Race Report: CCCX race 4 - Women cat 1
Race: CCCX. The 4th one in the 2023 series.
Date: June 25th, 2023
AVRT racers: Niky Taylor
Top Result: Niky 1/3
Route: In Fort Ord, 6 laps around a 4ish mile course for a total of about 26 miles. It started on a paved climb, then turned into the main course and we started the laps. Notable features included: sandy turns, a few punchy climbs, one particularly punchy gravel road climb, a flat exposed stretch where drafting was ideal, a feed zone, the start/finish line.
Recap: My friend Nathan (not AV Nathan) has been inviting me to try XC mountain bike racing for a few months now. I got a new mountain bike (Julianna Wilder, thanks Summit) and felt like trying something new. So I decided to give CCCX a shot.
At the start I met the two other women racing cat 1. They were in different age groups than me but since there were so few of us we decided to race each other. The officials said go and I failed to clip in twice in a row. I got my shit together and caught up to the group right before we hit the dirt, barely edging past the other two women for a position right behind Nathan. He dropped me almost immediately. But I was in first position of the cat 1 women.
I spent the first two laps killing myself and treating this like a cyclocross race: throw myself everywhere and sprint the whole thing. Then it occurred to me that most cyclocross races I’ve done are like 6-8 miles and this one was 26 miles and I was like whoa buddy better slow it down.
So I chilled out and ate some and tried to recover a bit. Some cat 2 guys caught me. Then one of the other cat 1 women, Michelle, showed up. We got to a short punchy gravel climb and I went all out to drop her. One guy, Mike, hung with me. I felt pretty good and started sending it again. Then Mike came around and was like “hey want a wheel?” and I was like oh wow, I did not even think about drafting since we’re on mountain bikes but now that you mention it that’s a really good point.
I got on Mike’s wheel but he was pretty fast and I was much less comfortable drafting on a mountain bike than a road bike. So after a few near crashes, a lot of brake checking myself, and probably no actual energy saved, I was like ok I’m good and he dropped me. Bye Mike.
I was learning a lot and also really tired from trying and failing to stick with Mike. Then Michelle caught me again and I was like ahhhh go go go and dropped her.
Bernardo caught me around 3 laps to go. I got on his wheel and it was a lot easier to draft someone who I’ve ridden with before. So then I just unapologetically drafted Bernardo for a couple laps. Thanks Bernardo. Sorry I didn’t pull, I was maxed out just keeping up. I lost Bernardo’s wheel while we were passing someone. Then he finished and I still had one more lap.
Last lap I sent it as hard as I could which was not very hard because I was super tired. I had no idea how far back Michelle was and I knew that if she passed me that would be the end because I was toasted. But I managed to hold my lead and take the win!
This was really fun. Also really hard. I learned a lot about what XC racing is. I liked the course and the people were all super nice. I liked doing the laps and trying to pick better lines each time around. I could definitely improve on handling, and getting more comfortable on my bike and this type of terrain would help save a lot of energy. In particular I’d want to work on my cornering. Overall I had a really great time trying something new and out of my comfort zone and would recommend CCCX to anyone interested in trying out some low-stakes local XC racing.
Nutrition: I ate 2-3 bloks and drank a bottle of water and in the future would definitely run 2 bottles with skratch or something
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/9334819135