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Rim Nordic Series Round 1 by Mark Scheetz
I’m glad I finally decided to race the Rim Nordic series located right across the street from Snow Valley. I’ve heard so many good things about this small legendary series. Apparently, so have many other single speeders. Lined up at the start were a couple familiar faces. There was Dave Roth who I see at all the state races and Todd Stevenson a local pro.
A not so familiar face was that of Tony Smith, the 2004 24 hour solo world champion. Uhm … pretty tough competition. Since RN doesn’t have an SS Pro class, I get the honor of having my ass handed to me by these guys. I didn’t recognize any others so I couldn’t help but wonder what other hot shots were standing on the starting line.
There were 15 single speeds in all, 9 experts and 6 sport class racers. That’s a huge number for a small local race. At the go, Tony, Todd and Dave took off with most of the remaining field, except me. I hung out toward the back of the pack choking down their dust. I guess pre-riding the entire course just a little before the actual race took a little snap out of my legs. The first mile was ridiculously fast. Dave Roth was leading our pace line and trying to close the widening gap to the pro guys. Fortunately, nearly everyone blew up and I passed the entire line at the beginning of the steep switches. That was pretty fun.
Todd and Tony were quickly out of sight. The third place guy (I don’t know his name) was riding about my speed so we stuck pretty close for most of the first lap. I went around him once but decided to lay back and watch him for signs of weakness. I couldn’t tell if he was holding back for a final sprint or ready to blow. Every time I snuck up on him he threw down the hammer to open a little gap.
Finally, on the second lap, I watched him hop off and walk several steep sections. Since I was still riding strong I again snuck up on him, but he was unable to answer it any longer. My new strategy was to stay just a bit behind and on the last fire road climb, sprint around him to the finish.
Well, the grand finale never quite materialized. Just before that last climb, he flatted. My finish was very uneventful since the remainder of the field was way behind. It turns out I finished about 4 minutes behind Todd and 5 minutes behind Tony. No, that’s not really close by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s … kind of … sort of … in the hunt. All in all, I was quite pleased with my results and very excited about the Rim Nordic race series and excellent venue.
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