all there was no one with us. I was a little surprised, but pleased too. Troy got gapped on the first extended steep climb, and it was just the Missile and me. I led up the climb and then Kev did his thing in the technical stuff. I pretty much rode like a pussy (this has got to stop) and he was gone. The beauty of it was that he is a teammate, but I wanted to be able to ride with him for a little while. I really studied the lines on the first lap and hit the power when I could. At the end of the lap we were completely covered in mud from head to toe and my bike wasn't working too well with the packed up casette. I needed to get rid of my rain cape and I did after a short struggle, and I set out to ride lap 2 much better. I took better lines with more confidence and suddenly I could see Kev again. He was way up there, but I felt really good. I bludgeoned myself on the power sections and got really close, only to watch him float away in the technical sections. Finally I got back up to him and even led for a lot of sections. He asked me if I was gonna slay him then or wait a while with a laugh in his voice, and I said "If you can stay with me through the fitness sections....it's all yours". Truth be told, I had to dig super deep to get back up to him and I was really smoked, but I felt like I'd have enough to ride hard to the end. I rode everything as hard as I could, and Kev just made it look easy following me. We're completely different riders and yet we're able to push each other which is a great buzz. In the end I think I was hurting pretty bad (based on how my legs feel today) and I think my 2nd lap was faster than my 3rd. At the top of the last tough climb before the final technical descent, I looked over my shoulder and Kev was right there. I waved him through and he asked if I was sure. I laughed and said "Positive". Here's the thing. If I was anyone else he would have eaten me up on that descent and won the race anyway. I wasn't really trying to drop him on the fitness sections, although I went as hard as I could. It's so great to race a teammate because we know we're gonna win the race. We don't have to plot and plan against each other. I thought he might pop, but hoped he wouldn't, and in the end he didn't, so why make him do what he was fully capable of doing, which was to smoke me on the last technical section. It was his turn to win anyway! We were completely drenched in mud, and I went straight into the pond for a bike wash and partial body wash. It was cold, but I got changed up quickly. We were very happy to hear from Johnny Mosher (our Corner Cycle teammate) that he took third from Troy and made it a complete sweep of the podium. Add in Gray Eldridge (our 4th rider of the day) in 6th place and it's a pretty impressive showing for the team. The awards were another endurance test, but we won't harp on that. Doing the results and promoting in those kind of conditions must be a tough task and they put on a great race and had a warm tent for all us to hang out in so waiting wasn't too bad. It was a long day, and a good day!
Next week is the world famous Battenkill Roubaix and I would dearly love to improve on my 2nd place finish there last year.
Until then.....JB"

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[From Colin Reuter at www.untilthesnowends.blogspot.com]

"The first real XC mountain bike race of the year has some kind of stupid allure that gets everyone pumped up, so pumped up that they can't even think straight, certainly not straight enough to realize they're about to race a frigid mudfest. Somewhere around 400 people showed up the the Root 66 series opener down at Hopbrook, and all of them left with a bag of destroyed clothes and a near case of hypothermia. It didn't start raining until we parked the car; then it didn't stop until we started driving home. But hey, it's April, LET'S RACE BIKES!!

The course was the same as last year, bit of pavement, lots of doubletrack/1.5 track jeep road, with a fair number of short singletrack sections connecting it all. As all of New England racing was brimming with enthusiasm, the 19-29 Expert class drew nearly 20 guys, starting behind a 25-rider pro field led by your friendly local road pro. There were over twenty guys in the 40+ race, including most of the A Masters cross scene, hell there were even ten women in the pro race, most excitingly Lyne Bessette, making her local-mtb-scene debut, along with some girl who lives in my room.

I'm just saying, it's not often you get people with their own wikipedia pages showing up to Root 66, so this was a BIG DEAL.

It was raining steadily, but the course wasn't soaked already, so it went straight to super-greasy-death mode. Cary and I headed out to do a quick recon and try to generate a little heat, right away we were climbing and my rear wheel was hooking up about as well as the average MIT undergrad. Awesome. My late-night decision to not put on something more burly than a semi-slick was immediately regretted; I'd love to complain about how much this ruined my day (standing up was out of the question, as was staying on the bike at all sometimes) but it appeared that a full 50% of the field had gone with the "ah, screw it" approach to tire selection.

There's an actual race report in here somewhere, but the preride drama wasn't over; we went into a greasy, rocky descent back to the finish line and Cary put the hammer down, despite his brand-new mud tires sitting back in Boston. I was like, wow, is this really the same guy who couldn't ride a bike downhill to save his life last year? Right as I finished that thought he laid it down on the derailleur side and broke his hanger off. Two minutes into the preride.

He was all smiles about this development, and while I assumed his day was done, he was able to first borrow a bike from the Scott tent and then locate the guy who made his bike and get a new hanger on the spot. Nice save. Bad warmup.

At some point I ditched the rain jacket and showed up to the start line super late, leaving me with a choice of flipping out at the gun to get to the front or playing it chill and figuring I had 90 minutes to get my act together. Yeah, which of those do you think happened? The video shows that I was thirteenth on the first singletrack, which is actually better than I thought I was doing at the time. However, Eric Carlson and Matt Green had already put a bunch of time on me there, and apparently they got REALLY FAST over the winter because that was the last I saw of them-- they went on to a 1-2 finish.

Just ahead of me were Cary and Ben Corbalis in a group of five guys, and it took me a surprisingly long time to close this ten seconds, probably because every time we got to a straightaway I'd see Cary's head go down, elbows go out, and he'd get all roadie on it. Having just seen him "get all roadie" on the preride I figured disaster would catch up with him eventually.

That disaster happened right after I caught onto the group, on the biggest climb out there, I moved up to second, the racing line went over a big off-camber rock, and suddenly I heard the unmistakable SLIP-SLIP-BAM of tires losing traction and a frame getting smacking down on a rock. Cary conveniently blocked everyone behind, sending Ben and me off on our own up the trail.

The mud was packing up in my front tire, and my back one was useless to begin with, so what little confidence I had went away as soon as the descending started. It's one thing to do a two-wheel slide under heavy braking, it's another to find both wheels sliding and zero turn happening any time you so much as touch the brakes. I was not comfortable, but then again, I don't think many people were, save for certain former motocross national champions who were in the process of beating me by six minutes.

Anyway, I was being a total roadie, getting gapped in the technical sections, spinning out on climbs, and then hammering like a madman on the flats to make up time. The crazy thing was, it was working, and starting lap two I'd moved up to fourth, even passing last year's series winner Timmy D. It's possible that this "training thing" is "paying off."

Despite my roadie-tastic big-ring-jamming antics I could not close down the gap on third place, however, who was persistently dangling 20 seconds up the trail, apparently putting out some watts of his own, or perhaps not spinning his tire twice as many times as normally required to get up each hill. In any case, I rode two whole laps within sight and closed exactly zero ground on him and the last podium place, which is a great way to leave an event with a really annoyed taste in your mouth.

On the last lap my desire to close that stupid gap started to get overshadowed my by desire to figure out what the hell was happening to front wheel, which was making a crazy buzzing sound whenever I torqued it in one direction, or hit the brakes at all. It was pretty obviously being caused by the tire tread rubbing on... something... but there was clearly an inch or two of clearance between it and the fork that one time I looked, and come on man, I'm trying to race here, I think I'll just ignore it until the race is over. Except it was getting really distracting going down hills hearing a violent buzzing coming from the front end, yeah, that's probably why I didn't catch third place, and that probably why Johnny Bold and Kevin Hines came smoking past me on the last climb right after I finished patting myself on the back for not getting caught by the 40+ guys for once. Yup, totally the crazy buzzing. It's even distracting me from finishing this race report cleanly, CRAP.

Anyway, I crossed the line fourth, threw my bike in the lake (a popular choice) and discovered that if your front quick release is wide open, then every time you brake the tire will deflect into the fork and make a crazy buzzing sound. How about that!

Linnea then proceeded to break my heart by coming up 8 seconds short of 3rd place in Pro Women, earning a big fat $0 payday despite a totally excellent ride (only two minutes behind Lyne Bessette!). The only reason she rides is for the benjamins so she was also pretty bummed, guess she can only afford to eat rice and beans this week. Being hungry is pro.

So, the first race of the season is in the books and I did exactly the same as last year, but I can't remember my excuses from last year, so I feel better about this year, because I have many excuses that I didn't even mention here. Sweet!

Next weekend is open, I think I'm the only person in New England not racing THE BATTENKILL, look for me at Fells opening day with Thom P and the rest of the IBC Elite MTB Team. If you liked the schizophrenia in this race report should definitely go read whatever Thom writes, if not, you should get back to work until you're bored enough to find this funny.

Update: Oh crap, this was loooooong."

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[From Mike Festa at www.mikefesta.blogspot.com]

"Saturday was the official start of the xc race season and my stint in the Pro/Open class. I arrived at the event and was greeted by overcast skies and some drizzle. Picked up a number and pretty much as soon as I affixed it to my bike, the rain began. I did something I have never done and slapped a road wheel on the back of my bike and warmed under the hatch of the car. Lauren and Emily had already started drinking at this point so peer pressure took over and I sipped some Dales Pale. Awesome.

The call to the line occurs and I miss timed the "get to the line" move... grabbing me a not so hot last row start position in a race that cuts to the narrow single track super quickly. Im in the back here somewhere.

The start was a bit hectic, you shoot 50 yards, turn 180 degrees then blast another 75 yards before the first bottle neck. I played the sketchy line dude in an attempt to pick off some places with mild success. Hit the woods and tried to stay with the group of 4 in front of me. I was hanging on pretty well, riding into my legs and then I blew an entrance to a narrow piece of single track and clipped my shoulder on one of the trees sending me into the dirt. tick tick tick. Get back on and chase... hmm why is my front tire so bouncy... whatever pedal... tick tick tick... I came through the first lap and took some food from Lauren who was camped out in the feed zone. After the single track climb I was gaining on the group of 4 I was chasing. I knew that if I stopped to CO2 my tire I would lose them again, maybe for good. With my front tire now way under inflated my steering was limited, I had to stop and hit it with the CO2... tick tick tick. 30 seconds... the group of 2 behind me caught as I was remounting. I gassed it and rode away from them.

The next two laps were pretty uneventful. I was in no mans land for a bit, rode as hard as I could and tried not to hit anything else. I ended up catching one or two more riders on the last lap and took 14 out of a decent 25 riders in the Pro/ Open field. This as you can see made me tired.

Sunday I took a nice 3 hour ride with Scott Feltmate from Bethel Cycles. Scott gave me the tour of Huntington Park, which is right near the Bethel shop. Place was pretty typical CT single track, which in my book is awesome, twisty, rocky, rolling. Now to eat my weight in ham and watch Paris Roubaix. Go big George. Happy Easter."

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#1	CT Jim   April 13, 2009 at 3:29pm Great to hear the riders perspective, thanks! Sounds like everyone enjoyed this one despite the nasty conditions. reply