Fall Classic Mtb
Race
Big Bear Lake, CA
Sunday, Oct 12th, 2008
Report by Mark Salmon
Two words come to mind when describing the 2008 Fall Classic. FREAKING FREEZING!! When weather.com said it was going to be a high of 42 but feel like 35, they were not kidding. Even the trusty long sleeve Celo kit was no match. At least it started with a 3mile climb to warm things up. I knew that going into the day I had a pretty good points lead but still had to ride fairly hard just incase.
The course was classic Big Bear at its finest. After the long fire road to the top we descended all the way back down on what had to be the best piece of single track on the mountain. People were actually Yee Hawing out load on the way down and high fiving at the bottom. It was bitchin! Then it was back into the zone for the second climb all the way back up and around the back side of Snow Summit.
Now it goes without saying that I would "never" wear an IPod during a mountain bike race as it is against the rules. Neither would the other 265 people who also "follow" the rules. But if you could "imagine" what it would be like to hit the final decent down Fall Line right as best part of the best song in your IPod kicked in, ( maybe something like the 5 minute long crescendo in the middle of Iron Maidens Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner ) Then you would get an idea of how much fun was I "might" have had during the last race of a long season. Speaking of which.....
My 2008 So Cal MTB season breaks down like this:
7 races
148 miles of racing
1720 miles of driving
2 frames
2 forks
3 broken chains
3 broken front derailleurs
4 tires
2 pair of shoes
3 training rides
31 miles of base training (cumulative)
14 gallons of ice cream (give or take 5....mostly give)
8 La Montana tacos
and 1 really poorly placed front wheel at 32 mph trip over the bars! The resulting mushroom cloud of dust was seen over a quarter of a mile away by one of the course officials. It was beautiful.
And the result of all this was.......