Greenbrier AMBC

Greenbrier Challenge Mountain Bike Race

The past weekend was another exciting bike race involving mud, sweat, and gears (yeah,
pun was intended). This weekend was the Greenbrier Challenge Mountain Bike Race which was
the AMBC, MARC series, and MD State Championship Race. But since I wasn’t a part of any
of those series I went down just to race. Myself and Zach decided to turn the weekend into a fun filled camping weekend instead of just the normal hustle & bustle of a normal race weekend. With that said we loaded up the truck with two bikes, two kayaks, two dogs, and the recently acquired pop-up camper, and headed down to Greenbrier state park to enjoy the weekend with a little racing thrown in there. Friday we set up camp and chilled, then Saturday was some time paddling on the lake and a quick pre-ride of the course where I found out it was a short but relatively demanding course. Then Sunday was race day, three laps of a course that felt like one giant climb but an overall fun course. The race started promptly at 11:30am and right off the bat we hit the first climb and I tried to store some energy by taking on a conservative pace hoping to reel in the group as they blew up, but this plan never came to reality. From the start I didn’t feel as strong as I would have liked but I thought with a good consistent pace I would be able to make up time, and the plan was looking good as we made it close to the top of the first long climb. I started to catch the majority of the pack but once we reached the top of the hill I just could recover fast enough to keep up the pace and ended up falling back. I was able to pick off a couple riders off here and there but never made up the needed time. Through the first lap I was feeling okay and hoped the second would be an improvement but with a minor wreck and no real place or time gains I just tried to press on hoping for the best. I started the third lap and back into the climbs where my energy slowly drained. Me and another rider were dueling it out from the start of the third/last lap but on the last climb he got by me and I was unable to chase him down to the finish line, bummer. So I finished 11th place, even though I didn’t finish as well as I would have liked I felt that I put in a valiant effort and was pretty drained by the end. I feel that overall I raced pretty well but with warmer weather than I was used too and a course that left little time to recover, I just was a little out of my element and wasn’t able to finish as well as hoped. But on a happy note my bike was working fantastically compared to its finicky shifting during prior races and that was a much needed relief that could have happened sooner in the season. So the next question is, where to next?