Revolution Series #1 Glorietta Race Report

Last weekend I was off to the first race of the Revolution series in New Mexico! It was the first race of this type I've ever done, so I learned a lot.

Saturday, May 27 - Preriding and race prep

Got up about 530a and drove to Glorietta, New Mexico for a preview of the course. It ended up being a lot longer and more climbing than I realized and I was pretty spent by the end of it. I would NOT have wanted to ride the course blind.

Start of Stage 1

These are the notes I took after each stage (through I wish I'd taken more)

• Stage 1: lots of pedaling, flowy, look out for mid trail tree, no super technical stuff
• Stage 2: fast at the top, chunky in the middle, hop off for the one feature, everything below that is hard but rideable
• Stage 3: the first feature is rideable, but don't come out with too much speed. take all b lines after that, at the bottom just get over the line don't worry about that drop. Look ahead for the 2 jumps to avoid them
• Stage 4: take all b lines, real chunky thing near the end that's like the one spot at Valmont, try to stay light over rocks, seems like the left line is usually the best, maybe a touch more tire pressure for this one

I was disappointed that the A lines were out of my comfort level, so I was expecting to lose time at each of those (which I did). 

Sunday, May 28 - Race day

The start was really casual, everyone meandering up the transfer to the stage 1 start. I chatted with a few guys and that passed the time nicely. At the top was a huge log jam and ended up waiting for almost an hour for the other groups to start. 

Stage 1 review: Faster, somewhat flowy stage with a lot of pedaling. I felt pretty good on this stage and even caught a couple guys. There was a lot of pedaling, which suited me. It was nice to get the first stage out of the way.

Stage position: 9th

Overall position: 9th

Stage 2 review: The top was very chunky, steep, and loose. It was much worst than pre-ride and rumor was the pros destroyed it. I felt slightly out of control on some of it and was glad when that section was over. I had to hop off and run over one big drop which hurt my pride and my time. At the bottom it was some fun drops and I felt faster than my finish position indicated. 

Stage position: 9th
Overall position: 7th

Hike - a - Bike

Stage 3 review: To be honest, the later stages are already starting to blur. I remember that the top was fast, and I crashed on first A/B line split, but it didn't slow me down a ton, just got me really dirty. Right after that some guy caught me but then I was able to pull away from him. Felt just sloppy at the bottom and lost time picking through features rather than blasting over them. My forearms we're toast at the end.

Stage position: 8th
Overall position: 6th

Stage 4 review: In my notes I wrote, "Better than stage 3!" There were several A/B ride-arounds that were much slower than going over - I have to learn to hit the big features. Most of the stage was just chunky nonsense, and I found it hard to carry speed. I thought I was riding fast but a guy passed me and he was much faster. Got to get better at sending tech sections. 

Stage position: 11th
Overall final position: 7th out of 22

Final mileage: 20.80 mi
Total riding time: 4:33:52
Total elev gain: 4,403'

Elevation Profile

Learnings:

• A ton of walking - will probably use the more walkable shoes in the future
• Need to go faster over rough stuff and not pick and choose lines
• NEED to hit A lines, the B lines were much slower and really breaks up flow
• I was 0:10 from 6th, 0:30 from 5th, 2:00 from 4th

I met this cool dog at the finish