FOLSOM

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Having ridden a cyclocross bike a total of twice since last December, I wasn’t exactly mentally prepared for an hour in the dry dirt.  Nevertheless, I was there at Folsom for my first race of the season and nearly ready to go until I tore the valve out of the tube. Awesome!  After that quick tube swap I headed down to the start.  While sitting on my top tube waiting for the whistle, I looked down at my front tire and noticed a goat-head was lodged in it.  My tube again went flat when I pulled it out.  Great start to the season!  Fortunately, Sram had a neutral wheel setup fifty yards away, so after a quick wheel change to a Zipp 404 I was ready to roll.  Starting in the second row, after the whistle, I clipped in quick and slotted into fourth wheel or so by the first turn.  I moved up to the wheel of Ben Dodge of RockLobster and sat behind him for a few laps.  There was a large grass portion of the race, a portion in rodeo grounds, a small on-road kicker, and some loose dirt-pebble single track back down to the grass.  After Ben lead everyone out for the first part of the race, a CalGiant racer, Tao Bernardi,  attacked and lead the entire race until the end.  He was a Masters’ racer (our small field was a combination of elite A, Masters’ 35+ A, and Masters’ 45+ A) so I “let” him go as he was not going to affect my result.  By let him go I mean he was going way too damn fast for me to go with him!  Three quarters of the way through the race a UnitedHealthCare professional road racer, Max Jenkins, attacked Ben and I after the small climb.  I tried to follow but fell short, he got a ten second gap that stuck to the end of the race.  A dude on a mountain bike, also a Masters’ racer, passed me at some point, so I spent the latter end of the race dangling between Tao, Max, and mtb dude.  Content on finding some new smooth lines mid-race, happy I didn’t crash, and excited on my best elite A result to date, I finished in second place.

-Rainier Schaefer