Iron Hill Challenge

By Brad Walker:

The Iron Hill Challenge in Delaware was my second race for Team Flying Dog. I consider myself more of an endurance racer as I like the drawn out pain instead of the intense short pain that comes with XC racing, both painful but different types. So I decide to do this race due to one of my riding and racing friends is racing. So I make the trip out to Delaware, not a fan of the traffic of going east through Baltimore and up the turnpike, but I put up with it since I will get to ride my bike somewhere new. I was set on doing the cat 1 or expert single speed class again but since my friend was in the cat 2 single speed class, that’s what I decided to do. So I push my way to the front of the starting line pumped up ready to bust a move. The man says go and off we go, I’m in the front for a good mile and then it gets really muddy and down goes the rider in front of me while riding over a wooden bridge, really I say to myself….why not go through the creak…this is mountain bike racing isn’t it! So instead of running this guy over with my 200 plus pound frame plus the bike I run off into the woods, again…the killer instinct wasn’t there - lol. Get back into the race and I’m sitting in 3^rd place and I know I have what it takes to reel them back in. Around mile 3 or 4, I hear a very loud snap from around the corner and as I approach I see my friend on the side of the trail not looking very happy. He has snapped his carbon seat post in half and he has no tools. Again, no killer instinct as he tells me to not worry about it and go get’em. So of course I stop, get my tools out (as half of the other riders race past) and fix his seat post to allow him to ride. So we take off and slowly reel a few riders in as we don’t have very many miles in the short XC sprint race as we would in a longer endurance style race. We get about 2 miles to go and he is getting tired from riding with half a seat post, so I decide to go for broke and end up catching another 4 riders to finish in 6^th place. A very fun up and down course but the slick trails were tough on a single speed. At this point I decide that XC racing is not for me and would rather do 50 miles of singletrack than 15 miles of an XC sprint race. Regardless another good learning experience of how I lack the killer instinct, maybe I can hire a sports psychologist to help with that…among other things!