Napa Valley Dirt Classic

Good turnout yesterday from the AC crew - we had five Junior riders (Spence, Alex, Skyler, Bob and Jack), and three AC Masters riders (Blair, Bill Buckingham, and me) - 8 riders out there representing AC - the largest group of riders I saw from ANY team ;-)

Weather conditions were PERFECT - it was low 60's at the start (around 10:30 AM) and low 70's at the finish. It was a 20 mile race, with a very interesting mix of riding styles. The first 4-5 miles were pretty flat/rolling wide single and double track, followed by a lot of sweeping XC stuff. Mixed in for "interest" were some big 50 foot drops followed with 60 foot climbs - gearing and momentum were essential on these.

There were also a lot of very tricky turns around blind corners, into steep short ascents - I saw a lot of people with snapped chains, and heard some shifting behind me that sounded like forks in a garbage disposal ;-) The course was moderately technical, with some pretty steep downhill and rocky stuff, some of which I elected to get off and walk, rather than risk a bad crash. There were a few crashes, which I heard behind me, and the boys saw some guys that were pretty beat up - some of the big, rocky descents could definitely take it out of you if you missed the right line.

The worst part of this race was at about mile 13 or 14 - the huge canyon descent (rocky and sandy) down 800 feet, then the ugly climb out. It was long, steep and had marginal traction on a lot of it. I heard that some of the guys rode it all the way, but I treated it as a cyclocross-style walk-up. Long and boring, just a big annoyance in an XC race. In fact, there was a run-up at the beginning of the race that really reminded me of the McLaren Park 'cross race! I think that some of the 'cross racing experience was put to good use in the race yesterday....

Here is the GPS recording of the race - you can see the elevation profile and what it means compared to the rest of the rolling hills:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7941399

The team had good success overall. The boys did well - everyone finished except Jack who had a crash at about mile 14, and got towed out. Fortunately he wasn't badly hurt, and his bike seemed OK, so he'll be ready to go for Sea Otter, and got some good practice on this race. The other Juniors finished as follows:

Spence Peterson - Second Place
Alex Howard - Third Place
Skyler Taylor - Fourth Place
Bob Siegel - Sixth Place

Results are up at http://web2.puc.edu/Pioneers/NVDC/09%20results.htm

Spence Peterson 01:48:33 00:00:13 (Second out of 8 racers)
Alex Howard 01:53:25 00:05:05 (3 out of 8)
Skyler Taylor 02:02:58 00:14:38 (4 out of 8)
Bob Siegel 02:12:54 00:24:34 289 (6 out of 8)

William Buckingham 01:47:13 00:03:14 (45-54 Cat 2 Male) (Third out of 52 racers)
Blair Peterson 01:55:45 00:11:46 (14 out of 52)

Richard Siegel 02:31:46 00:31:56 (14 out of 28, 45-54 Cat 3 Male)

The Juniors are (almost) beating the Masters now ;-)