CCCX Mountain-Bike XC Race #3, Fort Ord, 4/2/2023

By Dennis Pedersen

After lots of storms caused postponed race dates, I finally got to race again, at the the CCCX XC Race #3. I made a few changes for Race #3, to hopefully improve on my 7th out of 8 racers result from Race #1. 

I guess my suffering in Race #1 didn’t deter me from trying again. I skipped Race #2, because it was drizzling in Santa Cruz that day and I don’t enjoy riding in the rain anymore. Though I heard later that the weather ended up being nice for race #2… oh well. 

Though I am always cautiously optimistic about the benefits of using better cycling equipment, I never expect the improvements to be noticeable. But enough people and research convinced me to give tubeless tires a try, for a bit less rotational weight and the option of using lower tire pressures for better traction and comfort. While I was at it, I also bought a pair of the S-Works version of my Specialized Fast Track tires that I used at Race #1; they have a higher thread count for a more supple carcass. All of the above should yield better traction while still lowering the rolling resistance… too good to be true? 

Plus, I popped some energy gummies at the start line and filled my water bottles with home-made sports drink, to help avoid muscular fatigue at the end of the race. I really suffered from that in Race #1, and my lap times then documented my decline in power very accurately. 

One thing I did not do was to train specifically for these races. I just alternate between gym powerlifting workouts and 1-hour bike rides, usually doing one or the other every day of the week with at most one rest day. Oh, and sometimes a weekend mountain-bike ride with friends. For me it is now about staying as healthy and generally fit as a 62-year-old man can, while also having fun. 

So, on race day I had  a nice breakfast with Margaret, loaded up the car, and set off for Fort Ord. The roads were all cleared of the floods and storm debris, thankfully. 

The race start was 11:30 AM for my 55 to 64 age Category 2 race. The turnout was lower than at Race #1, maybe because it was colder and windier. Yeah, this April feels almost like winter. I wore a long-sleeved base layer with knee warmers under my kit, unlike Race #1 where I only added the knee warmers because it was so pleasant. This time the course had shorter laps, so we were racing for five laps instead of four. 

After our race start I made a conscious decision not to go too hard, plus my legs felt a bit weak anyway. So I wasn’t at the front of our group when we hit the awesome trails of Fort Ord. My hope was to set more consistent lap times, which would hopefully yield a better final result. The race was much like the last one, with the usual selection that occurs in the first lap. Soon I was riding mostly by myself, occasionally passing, or being passed by, other riders. 

I had ridden the new S-Works tires a few times on rides, and my feeling was that they were noticeably better. And that feeling continued in this race. I had less slipping in the turns and loose sections, a smoother ride, and the rolling resistance did feel lower. The trails were perfect, with no mud and just a few sections of damp, loose sand. 

Photo: Rick Rasmussen

But even with the better tires and sports drink I still had to slow down and stretch my back as the race progressed. I thought maybe I didn’t lose as much power towards the end of the race, and after I finished the race, and had time to analyze my rough lap times from Strava, the data confirmed that, as my lap times slowed by only 1.5 minutes in Race #3, vs. Race #1 where I slowed by 2.5 minutes (though the shorter laps in Race #3 account for some of that difference). And the other data looked better for Race #3 too: 

	Race #1	Race #3
Lap 1:	28:04	22:03
Lap 2:	29:45	22:42
Lap 3:	30:26	23:23
Lap 4:	28:03 (short last lap)	23:38
Lap 5:	—	18:30 (short last lap)
Total time:	1:56:18	1:52:27
Total miles:	23.44 miles	24.97 miles
Total elevation gain:	2,306 ft	2,293 ft
Average speed:	12.1 mi/h	13.3 mi/h

I was especially excited to see that my average speed was higher this time. That was promising, and perhaps spoke to my fitness for these races improving? And sports drink? And maybe it also verified what everybody kept telling me about the advantages of tubeless tires? 

So, I felt better about this race, and yet my result was exactly the same as for Race #1: 7th out of 8. Haha! But only four of us had done both races, and when I compared myself to the three other riders I was actually closer to all of them than before, and beat one of them. 

So I seem to have improved, but most importantly, I had a lot of fun and will be at Race #4, on April 16th.