Alma MTB TT

For the last few years I have been training solely to compete in endurance mountain bike events: 100 miles, 8 hours, 12 hours etc. As you can guess this tends to mean I do not spend much time training for short time trials, but when one of the few trails located less than an hour’s drive away decided to put on a race that fit into my calendar I had to jump at the opportunity. 

The sad part of this story is before race day I had never actually ridden the trail (Sally’s Trail in Alma, MI). The trail is pretty short, only a little over 3 miles per lap but it is quite possible the best maintained trail I have ever seen. On race day, a beautiful sunny Thursday afternoon with temps in the mid 80’s, my wife and I made the drive to Alma arriving a bit later than I had hoped but with enough time to get in a sighting lap which doubled as my warmup. Going out for that lap was a very good decision as the trail is a twisty, turny, labyrinth of flowing curves and having half an idea what to expect around the next bend can be the difference between riding straight into a tree, going half speed onto one of the few straight sections or hitting it spot on and maintaining some speed. 

I rolled in from my lap sufficiently warmed up about with 10 minutes before the start so I had some Hammer Gel and water, made sure my bike was ready to go and got lined up for my first TT race in probably five years. I was the last guy in the “A” group to start since I had not register to do all three races of the series but that meant I was able to see the competition along the way. 

For the first few minutes of the race I was just trying to remember the trail and get in to a flow but as I got into a section where the trail continuously doubled back on itself I could see many of the other racers who were set off in 30 second intervals before me and started aiming to catch them. A few more minutes and I caught the guy who left one minute before me but not the person who started right before me (Jeff) and I had a good idea at that point we would be in for a bit of a duel. During the first lap I passed a couple more people, rode straight through a turn (only a few feet) and got a better feel for the course but did not managed to put any time into the Jeff; I could see him numerous times near the end and would count from where I saw him until I got to the same spot. Final timing confirmed we both ran 16 minute 57 second first laps. 

During lap two I was able to ride a little more smoothly as I now had twice as much experience on the trail and I could tell I was starting to reel Jeff in through my counting. I managed to make the turn I missed on the first lap and had the gap down to about 12 seconds with less than a mile to go when I went into a turn way too fast and had to lock up the brakes and came to a dead stop about 3 feet off the side of the trail. I got back on the trail as quickly as I could while in the wrong gear and with only one foot clipped in but still determined and put the hammer back down. As I neared the finish I could hear the small crowd cheer for Jeff as he crossed the line and I was fairly certain I had maintained my time advantage; 19 seconds later I crossed the line for the win. 

I did a short cooldown with Jeff chatting about the race and some training, neither of us certain about times as we did not stop at the finish line. As we rolled back to the finish Brian (the race director) told us our times and congratulations were given all around. My time was 33:56 with Jeff at 34:15; a very close well ridden race for both of us. 

It was a great race and such a different experience than I have become accustom to over the past few years; there is something about having an average heart rate of 179 bmp for an entire race that really keeps the adrenaline flowing. Unfortunately, I will not be able to make it back for the third race in the series but I am glad I stepped out of the norm and proved to myself I can still put in a solid TT effort when called for.