My dirt riding experience consists of a few trips some local MX tracks and several mountain trail outings on my Kawasaki KDX trail bike, I had only ridden my RMZ once prior to the race. But I had felt very good on the RMZ the one trip out to the RAM MX track. I figured with my experience I could easily follow some of the slow guys in the C class...
At the track we were allowed one sighting lap of the 6 mile course at 11AM and then the race would start at 11:30AM and run for 1 1/2 hours, as many laps as you can do. The sighting lap didn't go to well, someone stalled and crashed in a sandy banked turn, I stopped and stalled behind him trying to avoid him, and the RMZ did not want to start. Took what seemed like forever to get it kick started again and by then I was way behind everyone and already tired from all the kicking. I was also not used to the course layout, it consisted of small 3" x 3" signs on trees with arrows and colored ribbon marking the course in some areas, something my eyes weren't accustomed to picking out. I crashed once and ran way of course several times blowing past turns that I didn't see in time without anyone to follow. This was not starting out well, I finally made it to the starting grid tired when the race was just about to start, so much for a breather...
A short description of the track: It is 6 miles through the trees beside Fountain creek. Of those 6 miles at least 5 miles are tight single track and at least half of those are whoops (I hate whoops). It also included two 1/4 mile sections of long deep sand washes alongside the creek.
The race of 50+ riders in the C class started out with a huge dust cloud. I just hung back and tried not to get in anyone's way. Passing was very rough in the opening 1/2 a lap as is required in tight single track riding, this was a bit of a surprise and a bit unnerving.
The race quickly turned from trying to stay with anyone to just making it to the finish. I had several miscues including my unprotected brake lever catching thick reeds at least once a lap, lurching me to a stop and me frustratingly pulling the stupid things off my front brake lever (bark busters a must before the next race!). I also noticed a problem with my throttle I hadn't noticed in my previous ride at the MX track on the RMZ (which was higher speed), the throttle stop seemed to be raised, this caused the bike to barely engine brake and actually accelerate at low speeds in first gear, this would literally push me into the corners as I was easing off the brakes, not a good feeling! I crashed a couple times due to this. I was able to resolve it after the first lap by turning down the knob on the carb in the gas/water pit area. This helped a lot with being able to properly engine brake into the corners.
The next and biggest problem was fatigue, I just wasn't prepared for the physical demands of this type of riding, I had never done any single track riding and never near as many whoops. After the first two laps I could hardly bear to stand on the bike, which forced me to go even slower...
After the third lap with the running time at 1hr 10 minutes I pitted for a breather and some water. The bike stalled on me while idling. I kicked and kicked and would get it for a bit only for it to stall, I was getting so hot I took my helmet and gloves off, but then it would start and stall when I'd take my hand off the throttle to put my helmet on... After 5+ minutes of this I said "screw it" and pushed my bike back to my truck...
It was a very humbling experience, and I ended up second to last (pitty the poor guy behind me). But I gained a good understanding of what harescrambles and offroad racing are all about. I plan to get more practice (and bark busters) and get back out there to the next race! The next race is at RAM offroad park where I've ridden once, it is a bit more open and few if any trees, so I'm hoping to fare a bit better... We'll see...
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