Stewart Six Pack

New Windsor, NY
Stewart six pack Sunday May 22, 2011
by: Joe Gratcofsky

Headed back to the right coast for some family time and great bike race this past weekend. The it was raining there for the entire week leading up to the race so I was prepared for a six hour mudfest of epic proportions. Having lived in colorado for the past couple of years, I was hoping i hadn’t forgot how to ride the slick rocks and roots I had grown up with. Luckily the rain quit for raceday.

With a fairly short road run up to singletrack, I went for the holeshot and got in the woods ahead of the rest of the class. That worked out great for all of a minute until we ran up on the women’s and men’s open class who were started at one minute intervals before my(SS) class. I stayed in front of most of the first lap until I over shot a corner and off the course. The one rider that was one my wheel cruised by and picked up the pace a little. I started to remember that this was a six hour race and I settled into a pace that I thought I could sustain. The whole second lap I rode in second place and felt good for the most part.

Toward the end of that lap, though, I started feeling twinges of cramps. My thought was that there was no way I would be able to hold it together for another 4.5 hours. I backed off my pace even more and tryed to drink and eat as much as i could get in. In not too long, the guy in third came rolling up behind me. He seemed to be holding a pretty good pace so I hung with him for the next lap or so. We caught up to first place because he had dropped his chain and I tried to hang with him for a bit. Third place dropped off and, a bit later, I dropped off the leader. while the cramping never went away, I managed to hold them back enough to keep moving but I couldnt push hard enough to stay with the leader.

At one point in the next 3 hours, while the placings seemed relatively sorted, the leader dropped his chain again and broke his skewer trying to fix it. Thats when I was turncoated by Dave Lyons whom I had driven to the race with and was dubbed as my “Pit Guy”. He decided to give up his wheel to the leader so he could carry on and beat me*.

Finishing up my 6th lap on the 10.5 mile course there was about 5 minutes left in the six hour window in which we could start another lap. At this point I was having a hard time even thinking about doing another lap. I saw that the leader had stopped and was not going to go out for another. I decided that I would stop as well and settle for second place on the day. He was, after all the stronger rider as the only time i could catch him was when his bike broke.

In the meanwhile, the rider who was then in third rolled on by quietly and put up another lap and grabbing first and bumping the two of us down a spot.

Overall I was happy with my performance concidering the lack of “training” that has been done. It was a great day in the saddle and a hell of a lot of fun.

*I don’t blame him for helping the guy out and would probably do the same if roles where switched.