WORS #1 Iola Report

Not sure how I feel about this first race, the taste left in my mouth is a little bittersweet. Not bad for a first race, but not what I had hoped. I guess next time I'll need to show up to the gun show with some more ammo.

A little recap:

GO!

Climb.

Breathe.

Coast.

Climb.

Descend.

Pedal, pedal, pedal.

Turn.

Repeat.

What did I learn?

1. A better start position - It's f-ing hard to catch the fast riders once you're trying to chase them down. Most likely because they're actually faster than you because they're already in front of you. I might not be able to catch them, but I can probably fake it by sucking wheel for 2 hours next time.
   
   
2. Ride in groups - To my demise, I tried to drop the group I started the race with because I wasn't happy with how far back I was riding. Well, it turns out that those guys didn't like that so they caught me and then dropped me. Point taken, lesson learned.
   
   
3. Don't eat bar food the night before - Yeah, I know I'm dumb. You can blame all the non-racers that I ate with for that one.
   
   
4. Don't ever let Matt Gehling get away from you - 'Nuff said. He's been eating his spinach this season and is riding like a Jedi.
   
   
5. Ride the technical sections like your landlord is breathing down your neck for the overdue rent - My race went something like this: Pedal. Brake. Stomp on it. Brake. Turn. It should have been like this: Pedal. Turn. Pedal harder. Defy the laws of physics.
   
   
6. Practice riding your bike when you're really, REALLY tired - My handling was starting to feel like I knew how to ride a mountain bike, but that all went out the window at the race. Fortunately, I didn't over-ride my skills and crash, but I felt like I rode much too conservatively and lost time because of it.
   
   
7. Ride a full-suspension bike - It became embarrassingly evident that my handling skills were lacking in this crowd. A bike with more squishyness would have been helpful.

Lots to learn at this first race, but I did manage to ride a wheelie up the entire climb after the fast descent into the bowl on lap 4. That was super cool and so am I for doing that.

Thanks to Velogrrl for this podium photo.