Carson Benjamin's Blog (8)

"Sweet hybrid, dude!" -a spectator on the descent. 

There's no embarrassment like racing a mountain bike at a cyclocross race, but sometimes choosing the right tool for the job is as important as showing up to a start line with a good set of legs. The Rock Lobster Cup, a fundraiser for the legendary Rock Lobster Cyclocross Team, has gained a reputation for building some of the hardest courses in NorCal cyclocross. The location of this year's edition was in Wilder Ranch State Park in…

I had learned my lesson from my race in Downieville the previous weekend and budgeted enough time for a thorough warm-up and pre-ride snack to keep my glycogen stores topped off. I finished my last efforts with a few minutes to spare before charging up Violetti Fire Road into the park. 

Xander Sugarman took the lead off the line, followed closely by myself and teammate Jim. The opening climb up Violetti is covered in loose rocks with only a single rideable line in most places,…

This was the first time since I started racing mountain bikes I had committed to racing the Downieville Classic. After I contracted pneumonia following Sea Otter, I was finally able to return to racing in late-July and saw Downieville as an opportunity to gain high-intensity fitness as I build towards the Collegiate National Championship in October.

Downieville is one of the most highly-regarded American mountain bike races for both its festival atmosphere and course, which has…

I did a solid block of training after SoNoMas and felt I had enough top-end speed back in my legs for a 90-minute XC race. Sea Otter has been a HC-level international event since last year, which means that it is only one step below a World Cup in terms of prize money and ranking points awarded. This distinction also means that laps must be less than 3.5 miles long to be spectator friendly. The Sea Otter race organizers must have built the course with a lawnmower, because most of what we…

I learned that SoNoMas isn't a race for position, it's a race of survival. It was one of the few mountain bike races in Northern California I hadn't done, so I had no idea what to expect besides a long day in the saddle. 

I had completed a hard block of training the week before the race and barely ridden in the days leading up to it in hopes of a good result. The list of registered riders, which included the likes of Ted King, Peter Stetina, Barry Wicks, and my teammate Jim predicted…

Lake Sonoma was my fourth and final Grasshopper Series race of the year. Crashing out of Super Sweetwater two weeks ago put me out of contention for the overall series victory, so my focus for the coming months will be solely on mountain bike races. I also used this race as a trial run of the fueling strategy and bike set-up I'll use for the rest of the year. 

The race started up a 2 mile paved climb that spread the field out before narrowing into a rocky, muddy singletrack. I came…

The Grasshopper Adventure Series’ Chileno Valley Road ‘Hopper was another opportunity to gain some fitness and load up on training fatigue before starting the true mountain bike race season of the spring and summer. Grasshoppers bring out all of Northern California’s racing talent, and this weekend was no exception. Road racers Peter Stentina of Trek-Segafredo, Zeke Mostov, Cameron Beard, Sam Bassetti, Chris Harland-Dunaway, and Gavin Murray were all in…

I chose the Grasshopper Adventure Series’ Old Cazadero gravel/road race as my first event of 2017 to gain some high intensity speed and fitness as well as to fatigue my body beyond what I can accomplish in training. Although most of the field rides either a cyclocross bike with wide tires or a rigid mountain bike at Old Caz, I don't own either of those, so I settled on my new Trek Top Fuel 9.8 with a pair of semi-slick Bontrager Tires. It was a similar set up to…