Race at Davis

The team was together this weekend for the WV State Mountain Bike Championships in Davis WV. Several of us took our families up for a long weekend and enjoyed the surroundings of Canaan Valley, Seneca Rocks, Dolly Sods and the downtown area of Davis.

On race day, the morning started off a little sketchy with the late arrival of William to our tent area. He had been delayed on the way in and was scrambling to fix a pre-race flat before anything got started. We managed to get it fixed, and him geared up in time for the race meeting with a few minutes to spare. This is the race début for his new Cannondale Flash 29’er and things were off to a rocky (literally, if you know the course) start.

As the race started William got out to a good start, just to be brought to a halt a couple miles in by a rear tire flat. We all passed William as he fixed his flat and got back on the trail. It wasn’t long before he caught us and passed us with hopes to climb back to the leaders of his class.

Derek (newest member of the LMBA) and I continued to race the beginner loop never to see William again. Derek passed me at one point and opened up a small lead. I got off to my usual slow start and then got the motor turning about half way thru the race. After Derek opened up his lead I saw him bobble on one of the many rock gardens and used this to make my move. I powered through that section in the big ring and opened a lead on Derek that I was able to maintain throughout the race. I then started to pick off other riders as I started to feel better and pick up speed. My effort landed me an 8th place finish, not as good as I had hoped but not bad considering I was only 4:40 off of the leader. Derek finished a very respectable 10th out of 28 riders in our class.

Dennis had the best finish on our team with a 7th place in the Sport Vet category, continuing to improve his strength at the new sport distance that he is trying to get use to this year.

As for William………2 more flats that day (yes that's a total of 4) put him pushing to complete the race and a 12th place finish. This dropped him to 2nd place in the overall Sport Masters class for the year. A couple more 1st place finishes should remedy that and lock in the overall win this year.

All in all, this race turned out to be on of the worst showing for LMBA this year. We will be at Little Beaver next hoping to improve our results. Although we are all out to just have fun and ride, finishing well never hurts.

Remember,

If you don't crash, you're not riding hard enough,
Chris

Follow his link to pictures from the 2010 Wilderness Challenge.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jsj7475/2010WildernessChallenge02?feat=directlink