OK I never been to big bear and a race seem like a great reason to go. Now the race had some real meaning, because any podium would assure me the kenda west cup championship and also the southern California cup series championship.
This race like the Santa Barbara race I was going to use as training races, because there is no reason to win by 20 minutes is not that I'm cocky but it had already happen in the previous races. So we decided to go and race with no rest.
If you don't know big bear mountain ,well is a real mountain around 8,000 feet or above sea level and altitude and cycling go well together, now San Diego is sea level so going that high could represent a problem but will see.
We got there mid day Saturday and waited for registration, because this was not your normal mtb race that you park where you race, for this race you park and then you ride to were the race is going to start about 3 miles away. Finally my dad and I figured it out, I found some people that knew the course I was going to race, started with a 5 mile climb and the some long fast and sketchy roads (access) not even a real fire road.
The prerun also gave me a chance to test my new camera from epiccameras, the model was an epic hd. Now the trick is to attach it(to your helmet) so you can ride and actually get some good video, the ride took about 2 hrs. I felt great no effects from the altitude but my sinus / allergies were looking a little iffy.
Got back to the hotel and started to download my video really easy, I found a couples of things out one is that if you use true hd 1 hour of video is about 4gigs of memory that's not a real problem but the camera shoots off after the first 4 gigs and you have to turn it back on if you remember, the placement on the helmet was great and you forget you are wearing it. So we decided to turn the quality down a little to see how much time would record, as a reference it recorded 1.5 hrs in a1.5 gigs, great quality still.
Now Sunday comes around had my breakfast waited for my 11:11 am start time, a few age cat 2 groups were started together. And we are off and guy from another age group and me took off, really hard all up hill after 20 minutes there was no one within 300 yards, but at the same my nose was so stuffed that I had been breathing through my mouth for a while, that cold and dry mountain air was killing me chest started to hurt so I slowed down just enough to get caught by one guy from my age group, we sated close to each other for 20 minutes or so and then bam and made one little mistake took the wrong turn, which cost me a bout 2 minutes and that was the race I lost buy about three minutes.
But with the second place podium I won both the kenda cup and the so cal cup, I also upgraded to cat 1. Now to keep the training going, the national are in one month in Colorado oh yes Wednesday I have a doctors appointment to see about the sinus thing which is becoming a concern now. Also my 2010 Flash should be ready in a week or so to test.
First cat 1 race in 2 weeks, this is the first time in 2 years that I feel I'm making progress.
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