I was both excited and nervous about racing my first Xterra, and although I started my racing career on Mtn bikes, it has been years since I have ridden seriously and I have been on a Mtn. bike exactly once in the last two years (and that was last weekend). Unfortunately riding a Mtn bike is NOT "just like riding a bike" it takes diligent practice to keep up your skills, at least for a person of my relatively modest reflexes and agility. My refresher last weekend was awesome in the fact that it probably kept me from face-planting in a rock garden at speed during the race today, but it did not improve my handling ability beyond bare adequacy.
I got a much-appreciated ride from Emily Johnson of BTC, who has a super gnarly and easy to use 3 bike rack on her car, and we rolled up and went into our individual pre race routines. For me, that usually means picking up my number and then finding the bathroom and visiting it as often as possible- jogging laps to and from transition for warm-up.
The race started with a 400 yd run on soft sand along a beach to enter the water, which was nice as it limited the entering-the-water chaos by stringing out the contenders. I was surprised at how hard many people tackled this run. I kind of jogged it, not wanting to hit the water already in oxygen debt. The swim was pleasant, in kind of brackish water, two laps of about 400 m each.
I hit the transition in about the 20 spot and oddly totally lost my balance while changing into my shoes. Odd, as this has never happened before. I had to put my bike shoes on sitting down. Might have been water in my ears or something. Along with the camelback nonsense and bike gloves over my wet hands this resulted in possibly my slowest transition ever.
I recovered in a few seconds and hit the trail with my borrowed bike, which is a beautifully-preserved example of high-end mid 90’s construction. I had found out on my preride that the bike would not shift into the granny gear reliably, and quick trip to the bike shop confirmed that a new front derailleur was necessary, which I passed on, accepting 16 gears as sufficient to race on. Once my steed and I got going, the front derailleur broke completely on the first major climb, leaving me thankfully in the middle chainring on the front, and cutting my number of gears to 8, which I gleefully announced to everyone that I passed, along with gratuitously honking the squeaky toy mounted on my bars. On the first portion of the bike the speedsters kept passing me on the downhills, so I pulled over and shouted encouragement as they went by. I later caught many of them on the long climb, which was VERY rocky and technical, and was followed by a long rocky descent that made me wish for a full suspension bike. The return ride was mostly fire road, but some single track climbing tested the limits of my low cadence w/o a granny gear.
The run was remarkable for a trip up “toboggan hill” which was so steep that most walked it, but I ran the whole thing out of pride (it would have probably been faster to walk). I finished 10th overall and 2nd in my AG, and if there was an award for the oldest bike/highest finish I think I might have taken it. Emily also did well, and we were both thankful for no rock-induced injuries. The end result: I love Xterras! However, I think I want to find a less-technical course next time and do some better preventative bike maintenance.