A quick update on the brother-in-law. The surgery went well and the device was implanted without a hitch. His recovery is going well and hopefully that can continue and they can appropriately weigh the options for a transplant in the near future. It still blows my mind how quickly and easily things change and so much of it is entirely out of our hands. Katie was able to get to go see him last week and we’re planning another trip down that way potentially later this week. It’s exciting to see him make this kind of progress, I just stay hopeful this continues and he’s able to get back to his family soon.
Now on to Southern Cross. We had 5 folks from the Sycamore Collective Crew heading down to the race. So, I offered up the van so we could all get down there in one vehicle. One of the things we keep in our minds as we work on the van is trying to make sure it stays as versatile as possible. So, it was pretty easy to move Lizzie’s bed out of the way, pop in another seat, and be ready to carry 5. Then I realized most were taking gravel bikes with 12 mm Through-Axles which I don’t have a good interior rack system for just quite yet (it’s on the list though). Anyhow, we borrowed a tray for the 1-up rack and found another interior rack and easily get 2 bikes inside with 3 on the rack and it wasn’t even crowded. It kind of brought me back to when I was traveling with the GT hockey team except this was a lot safer…
As I was changing clothes a friend, Brad, happened to be talking with Wes and looking at my bike I guess when he noticed I only had 3 of the 4 chainring bolts (for anyone not familiar this is pretty bad)…. Fortunately, he had a few spares and gave me one. Truth be told that’s actually one of the bolts I ride with in my toolbag all the time but it was good not to have to use my emergency one. This helped me realize that with my schedule the way it’s been lately and the number of distractions in my house maybe it’s time to start taking the bikes over to the shop for a pre-race inspection/tune up. While that’s something I’ve honestly really enjoyed doing in the past my attention span most of the time is not really cut out for a detailed thorough review. Long Story short, next event my bike is going to Sycamore for a proper check.
This year because of all the Covid’s and whatnot Mountain Goat Adventures had to do a Wave Start where each wave went off 2 mins after the previous one. The waves consisted of your class, or at least some of your class if the class was really big. A few of the classes had a handful of waves. The singlespeed wave was the 4th wave I think and we were all by ourselves. I thought this was going to be a nice change from the “neutral” start of years past. I found myself still spinning like crazy as I seemed to have one of the lightest gears of the group. The group pretty quickly dwindled to 4, at the first sign of any real elevation one of the younger guys in the group, Bruce from Knoxville, put in a dig and was able to separate himself. I tried to follow suit but couldn’t keep him in sight. It wasn’t long before we were in the back of some of the first few waves. At this point though we were on the gravel roads and it wasn’t really an issue making passes.
The main climb on the course is the first one up Winding Stair, it just keeps getting steeper and goes on for 5 miles or so before a rolling ridgeline. Even though it’s early in the race on my singlespeed this has kind of where I’ve felt like I’ve had to make hay. This year I did try and keep my efforts in check to try and make the 2nd climb and ensuing ridge a little bit more palatable. I caught a lot of the groups in front of me on the way up. Near the top I managed to catch teammate Hannah and shortly after that I was able to see Bruce up ahead. We were so close to the top at that point and he went over first. He was running a bigger gear than I was and I had nothing for him once it leveled out. That would be the last I’d see of him for the day.
Across the ridge and down into the valley. Mostly just cruising solo, I did what I could to keep the pace up but it was pretty uneventful. Popped out on the pavement down in the Valley and still all by myself. Until Hannah and another guy came screaming by me. I tried to hop on and draft but….yeah…36-21 wasn’t going to keep up with those two, no matter how fast my legs were turning over. The course turned to the climb up Noontootla, I managed to catch back up to Hannah by the top of the climb only to lose her again after a few mins on the slight downhill of the ridge. The ridge was actually a little frustrating this year. I’d saved a little gas but was largely spun out all the way across the top. At one point Wes caught me and rolled past pretty easily. On the next little rise I almost caught back up, but the road turned into a slight downhill again and he was gone (he’d put another 5-6 minutes into me before the end of the race on a predominantly downhill finish).
From here it was just spin spin spin and hold on. The descent off the top of Coopers Gap is oh so much fun. Then there are a few little rollers where I’d reel in the geared riders who’d just passed me only to watch them ride away as soon as it leveled out. I think next year if I get to race again I’ll either run a bigger gear or try a geared bike again just to make some comparisons.
I did manage to hold on to 2nd place Singlespeed for the day, unfortunately Art from the team beat me by 7-8 seconds but because of how the wave starts worked I did manage to beat Hannah A by a minute or two. We had some pretty incredible conditions, great weather, great company, and man was it good to be back out racing bikes escaping reality for those couple of hours.
