Yesterday I went mountain biking w/Ryan P. at New Fane. It was a BLAST! I am borrowing a Trek Superfly 100 from Extreme Ski & Bike. I am trying to get some needed handling skills for a race that I want to do in October up in Sheboygan.
We didn't ride each loop separately. I am not sure how this works, but what we did was follow the painted arrows for the most part. These trail are marked with "loop #'s", 1, 2, 3 and 4. I thick our loop was like 5 - 5.5 miles. The trail is a lot better than what it used to be when I rode there about 15 years ago! It is all single track which is what I have always loved! It made me wish I had a mountain bike again, but not going to happen.
I led the first lap gaping Ryan many times and pretty easily. We were riding much faster than our handling for sure. Ryan went off the trail a couple times and even crashed once. He led the second lap and I was able to stick on him like glue. He said he tried to lose me a couple times, but it wasn't happening. I am going to say that it is all bike, because he was riding a cheap hard tail! My handling might be just a hair better than his. When I was following him, he wasn't choosing very good lines.
We are going again tonight and we a bringing lights so we can ride a bit longer. I am hoping to see others out there, would be nice to check my levels with other mountain bikers before my race, just to get an idea where I am at. This would help me decide if I should race sport or comp.
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Time yourself, then compare to the lap times turned in at last Saturday's WEMS race:
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The winner of the 3-Hour race was Ted Hanes, a Cat 1 mountain biker ... roughly 22- to 23-minutes per lap. Ross Lemke, a Cat 2 "Comp" guy, was doing 24- to 25-minute laps. Steve Cummins, a Cat 2 "Sport" guy, was doing 25- to 26-minute laps. I'm a Cat 3 "Citizen" who will upgrade to Sport to begin 2013. My lap time ranged from 26:25 to 27:45.
Keep in mind that New Fane isn't super-technical. At New Fane your aerobic fitness would keep you in touch with some guys whose superior bike handling would create gaps on a more demanding course.
At Sheboygan, Sport and Comp will follow the same course, but Comp will do one additional lap. You probably should just go for it. You'll have 6 months to heal up before the first WCA crits of 2013 ... not that anything bad is going to happen!