I'm sorry for the really late blog but excuses aside, here is my blog.
Me, my mom, and my dad arrived at Oleta river state park at 8:20 a.m. I had never until that day ridden any trails in Florida. I thought, what is the worse Florida could throw at me, it turns out, it can be really really bad.
Classically we started with a lemans start, that was a good 2-300 yards. The start was at 9:30 ET. I was warned of spider roots, coral, and rocks that would await me by the folks of Wheels of Wellington. Their words couldn't describe what I was about to meet.
Lap 1, was absolutely terrible. The course was 10.5 Miles and I clocked in at like 2:00. I never crashed, never flatted, no mechanicals, I just couldn't get acclimated. Mind you laps were around 45-55 minutes for the leaders of both solo and teams.
Lap 2, wouldn't bring a pretty knarly wreck on my part. The course is littered with short climbs and quick descents. to the people of the midwest that doesn't sound too bad, but when you add spider roots on both sides and right angled drop-offs of +18" It made me seriously tenative, I was forcing myself to be more gutsy and it was working until I hit one of these drop-offs with wayy too much weight shifted forward and I basically T-boned a tree. As I am right now on monday, my left arm is still very enflamed but usable. I trucked on for the 3/4 of lap left, stopped in a the pit took a brief break and went back out
Lap 3, the trail had my #, it was just eating my up and spitting me out. I couldn't get into a good rythem. the begging of lap 3 seemed promising but out of nowhere I start hearing a really loud rattling coming from my front end. I stopped to check it out and I found my skewer was loose. No big deal, I'll just tighten it up. I go along for a while longer, I keep hearing it, I still found my skewer to me loose, mystified, I decide to call it a day. My front wheel was basically be held in by nothing more than the lawyer tabs. My left elbow and forearm were hurting a good little bit and I was having a pretty crappy day all around.
They say in Florida "Mountains?, we don't need no stinkin' mountains" If I had to describe the course I would describe it as such, take Blue Mounds SP, make it flat, add about 200 hairpins and roughly speaking that is your course.
(I will be posting more pictures in the future)
2 comments:
Too bad it didn't work out for you but at least you still got to race for a while in the middle of winter. Hopefully you'll get the little problems fixed and get 'em next time.
I prepped my bike and my nutrition for a Stump Farm type course. Maybe I'll do it next year, but we'll see. I should have left my disc brakes on, but o well. I have no regrets. Next time I will have a New Bike!!!
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