VT 30 Pre-Ride

By now, you've read all about my recent race exploits in NY over on the Racer-X blog (day one and day two), and you're probably hoping to read more about my Montana trip (I know, I've still got more to post!). But, alas, you'll still have to wait for more Montana. Here, I'm going to chat a bit about the course for the upcoming VT 30 mountain bike race.

Rob Bousquet, Andy Nook, and myself took a short cruise up to Pittsfield, VT to get a better sense of what to expect for the six-hour mtb race. In a nutshell, we'll be expecting some climbing... lots of climbing.

From what I understand, there's actually less climbing in this year's course as compared to previous routes... zoiks!

The course is essentially one long up hill, with a relatively short, flat, technical section at the top (called the labyrinth), then a long down hill. The climbs and descents are NOT technical unless you consider countless tight switchback turns as technical, which I do not.

We did two laps, which should have been about 10 miles each. My GPS came in at about 8.5 miles per lap, but Andy's & Rob's were both pretty close to 10. I guess I was connected to crappy satellites. Our first lap was filled with doubt and confusion as the actual race course isn't completely marked yet. We had to stop MANY times to check the map to figure out where to go.  We got fairly off course at one point, but overall, it seemed that we found everything.

All in all, it was a super fun course. The first half is plenty of work, but it's do-able. None of the climbs are steep enough that you have to get off the bike--well except one section that's got two false summits, but that's more demoralizing than steep and unrideable. I'll be gearing down from the 32x22 I rode yesterday to give myself a better chance at banging out four laps. And, by "banging out," I mean suffer slowly.

Each of us had a crash, but nothing serious. Only one of us actually came out of one of his shoes though. I'm not going to name names though, but I will say that the gears could be to blame.

I can't wait for the race!