Emma's revenge was a semi-success. Rode in the top 7-8 all race, was able to sustain a high effort, yadda , yadda, yadda. One bit of info. that was really helpful throughout the race was the color of the course markings.....they were blue(blue for bike, blue for bozo stay on course).
Like I said before everything was going to plan. There were no categories, just open, so I was up against some good Texas pro/cat1 guys on my single speed. We took off from the gun and I just missed the front group of 5-6 going into the single track, but only dangling 5 sec. off the back wasn't bad for as fast as I was spinning.
There were a lot of ledges, roots, etc. that made the descending and climbing interesting. I had no problem with the descending, but I spent a lot of time doing the ol' cyclocross dismount and run up some of the stair step/loose rocky climbs. They were short, so I wasn't losing too much time.
I was about 10 sec. behind 7th and about 30 sec. out of 6th with 2 miles to go when rider error ensued. We came down a real steep, rocky pitch out of the sun into the shade and the trail naturally flowed to the left, so I rolled the section smoothly and headed left......WRONG! About a minute or so later, I wasn't noticing the blue flagging they mentioned in the rider meeting(shit, I was off course!) Another error I made was thinking the trail would hook back up with the course soon. 10 minutes later and a whole crap load of creek crossings later I hooked back up with the last descent back to the finish.
So what turned out to be a good solid ride with some fast riders just in front of me, ended up in frustration.
On a positive note: the bike worked really well, my fitness was good and I can say I really like this single speed thing.....no shifting or chain slap.....just pedal damn it!
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