NICA California State Champs

[Gavin Parnes]

The week leading up to the California State Championships was a crazy one.  AP exams coupled with normal school tests left me blown out and tired.  I would wake up in the morning and tell myself, “no excuses, I need to ride today”.  By the time I got home that same day I would be absolutely exhausted and convince myself that rest is better than riding.  I would finish my homework and then rest the remainder of the day. 

Saturday came and I drove the 20 minutes to the course to pre-ride.  The course was bumpy and loose.  The landlords cows had torn it to bits and it felt like you were riding over those bumps on the side of the roads that are meant to alert you if you start to stray from the lines.  After a slow lap, my hands were already hurting from the impacts and I decided to drop a lot of pressure from my tires.  The course was much better and I gained more grip, but with the pressure so low I ran a small risk of burping the tire on the hard-packed berm section.  The risk was worth the reward in my mind so I went with it.

Race day came and I was able to sleep in since I didn’t race till 1:40.  I finally got up, loaded everything into the car, and headed to the course.  I missed the women’s start but headed up the course to watch the final laps.  Racing in the afternoon sucks.  You just want it to be over, and you cant tell exactly what to eat since its so late, but you don’t want to ride on a full stomach.  I settled on a breakfast burrito at around 10:00 and relied on snacks and electrolytes to hold me over till the race.  I got changed and began my warm up at around 12:45 (I left so much time because I would be in general staging due to not showing up to the last race for testing).  The warm up was solid and I headed up to staging about a half hour early.  I wanted every advantage I could get started halfway back into the field.  I was able to steal the first row of general putting me 45 riders back; I had my work cut out for me. 

Being so far back, I didn’t even hear the countdown.  I looked up and saw people start to go and I was like “oh shit”.  I was able to pass about 10 to 15 people before we hit the dirt, where I then proceeded to make more moves around people.  I wasn’t thinking long term and by the end of the first lap those people had started to pass me again, then we all started to spread out.  Crossing the line at the end of the first lap, I was leading out a group of five.  I started to regain composure and get into a groove on the climb.  Me and fellow rider Curran Thompson were tight, and as I increased the pace he came along with me.  We stayed together on the climb, as we dropped the other three riders.  As we neared the top, two of them started to catch back up, and this early there was no point in trying to out ride them now.  They eventually caught back up for good as we started the downhill.  I wasn’t concerned as I knew they had burned enough matches to not stay around much longer.  The four of us stayed together that entire lap again until we crossed the line to start the climb.  We turned up the heat again and dropped the other two for good.  As we crested the final hill, I thought to myself “perfect, I can beat Curran in a sprint and they wont catch back up, just keep your pace and you’ll do fine, they can only catch you if you crash”.  Then I crashed.  One of the loose berms in the tree section had been absolutely destroyed by the other 900 riders here today who had also done multiple laps.  I went into it to fast and my front tire washed out and I ate a handful of dust and dirt.  I had fallen in the middle of the trail and Curran was not keen on passing me (as he had been drafting me till this point).  He waited for me to get back up and fix the handle bars, then we took off again.  Just as I had expected, the boys had caught back up.  I didn’t let this get to me though and I hoped I could still hold them off with a pretty banged up knee.  I took the next climb a little slower than usual to see if any of them would take the bait so I could draft them on the flat part.  No one did, so I put the hammer down on the flat section.  They stuck with me but as I came around the last corner I took off and no held as I secured my spot crossing the finish line with a heart rate of 201.  This was a happy ending to this years NorCal season as I look froward to the Nevada City races down the line.