Bike Line Fair Hill XC Race Report

The Bike Line Fair Hill Spring XC Mid-Atlantic Super Series Opening XC Race was held in Elkton, MD this past Sunday, April 19, 2009. It was a great weather day, thus a great day for racing. Over 400 folks had pre-registered for the races so there were going to be some crowded trails. The course description stated that the course was mostly non-technical with very few climbs and not many roots. The description was accurate. It was a fast course! There was a fire road climb to start followed by a long FR descent to a wide stream crossing and a short climb where the single track began. The single track was very fast flowing with just a few roots here and there and some field and stream crossings.

There were 23 pre-registered for the Sport Male Masters I race for men 45-49. We were about the sixth or seventh group to take off in two-minute intervals starting at 10:30. I was hoping to finish in the top of half of my race given that there are so many fast guys in this area and age group. One thing that was interesting is there were no body markings. The organizers wrote your category on your number on the lower right side which was good to see where to stand at the start but not so good for seeing if you were racing against someone on the course. The race timing was done by Prolog Timing Systems so we wore chips on our ankles. Anyway, after the start I was working hard and felt that I was in the middle of the pack. I was passing some folks on the uphill parts and they would pass me back on the down hills and field crossings. At the end of the first lap I was feeling good and felt that I could maintain the pace I had been riding.

On the second lap I was passing a few folks and had a conversation with a guy who was trying to talk me into getting a 29er. So things were going well and I caught and passed a guy I saw at the start just before a field crossing. So when I get to the field I decide to have a drink so I reach down for my waterbottle with my left hand leaving my right hand on the handlebars. This is important because this is the side with my injured shoulder. So I take a drink and I'm leaning forward to place my waterbottle back into the cage when I veered off the trail about six inches and hit a little rut. Since my body weight was shifted forward I started to pitch in that direction. Since I knew I didn't want to endo I threw my weight back hoping that my backside would hit the seat. It did but on the very back end so instead of catching myself I slipped off the back of the seat and laid out completely. At least my pedals unclipped and I landed on my left buttock so no harm was done. I looked around quickly to see if anyone had seen me crash on a totally flat field crossing piece of trail but there was no one in sight. I got going fairly quickly only to find that I had no front brakes (the cable clip had popped off in my crash) so I had to stop again to re-attach the cable. I got hung up in one rooty section near the end of the race but it was just a foot touch down. The rest of the race after that was fairly unremarkable.

I saw in the results today that I was 14th out of 33. I was happy with the result and happy that my shoulder seems to be getting better every day even after hiking out and hitting the deck.