Saturday was so nice I was trying to come up with a good Sunday ride for Billy and I. Some friends were going to race at the Fort so with the warm sunny temps it was a pretty attractive option. Plus Billy races for $10 and I follow him so it's cheap too. So I surprise him Saturday night with the invite to race Sunday. He was game as usual.
After being parked in total organization by the Michigan National Guard, we registered. At that time the 10 slots in his all children under 10 age group had been filled. So he was the 11th to register with nearly 2 hours to race time. The class ended up having close to 15 give or take and it was a healthy looking group with some real tall 10 year old girls which made the boys look pretty weak by comparison.
They were off like bats out of heck and Billy was bar to bar with another boy for front position to be first onto the single track. Not sure who actually got it, because I was hanging back with all the dads and waiting for the kids to work things out. Then we'd sift through and find our kid. All the dads were real cool and just glad to be there having fun with the kids.
From regular guys to elites just cooled off from their own race. Soon enough I had to start trying to catch Billy because if I let him go too long I wouldn't seem him till end of the race. So I worked my way through and me and another dad were commenting on the huge gap already forming. We came up to our sons mixing it up for lead position as they were already catching slower racers in the 11+ age group class. The other boy botched a pass on a hill and Billy ran it up and with a little advise from me ( 20 second sprint off the top ) and we never saw anyone from his class again.
Just a reminder, Billy just turned 9 so he's not exactly older than everyone else in the class. Anyhow we're catching all sorts of older kids boys and girls alike. Some hang on longer than others. It was nice at the fort with all the wide trail so you were never stacked up too long behind someone. We survived the 2 big hills early on and tried to recover in the flats to save up for hill attacks. And relax in the technical stuff and let skills do the talking. Thats pretty much the game plan. That and sprint from the hill tops for 20 seconds if you possibly can.
We started catching some clydes and one dude puking on the side of the trail. A decent water crossing and it was flat for what seemed like the final 2 miles. We tucked and spun till it hurt. And with a final sprint to the finish Billy scorched the 9 mile course in something like 55:48. Bettering 2nd place by about 8 minutes. There were some good sports in this race and several of the boys came over and shook his hand and they all exchanged some jokes and laughter. When called to the podium I'd instructed Billy to throw his hands in the air like they do on LeTour. It looked sweet~!
We ran into Steve T and he also made podium. Good job Steve!
Anyway thats what we did today.
ZILLA