The MTB Files: Aroussen Scores a W

Aroussen couldn't resist a local MTB race. He went down to Fort Ord and scored 1st place in the PRO category. Right on!

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Date: 6/15/08
CCCX Mountain Bike series
Fort Ord (Monterey), California USA, June 15, 2008

Rider: Aroussen Laflamme
Cat: Pro
Finishing Position: 1st
Course: 5 laps of a 6 miles
Weather: Windy as usual near the coast, mix of clouds and sun

Fort Ord is well known for its infinite miles of dirt trails which are hard packed and at the same time slippery. It's also a great venue for cyclocross racing. But today it host the 8th race of the
Central coast series on a course that I can say will suited me very well. No long climb, 5 to 6 short moderately steep uphill, twisty and challenging course is on the menu today.

After my relatively successful strategy adopted during my last mountain bike race, I thought it would be a good idea to stick to it: start slowly and be patient. I succeed in the former but not the later strategy.

My expectation we're not so high considering the amount of training I've done lately, especially on Saturday after the Pesky race. A bad start (difficulties clipping) allowed me to gage my competitors and to start slowly indeed. The pack just rolled quite easily during the first minutes of the start loop. I stayed in the back, protected from the wind. When things have started to move a bit, I progressively made my way to the front. I had to sprint a bit to enter the single-
track first and decided to stretch the group. I pulled hard until the first climb. Two guys passed me and I took their wheels. At this time, we were three of us in the front; the stretching had been more of a break.

So we decided to work together to increase or advantage. That was a good idea considering the stiff head wind on the first half of the course. One of us would never takes pulls and did create many gaps. By the end of the first lap, two guys catched us while the guy in front of me was fading progressively. Feeling good, not patient enough and not willing to bring fading or not working racers with me, I attacked in the first third of the second lap. My goal was to bring
some other guys with me but nobody did follow. I kind of wait to see if my move would stick and it did. My gap was of 30 second after the second lap and of 45 second after the third, so I was in control.

My main concern was that the group was still working together behind me, which was a big advantage considering the wind. So I decided to ease up during the fourth lap to get ready to answer any potential attack from behind. But any would come. At the end of this lap, my gap was of more than a minute. This is when the group has decided to attacked each others, riding the final lap solo instead of working together to bring me back.

Even with some braking problem during the last descent (maybe no more brake is good after all), I managed to conserve quite a good gap to win this race somewhat easily, at least undisputed. The gold medal is a good father's day gift!

Thanks to my sponsors Webcor-Alto Velo and Kona endurance.
Thanks to my family, Jérémy and Madeleine for their support.
Thanks for reading,
Aroussen