The Dark Knight Is Upon Us

Goal for the race: Have Fun!
Secondary Goal: Finish in the top third

My equipment was packed, my bike tuned up and my legs fresh. This race was going to be epic.

I got to the race site quite early so I would have time to change and do a few warm-up laps. After finally getting all my layers on and doing a few warm-up laps, my initial impressions were that it was going to favour power over technical skills. The course seems to be divided into two parts, the first part consisting of many short, steep off-camber climbs and the second part being flat with plenty of hairpin turns and 2 sand sections.

I decided to race category C for this race and it turned out to be the largest group. Even before the race started there were plenty of my teammates out. I must have counted about 9 of us which was great to see. We were told that the group was going to consist of 65 racers...this was going to be chaos. Awesome.

After meeting up and talking to some of my teammates I lined up and got ready to put this race into the books. I looked behind and there was a huge crowd of bikes, plenty of spectators and lots of smiles. When the whistle finally went, I went out hard. I wanted to get in the top tier of racers so I wouldn’t get stuck behind big bottlenecks. This paid off as the as I went came upon the first descent there were already 2 riders down. After I cleared them, I could hear more riders crashing behind me. The pace was pretty fast and I could already see the top riders pulling away. During the first lap I decided on the fly to see if it was possible to ride the sand section. I made it about a quarter of the way before it was too hard to steer and I had to dismount and run the rest of the section.



Second lap was a little more spread out so I could start grabbing onto wheels and picking off people. Even though I tried to remain focused on the race I could feel the excitement in the air and could tell the crowd was enjoying the show. I was also starting to see that people on mountain bikes had a little bit of an advantage as they had lower gearing for the climbs and were able to ride the sand parts when I had to dismount and run.

My second last lap I was taking a steep descent and was braking with only my rear brake for whatever reason. I was going pretty fast and went to make the hairpin turn when my back wheel slid out and I somehow manage to turn a near crash into an awesome drift into the hairpin. A rider cam eup to me during the lap and said "Dude that was amazing, how did you do that?" and I said "that's a cycling tip I like to call luck, you can have that one".



During the my last lap I went out a little bit harder to finish up the race. I remember someone calling out "on your left" during the second half of the lap and went out even harder to try and gap the person behind me. I did a quick check and the rider was on a mountain bike which means I had to develop a good gap so that they wouldn't be able to beat me on the sand section. The sand section came u and I dismounted and started running. The rider behind me was suddenly side-by-side riding though the sand. I started going into a full out sprint and was able to beat her to the end of the section. I went out hard into the final 100 meters and finished off just a split second ahead of the other rider.



Results: 26/65??? (The results are so messed up...but that's why they pulled the race out of the ABA schedule).

The race definitely lived up to all the hype. It was so much fun. Probably the most fun I’ve had in a race. The course had a lot of variety and the weather was great for racing (although maybe not so great for spectators). During the race, I truly felt like a professional ‘cross racer, from the loud music, to the constant clanging of cowbells to the camera flashes in the dark, I felt like a world class athlete. A bunch of my friends came out to watch the race and that made it a memorable event for me. I can’t wait to do the race next year and I hope anyone who is reading this, who enjoys biking, comes out and gives it a try as well.

- Kyle

All photos: Bill Quinney