Pontiac Lake TT

For a second, I thought summer was upon us. Well at least that's how it felt in the afternoon for this years addition of the Pontiac Lake TT. This race is always a crap shoot, and this year was not any different. Heavy rain fell the the night before, and the winter has been hanging on day after day. So it was any one's guess what the trail conditions would be like for one of my favorite races. Well Mother Nature was on our side again for the most part. The trail was in good shape considering. A few greasy corners and some sloppy mud puddles. But it got better and better every lap.

I felt real strong again for the race, and was hoping for a good result. My lap times were just a hair under last year for my geared race. But with the conditions, I guess you could expect that some what. Like I said I was feeling strong and very consistent on the bike. But was only able to snag 7th out of 16. Just missing 5th by around 30 secs. My overall race time was 1:31 and some change. Not too bad considering I am only 4 weeks into the TCTP training plan.

As always I paid the extra $10 and jumped into the expert/elite single speed race. It was a very stacked class of elite racers. Probably almost all the fastest racers in the state! So I was not expecting a podium. However, I wanted to put up the fastest time I could, and get in some more hard training miles under race conditions. I nailed another 45 min lap. Again I was happy with this, but know it should have been faster.

At this point in my season, there is only one person to blame. Me. For the good and the bad. It is time to make the necessary adjustments to get the benefits from all my training. It begins now...

On a final note. Congrats to all my TSB team mates for their hard work at earning podiums! I hope to see more. And congrats to Lako and Payne on a Podium and a great finish! See you boys in a few weeks...

Yankee Springs TT!

I have waited over 4 months to finally get my tires dirty in some single track. And I finally did it, and did it in a race to boot. As I kicked off my mountain bike race season with the MMBA CPS Yankee Springs TT.

It was very cold and even snowed. But that did not impact the sandy single track that makes up the majority of Yankee Springs. I had the same plan as last year. Race the Expert/Elite Single speed class to get in some good hard miles under race pace, and see where I stack up with the training I had put forth so far. I will have to say it went very well. I took 9th out of 24 in the class with a very respectable finishing time of 1:47:40. This would have been a good enough time to place me 2nd if I raced Expert 30-39. So I was very happy with the result. In addition, the real test for the day was the fact that the Expert single speeders had to do 2 laps this year. So my goal was to try and be consistent as possible with my lap times, and to try to keep them within 2 mins. My first lap was 52 and some change and my 2nd lap was just over 54. So I was happy with that.

Overall I felt really strong, and feel real confident going into the Pontiac Lake TT this weekend. I just got to make sure I can get off of work...