DAS Racing: Winding Trails - Farmington CT

From desert dry to monsoon muddy in an afternoon...

The majority of our racers raced the Cat 2 races on Sunday. There were some firsts: Crystal took the leap up to Cat 2 this week and finished strong despite a crash, Matt hadn't raced from a group start before, and for some, it was the first race in the rain. The beginning of the Cat 2 race started out bone dry with loose sandy corners, became packed and tacky from a little bit of rain, and eventually got a little slippery towards the final lap. The Cat 1/Pro race started out with nice packed dirt, but it quickly become a slippery mud-fest.

As always, Winding Trails brought out some tough competition. It's usually a course where the roadies and cyclocross racers feel comfortable and come out to play. They usually do well, too. For DAS, Liz Bove and Tracy Gustafson raced their way to the podium with 2nd and 3rd place finishes respectively. Overall though, it was a rough day for everyone. The results are up...

Photos courtesy (or stolen gratefully) of : this wicked cool person on photo bucket...

Liz Bove:

"Winding Trails lived up to it's name! I'd been told it was a "roadie" course and so expected it to be more fire roads and with small sections of single track. That winding single track with all it's tight corners and close trees was tougher than I'd anticipated. Here's how the race played out for me: I was able to get to the front of the pack at the start and passed a few women to take the lead early in the first lap. Just as I thought to myself: 'Oh no, what have I done? Can I maintain this?' a stupid mistake on my part set me back 7 spots. By the end of the second lap I was able to get back to the front with the leader in sight . I started the third lap right behind her. At this time the course was wet, each slippery root and slick log doing its best to throw me. Two succeeded. I didn't handle the conditions nearly as well as the racer in front of me and she easily increased her lead, winning by nearly a full minute. Still, I'm happy with my 2nd place finish because I know I gave it my full effort and I'm proud to have pushed myself to come back from the early setback."

Tracy Gustafson:

"At the starting line I noticed 2 things WOW, there are a lot of girls with the Specialized Fates and that my HR was only 80 a big improvement since my last race. Well my start was pretty crappy I think I was 2 or 3rd from last. However, there was plenty of places to pass or be passed. The course was defiantly not technical; don’t think I saw one rock. Overall I enjoyed the course and feel very grateful that the first 2 laps were rain free with the 3rd lap starting to get a little slick, but from what I understand was nothing compared to what it became after our race."

Crystal Gauvin:

"I'm starting to think winding trails hates me, or more specifically the downhills there. For such an easy "roadie" course, I seem to manage to crash a lot. Last year I went over the handlebars in the first 200 yards of the race. I was coming down the first hill, saw a log at the bottomed, squeezed my breaks and that was it. Unfortunately, this year I was more confident, made it about a third of a lap in before I was screaming down a descent and hit a sandy patch at the bottom that took me right out. Bike landed 10 ft away with the handlebars twisted and by the time I was back on the bike riding, I had fallen to dead last by minutes. Mentally I basically gave up at this point, and the rest of the race was just battle within myself to finish. DFL for my first cat 2 race, guess I can only improve from there!"

Rich Gauvin:

"I wasn't really sure what to expect coming into this race. I prefer courses with lots of climbing and winding trails is anything but that. 24 people lined up for the start of my race. After an awful start I sat about 15th going into the first single track. I immediately realized that the pace being set was unlike any other cat 2 race I have ever been in. Knowing I wasn't going to be able to maintain that speed I tried to recover for the last third of the first lap.

Laps two and three felt pretty good. I was able to pick quite a few people off and my legs were felling better and better. With about 5 minutes to go in the race I caught another rider in my class and sat on his wheel for the remainder of the singletrack. I really did not want this to come down to a sprint finish so I decided to go as hard as I could for the last few minutes of the race. Every time I would go to pass he would block me in a corner. Growing very frustrated at his choice of tactics I went around him on the outside and put the hammer down as hard as I could. The move stuck and I put 18 seconds between him and I at the finish. Overall I was happy with 8th out of 24 as I was less than a minute out of 3rd."

Ray Insalaco:

"Standing at the starting line waiting for the start, it didn’t feel like 15 years since my last MTB race. I was surprisingly calm, which is not normal for me before a race. The plan was to go out, have some fun and with a little luck keep the bike upright until the finish.

John was lined up next to me so I told him I would take one for the team and crash early in the race to give him a clean course since this was the only race in the Root 66 Series. Being the nice guy John is though, he said he would. I never really thought he was going to though. Who says there is no teamwork in mountain bike racing!

After a little bumping and pushing on the first little climb everything kind of fell into place and I just found a nice groove. I gave up a couple of positions on the first lap and picked up a few on the last two laps. At the start of the third lap the leader from a group that started after us caught me and we pretty much rode the rest of the race together. Finished in the top half of the field and just under the time I was targeting, so mission accomplished."

Matt Danis:

"WT was my first experience at a group start style race. I was really anxious to see how I would do, especially in the ss class. The 5 pre registered riders turned into 17 at the starting line. I hung toward the back of the pack at the start. I found pretty quickly that I could separate myself from the back half of the group. I managed to pass 3 or 4 guys in the first lap and didn't really see them again. I also realized pretty quickly that I was not going to get anywhere near the lead pack, as I didn't see any of them again after they turned into the woods. After lap one I never really saw another ss guy, so I raced alone. I felt strong and consistent. I passed, and got passed by, my geared counterparts. I don't know that there was anything I would have done differently. It was fun and I was satisfied with my finish (8th)."

John Young:

"Rode bike. Rode face. Rode bike slower. Finished."

Liz Allen:

"Before we lined up to start, the Cat1/Pro field was given the heads-up that we would ALL be doing four laps. Pro was supposed to do 5, but with the impending rain, they cut it back. I was initially disappointed, but that didn't last long.

Well, I finally had a decent start, felt great on the first lap, and I was ready to start stepping it up a notch for the next three laps. Unfortunately, somewhere during lap 2, the conditions took a turn for the worse. The water started to work its magic on what had been a fast and nicely packed course. I immediately went into survival mode: rode slow, did not drink (osmosis seemed to be doing the trick as there was plenty of water in the air and nutrients in the dirt on my skin), and I focused on trying to generate as much heat in my body as possible without crashing.

I can't say I gave up, because I definitely thought about just riding to my car and changing without finishing, and I was NOT going to do that. I decided that finishing would probably be good enough, and somehow, on lap 4, I go my mojo back and started to ride fast. Sure, it wasn't pretty, but I rode like it was a race in the sections that I could. I guess I did what John did, only I left out the part about riding face and managed to throw a tiny little sprint onto the end to make myself feel better..."