Central Coast MTB Race Report

CCCX #8, Fort Ord
June 23, 2007

Another go down at Fort Ord. Sunny skies and a cool ocean breeze were on the menu. As well as six laps around the sandy course. The usual suspects were in attendance and I marked Brock and Keith closely as they shot off the line at the start. Within two minutes, we had caught the tail end of the under 35/ singlespeed field. Brock slipped ahead through the crowd and kept hammering forward, looking for Jason Rahwles and/or Hibbard (in the pro field) to latch onto. Keith couldn't stay on Brock's wheel today and after pondering a moment, I gave it some more gas and came around him. He didn't seem to want to stay on my wheel either and I motored forward, moving up through the younger riders and singlespeeders.


Off the line.


Moving up.

Starting the second lap, I was riding solo maybe twenty seconds behind Brock. He was a bit spent from his first lap effort and slowed a bit, allowing me to ride up to him by about halfway through the lap. We began working together for the next few laps. Taking turns pulling for about half a lap each. Things got interesting again late on lap 5 when we caught the two leaders of the singlespeed field. Brock smartly got around them and promptly opened a gap on the shallow decent down towards the start/finish. I had to wait a bit for a good spot to pass and then pinned it to close the gap. I caught him near the end of the lap and tried to recover a bit. But that effort proved to be my undoing as Brock managed to gap me on one of the climbs about halfway through lap six. He stayed strong and held it for the remainder. I rolled in for second place, about thirty seconds back. I'll have one more shot it next Saturday at the CCCX finals. Good fun.


Latched on.

Thanks to Rick for the photos.