this one is in Elkton MD, it was around 60 degrees and cloudy... pretty nice conditions for racing... big turn out, just over 40 riders in my category (open/ elite).
last year i was having bad luck with getting flats during races... my average was a flat every 3rd-4th race...so for this year i want to make more of an effort to avoid flats and mechanicals all together...so i made sure my tires were in solid condition before the race... i replaced my rear tire and replaced my drive train.
during the start of the race i felt super stale from not being able to ride that week, i immediately fell to the back... i wasn't too worried though because i was confident i would start feeling better eventuality and make up some ground... before getting to the single track i noticed i wasn't able to shift with the rear derailleur... i discovered that my cable had snapped... so the rear derailleur was stuck in a 12 tooth gear (the hardest gear)... i put the front in the smallest gear to balance it out... but i still found it very hard to push over the gears... i got too the first short steep climb and my gearing was too difficult and i ran up it.. at this point i was mentally broken and gave up on achieving a good finish... but i decided to finish the race because i was there and dressed up for it... i came in 40th.
hopefully my next race report will have less excuses in it.
