White Tank Whirlwind Race Jan 28th, 2012 Buckeye, AZ

By marinfactoryteam on February 2, 2012 with No Comments

I rolled into the White Tanks Regional Park in Buckeye, AZ Friday afternoon with my Team Ti set up SS style and my Attack Trail 6.9 I had built up that morning, with anticipation that I was going to ride a couple laps of the XC course then cruise down to South Mountain in Phoenix and make some DH runs on Holbert or Gernomo with the Gnar Gnar Tour guys.  I hooked up with Ryan Geiger with AZ Devo whom has been living in Tucson, taking online high school courses and training for the season.  Ryan and I took a couple laps together and I never made it down to South Mountain for my DH runs.  I can’t hardly wait to shred the Attack Trail bike.

Race day, Saturday I got to the park a couple hours early to get my number plate and get on the trainer.  As usual, I jumped on my Stelvio an hour before the race and worked up a sweat to the sweet musings of Velo Beats.  Seriously, you need to hit this hyper link.  Velo Beats is the next greatest thing to happen to cycling since Robert Buckley rolled Marin bikes off the line in 1986.
When I got to the line, I negotiated with the USAC official to let the singlespeed guys go a minute before the Cat 1 guys to get us to the technical part of the course first, they agreed and we were set.

Sunny and 75 degrees in Buckeye, AZ

When the whistle blew, I got the hole shot into the trail leading up to the technical section.   Since the last race a couple weeks ago, I geared down to an 18T and this was a little spinney for my liking and I faded back to about 10th.  Coming around the third corner, I was put into the desert by an ambitious younger rider.  Needless to say when I caught the group at the tech section, I had a few questions for him.  Later in that when I saw the chance to pass, a few thoughts popped into my head–Get wide.  Push your rear tire over as you pass to give him a lil bump as well as other thoughts.  Before I made the pass, I took a deep breath and told myself that I have spent enough energy thinking about it and just pass graciously.  When I finally did pass, he said he was sorry about the move.  I was a little annoyed that I bounced my bottle of nutrition so early in the race but truly appreciated his apology.

I moved up to 3rd within the first lap and then settled into 4th till the third lap.  I think the caloric deficit I was running since I bounced my bottle was catching up as I found myself just riding along and not thinking about pushing to the next rider.  Suddenly I realized I had slipped back to 6th and made my way to within 25 yards of 4th and 5th that were team mates riding together. We all made the turn for the 4th lap and I hung back keeping pace with them but not pushing it.  I saw that one of the riders had stopped and was looking at his chain so quickly rode by not bringing any unnecessary attention to myself.  Then at the back end of the course at the steep switchbacks I saw 4th place walking his bike.  I shouted “you better get on yer bike son!”  He exclaimed that if he can relieve himself of his cramping, he would.  BS.  Never trust anything anyone says in a race, especially a Single Speed racer!  I started racing scared and he never caught me.

Decending the tech section with ease on the Team Ti 29er

It was a good race for 4th.  As it turns out, he was cramping but the moral of the story is…anything can happen during the course of the race.  I thought for sure I was going to get 6th but it turned out to be 4th, not because I was lucky though.  I have nutrition dialed, thanks to GU products I use and my bike doesn’t have mechanicals.

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