Tapatio Springs

Ok, I promised more posts, so here's the rundown from my first race of this year's TMBRA Spring TX State Championship series at Tapatio Springs Resort on March 4th. But first, a little lead-in is in order. I hadn't been riding much, just two or three times a month, just for fun going out to Memorial Park and playing around. I'd met a group of riders out there a couple times a few months before, turns out one of them was part of a new bike shop starting up in Sugar Land. He was the unofficial Captain of the mountain bike team, and after riding with me a couple of times, he asked if I was interested in being on their team. I said, "sure, why not." So we had exchanged numbers, and then I didn't see or hear from him for a while. So I get a text message on a Tuesday asking if I was still interested in being on their team. I said yes, and so he replies that there's a team meeting tomorrow night. So I met them the next night after going riding and falling and beating myself up good, and that's when I find out there's a race that Saturday. I hadn't been planning on doing it, but I can't back out now. So Raine and Cottton and I gather our camping stuff and head out Saturday morning to Boerne, TX, a bit north of San Antonio. I preride with the team Saturday, and take another nasty fall. Ouch. I had a good time on the preride, but we didn't go too fast, so I had no clue what to expect the next day. So the next morning it's cold and windy, and I line up with the Sport class. The next two hours were pure pain. The course suited my talents, being nice and technical with some fast downhills, but didn't suit my fitness level with a lot of climbing. There were two huge climbs that really hurt me. I rode the first one both laps, and rode the second climb the first lap but walked it the second. I was pretty destroyed afterwards, but finished 18th out of 27 starters, so I guess that's not bad after not really working on being in shape. From then on, I was committed to the rest of the series, and knew I would basically be racing my way into shape.


I think this is near the start. This was a fun little rocky area
that I had fun riding, even though I was already blowed up. I'm not sure how that guy wound up behind me, though. He must have been SLOW.















This is the second of the two big climbs. You can tell I'm hurting BAD here. This was the first lap, since I'm actually on my bike. This picture pretty much sums up my race: pain and suffering.









Stay tuned for the next race report, the STORM Hill Country Challenge in Comfort, TX.

Edit: The rest of the spring series sucked, I never finished higher than 12th. So I never blogged it and I'm not going back to do it now... I did manage to race enough to finish 10th overall, for which I got a little picture frame and a T-shirt.