OSRS #2 - Schababele - BigDaveSports

Myself, Brian L. and younger guy were by ourselves from the getgo. Brian forgot his bike shoes and raced in sneakers. All in all a great first race of the year.

Even my arms hurt.

Flintlock's has everything - flush toilets, catfish, indoor smoking and a shooting range out back. So if you forgot to bring a wheel or shoes, you'd still have plenty of entertainment.

I lost the lead group halfway up Shababerle in the fist lap. They had one cat 3/4 rider with them from the Bishop team. Another 3/4 rider, from University of Kentucky, passed me on the hill and I tried to stay on her wheel for about 2 seconds, but she was bridging up to the lead group fast. About halfway into the first lap, Ann from Team Hungry caught me and we worked together the rest of the ride. I'm so glad I had someone to work with or it would have been a long, lonely race. So I went through the whole ride thinking I was going for third place but for some reason the Bishop rider was a DNF.

Sufferfest. I'm too big for this course. Selection of two at the top of the finishing hill didn't have me. We couldn't organize and collaborated chase.

That was an awesome course. Good day. Legs coming around.

Met my #1 goal for this spring: no DNF's. I've never been good at steeps, but this was a good race for practice.

This is by far the most difficult course I have raced, and by far the most fun. Here's what makes it so much fun: Neutral roll to the base of a four pitch suffer fest of a climb, followed by a couple of fast descents, finished off with too many notable rollers and a wind that seems to come at you from all sides.

After three weeks off the bike I had no expectations to do anything in this race. I started mid-pack in a group of 45+ and after a number of attacks and dodging at least three dropped chains in front of me up the first climb, the pack was broken into multiple small groups. I kept a decent tempo up the hill the first time, then bridged and pulled in at least 3 groups in the first lap. Had a group of about 8 in tow up the climb the second time and the legs started to feel the work from the first lap. Backed off the pace on lap two and after the third time up the climb, had 0 legs left. Bagged the race after the third time up the climb and cheered for Tony. This race is one that everyone should have to do at some point, very humbling moment.

Good heavens I forgot how much I hate this course. It sounds like a tough, fun race when you're at home but when you actually get there you remember how brutal a couple of those inclines are.

This was not a good race for me, got gapped by half the field the first time up the finishing climb. Coming down one of the 40+mph descents I saw Joe Hall walking with his bike in hand. I asked him if he wanted a wheel only to notice that his bike needed much more than a wheel (kudos to Joe for having something lock up his rear wheel at 40mph and be able to surf the carbon rim (dead) long enough to not die).

Our chase group made a non-aggression pact up the hills and we did 30 miles before I packed it in like a scalded dog.