Race Report: Oktoberfest Super D at Blue Mountain
AMS rider from the US East Coast, Gerry Creighton, wrote up a nice race report from the Blue Mountain Oktoberfest Super D. As the name of the race reminds us: grab a beer, and enjoy the report:
Having been off of the bike for several months after my crash I was quite surprised how well I felt when I got back to Blue Mountain Bike Park for a Super D race recently. I hadn’t been on any real gnarly east coast rocky down hill trails since my crash so I was interested to see how I would handle it.
I traveled to Blue Mtn. the week before the race to get myself reacquainted with the trails. I met up with Reading, PA enduro shredder Scott Miller (shown at left in photo below) for a fun day of riding. We prerode the Super D course, hit a lot of the other trails but stayed off of the real down hill stuff for the sake of my shoulder. The injury is not 100% healed yet, my shoulder hasn’t been fixed yet (needs surgery) and the super gnarly terrain makes my shoulder sore. I had a sense of relief when the day was over, the riding was fun but I was really glad to have a boost in confidence that my shoulder could handle the rough terrain.
Race Day: Knowing that the new Super D course was 80% downhill had me excited for a fun day of riding. This would be the perfect way to get back at it vs waiting all winter wondering how I would do in a race situation. My race run wasn’t as good as I had hoped, I definitely could have pedaled harder where it required it. I wound up in 6th place in Men’s Pro, 49sec off of the leader. I was rusty but I was really there to get back on the horse as they say.
The take away: I was surprised when I checked my strava report after the race to see that I wound up 1 second behind Colombian DHr Mauricio Estrada on the following .4mi segment! I remember feeling good through this section during my race run but to be 1 second off of the leader was a real boost to my confidence.
Overall it was a great day of riding and racing. I got to bring Susan (who is jonesing to get back on her bike) along to hang out and meet some of my racing buddies, the weather was good and nobody got hurt. Mission accomplished!
