Dwight and I raced Potato Creek on Sunday 06/01/2014. It is one of our favorite mountain bike trails. (Potato Creek is located in North Liberty, IN. about 12 miles southwest of South Bend) It is fast flowing single-track with about 8 miles of fun whoop-di-doos and rock gardens. It also flows through open fields and has some fast, sandy corners that can be challenging! I love it because there really is not any climbing!
We arrived a good hour and a half early to cheer on Cylone and warm up. During our warm up Dwight couldn’t resist the concrete drainage ditch on the down hill and needless to say he had a couple scrapes starting the race.
My pre-race jitters…
We raced sport class so we had 2 laps, approximately 16 miles with temperatures in the 80’s. Believe me, you felt every degree when we hit the open field and there was just sun and sand!
I did my usual mingling before the race but was disheartened that one of the girls who I raced against at Bendix seemed to completely snub me when I said “hi.” Maybe she didn’t hear me or was having a bad day, but oh well, I guess I was there to race and not chit-chat (besides, that got me a little fired up and eager to hit the trail). There were only four of us racing Sport women, the official category has ages from 0-99, but out of us girls, we were 19-40 yrs. I was the oldest and these chicks all had 29-inch tires! Out of the girls, I had my eye on who I thought would be the strongest rider, so my strategy was to let her lead and hopefully wear her out or try and keep up!
We took off as a pack through winding, grass fields before we hit the single-track. To my surprise, there was more screeching of brakes through the downhill than what I would have expected with the caliber or women that were racing that day, but oh well. Entering the single-track I was sitting in third place. I knew the racer in front of me and she made the first move and asked to pass the lead rider. I chimed up to make that two passing! Well the leader got over to let one of us through, but that was not me! Her bike came back on the trail and ended up cutting me off. I asked her three more times to pass, finally I said, “I need to pass! You might be stronger on the hills but I have better technical skills.”
We reached a sandy climb enough for both of us to go through and of course everyone knows you do not take the middle of a sandy climb right? Well… she went up the middle and I called, “on your left” she reared to the left. I was forced to the left, just skimming a tree stump. I have never been so fired up during a race before, so that really got me going!
A little while later I saw the winner and gave her a shout out that she was awesome and rocking the trail. I counted 15 second from her spot but that must have fueled her, because I didn’t see or hear her again! I came in second but excited to report… I beat the next closest rider by 8 minutes! I guess in this case, my little tires were helpful on the corners.
~ April Parrish
Dwight had a great race as well; he came in 2nd place single speed. It is hard to beat the locals, but we give them what we got!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wsicycling