SERC #1 - SANTOS - "VORTEX"

     The first race of the SERC series was bound to be a good one! Racing at Santos in the Vortex is one of my favorite venues. It has plenty of technical portions, as well as smooth, windy trails. It's the best of both worlds! Going into this race I wanted to start strong and maintain a pace with the pros. Got to the Vortex the day before with my dad and set up camp. The weather was perfect and the course was riding nice. My pre-ride consisted of an easy lap followed by a harder, faster paced one. I met up with my teammates and we hung together on the trails. I was feeling good about this race and very excited to race Cat 1 Junior Expert. 

     Race day and my legs were feeling awesome and mentally I was totally there. Did a warm up with my teammate, Alex Meucci, and the excitement was mounting. Great thing about racing Cat 1 Junior Expert is that GoneRiding allows us to take off with the pros. This is a plus for me because it gives me the opportunity to push myself even further. At the lineup there were only two of us in the Junior Expert class; but fortunately there were a ton of pros racing. My goal was to keep up with the pros for as long as I possibly could. 

     The horn blew and we were off. I was fifth going into the woods behind the legendary Thomas Turner of Team Jamis. We flew through the trails and I was feeling so strong. Surprisingly, I felt really comfortably at the pace the pros were holding. I knew that without any mechanicals/crashes it would be tough, but possible, to hang with them my entire three laps. As luck may have it going down a long technical descent my front wheel clipped a rock and endo'd me over the handlebars. I lay there watching the pros fly out of my sight. I tried to quickly hop back on my back but the area I crashed in made it impossible to just jump back on it and climb an immediate steep climb. That being said, I did what any mountain biker would do...I ran it up the hill. That's when I realized that all it takes is a split second and pro racers will leave you in the dust! Hanging with them is one thing...closing a gap on them is another! I pushed hard to close as much of the gap as I could but my wrist was killing me. 

     Coming through the end of the first lap the pro leaders had about a 30 second gap on me. I continued to push hard on the second lap and wasn't really getting anywhere as far as keeping up with the pros was concerned. I continued to have a few spills and then mechanicals. It was not turning out to be the race I had hoped for. Long story short, fitness-wise I felt amazing; but my bike and I just didn't have our usual connection. Regardless how I was feeling I still managed to pull off a first place finish. I felt a bit down on myself initially, but my parents reminded me that not every race is going to be your best race. Even the pros crash and have mechanicals. Sometimes being taken down a notch or two is what you need in order to become better at what you do. 

  As always, thank you Bents Cycling and Fitness for all you do for me! Your support is invaluable. Thank you to my sponsors and most of all to my parents for giving me everything I need to be the best racer I can possibly be.