Pipestem Race

     This race was a heart breaker for me. This was the first race of the WVMBA series and I was pumped. I cleaned my bike up, strecthed, got everything ready, checked everything, made last minute preperations, said good luck to everyone, and was ready for the season to begin. The start of the race was up a steep hill, through a narrow gate, and to the bike. I had a great start only one or two people in my class and a few experts. The downhill was just crazy fast and exciting. On the first turn of the downhill i saw someone go off the edge and it is no easy hill on the other side of that downhill; it is a steep long hill. I have done this race previously and knew what the course was like. Almost at the bottom of the downhill in a rocky section, all of a sudden my bike seems to become more rigid and kind of out of control.

     What luck a flat tire. I could not believe it. As i stopped to fix it I saw all of the other young men in my class fly by as I, stopped on the side of the trail, was working furiously to fix the tire as quickly as possible.

     When i finally fixed the tire I had been passed by almost all of the racers. This was a very terribly thing because to pass each racer took extra effort which I would not have at the end of the race. I passed most of the beginner and sport classes in the first lap. But i could easily see that even the slackers in my category were doing much better than I.

     By the last lap there were very few people on the course but I knew that I had to keep moving to get a decent time. About half way through the last lap I spotted two bikers from a Morgantown team, these racers I knew were in my category. I got all of my strength and pushed myself to catch them and then leave them in my dust. I finished strong with a pretty bad time and an eighth place finish.

    I would like to do better in the following races and I am pretty sure I will. The next WVMBA race is in one month from this race. During the time between races I am going to travel to Clemson, South Carolina, to see how i compare to other racers from the east coast.

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I was such a loser in that race there are no pictures of me.

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