Iron Hill Mountain Bike Race 2012

5/6/12

I carpooled to this race with teammate Dylan Johnson.  Are team had a good showing, Nick Sears, Arron Snyder, Cam and Jay Dodge were also there.  I believe there was about 40 riders in the elite open category.  The weather was cloudy and about 65 degrees.  The course was a bit slick from the rain the day before.  The entire course was pretty uniformly slick so you could kind of adjust to having less traction.

At the start of the elite open category Nick powered to the front and lead for the fist mile; close behind him were Chris Beck, Dylan, Aaron and Cam.  About 3 miles in Dylan had his chain break; that was the end of the race for him.  I had a pretty bad start and was trying to work my way up; it took me a lap and a half (out of a 3 lap , 24 mile race) to catch up with Nick (he had fallen back some since the start).  I rode behind him for a little bit (I noticed he has good bike handling in the mud).  I passed him on a climb and continued to pick off riders till I was in 4th place by the start of the 3rd lap and that is were i would stay till the end of the race.  Cam finished first, Aaron finished close behind him in 2nd, Chris Beck was in 3rd, I was 4th and Nick pulled off a 6th place finish (great for his first time in the open elite category).  Both Cam and Arron were riding very strong; they were both about 5min ahead of me at the finish.  Aaron's ride was particularly impressive considering that he rode his road bike 3.5 hours to this race form his parent house.  He's getting in a big block of training before he dose the transylvania epic race.

Next weekend i plan to be at French Creek

Photos to come