Greensfelder Race Report

Perfect day, perfect trails, lots of energy and a ton of fun today at Greensfelder. Big thanks to Bob, GORC and all that helped make this race happen.

I took home the 1st place medal in the expert 40-49 race, but it was kinda like kissing your sister for this one. Only two of us showed in this age group, John Matthews and I. They grouped us up with the Men Expert 50-59 and the solo expert woman to make a group of 5.

John and Tom Albert lead the way down the nasty down hill. I followed behind but they were much faster reaching the bottom before I did and I never saw them again for the rest of lap 1.

Starting lap 2 John was fixing what looked to be a flat at the bottom of the hill. Knowing he is much faster than I, turns out he had the 3rd best first lap time all experts combined, I pushed things as steady as I could to try and stay in front of him for as long as I could.

With half a lap to go he caught me and dropped me hard. After that the fire to push on at that pace was over and I cruised in. Turns out John took a DNF/ DQ for going back to the start to fix what must have been more than a flat, or something like that. So there you have it.

More interesting is the lap times and overall expert rankings.

You can find all of them here

Place First Name Last Name Category Race Time
1 Chris Ploch Cat 1 Men - 30-39 2:03:06
2 Eric Pirtle Cat 1 Men - 30-39 2:05:45
3 Mike Best Cat 1 Men - 30-39 2:07:30
4 John Rines Cat 1 Men - 30-39 2:08:22
5 Bob Arnold Cat 1 Men - 30-39 2:10:30
6 Mark Gullett Cat 1 Men - 30-39 2:10:51
7 Ryan Pirtle Cat 1 Men - 30-39 2:11:00
8 Dan Miller Cat 1 Men - 30-39 2:11:30
9 Cale McAninch Cat 1 Men - 30-39 2:12:47
10 Rock Wamsley Cat 1 Men - 30-39 2:16:03
11 Luke Musselman Cat 1 Men - 30-39 2:18:54
12 Tom Albert Cat 1 Men - 50+ 2:20:18
13 Scott Peipert Cat 1 Men - 19-29 2:22:36
14 Drew Black Cat 1 Men - 19-29 2:22:49
15 Paul Quindry Cat 1 Men - 30-39 2:23:37
16 Wes Biermann Cat 1 Men - 30-39 2:23:59
17 Jeff Yielding 1 Cat 1 Men - 40-49 2:29:03
18 Ira Brown Cat 1 Men - 30-39 2:31:27
19 Andrew Morman Cat 1 Men - 19-29 2:33:55
20 Jim Krewet Cat 1 Men - 30-39 2:38:08
21 Loreen Mattson Cat 1 Women 2:45:38
22 Martin Weaver Cat 1 Men - 50+ 2:51:57
23 Jon Schottler Cat 1 Men - 19-29
24 John Matthews Cat 1 Men - 40-49
25 Matt Schweiker Cat 1 Men - 19-29
26 Dan McCarthy Cat 1 Men - 19-29

So, as you can see 17th overall, 65% of the field. On paper not a great showing. But I know over last year my handling skills are much improved. This course is full of rocks, drops off, technical down hills and lots of climbing; last year conditions I would fear and crawl my way around.

At middle fork earlier this year I rode with many of these guys, learned a ton by watching them ride. Between then and now I've worked on those techniques, they worked; less fear, more control and much smoother riding. So, I will take that and build on it. Honestly these MTB races are more about improving my handling skills for cross, which is 131 days away, but who's counting.

May continues to be a training load build month. Now up to 72 with a training stress of -23 after yesterday. I'll take the day off and rest up for a big week ahead.

Next up is Rhetts Run on Sunday.