Last weekend we headed out to the Valley again for another fun weekend of muddy (and snowy) shredding. For me it will be remembered as the weekend that my bike fell apart, it was just one thing after another! But after almost a year of ripping hard on my prototype RM Element 29er, especially over the winter, it finally succumbed to all the abuse!
Our first lap of the day started with my pedal ripping off its axle, and me left confused standing beside my bike trying to figure out where my pedal went, oh right, it's stuck to the bottom of my foot. Hilarious. In the end I found some pedals, and a whole bunch of awesome people showed up and it was a great day. It even ended with a rainbow!
The FVMBA race #3 was the next day, so we headed out bright and early to Chilliwack. We got there around 8:30 am and headed up the mountain to find ourselves in winter wonderland. Sweet! The top half of the trails were snowy but grippy, and bottom half was slick and sloppy. Unfortunately in my race run I had some derailleur cable issues and ended up trying to pedal my way through most of the race skipping in and out of my hardest two or three gears. Needless to say it was a rough race. I had to run a few sections, lost a minute or so stopping to try to fix the issue, and was forced to sprint the slightly uphill fire road section leading to the finish line in my hardest gear.
I happily took 5th place despite my mechanical issues, and was pleased to see my training partner from the day before Cheryl Moore, take the top of the podium. Lessons of the day were definitely something about bike maintenance, pushing through and finishing your race no matter what, and taking my experience from an early season race and learning/growing/using that experience to make sure it doesn't happen in a big race later in the season.
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