Race report – Lemurian Classic XC Race. The race was in Redding, CA and took place on May 10th.
Race: Lemurian Classic XC Race – Expert 35-44
Racers: Gianluca Ambrogio (Reporter), 8th place; Akos Salga, 7th place.
Course: 27 miles of mostly single tracks and few sections of fire roads
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/14441067045
Event Recap: Because of a heat wave, the race has been shortened to 27miles instead of 29 avoiding the last long climb and the starting time moved up by 1 hour with the new start for our category at 8am. We drove to Redding on Friday evening and went straight to the packet pickup after a very long 4.5 hours drive. The morning of the race we were up at 5am, had breakfast and at 6.45am we were already warming up, ready for a day on the trails.
After a very scenic start of the race and a hard 20min effort, I found myself with the first group of riders at the top of the first climb, Akos just behind me by about 1 minute. After a very technical and long descent we went off by a pretty much flat section of a couple of miles where we were able to hydrate and take a gel before the next climb. We knew before starting the race that this climbing was not going to be easy with about 6 minutes of full efforts on a very steep climb (avg 17%). This has been decisive enough to lose contact with the first group and accumulate about 50 seconds from them. After the climb I tried to push harder to regain contact but I had probably given too much and I almost felt empty. I was then caught by Akos and his group and at this point we started feeling the heat coming among us. It was about 35° C and we were just about halfway through the race. Decided to settle the pace and ride together the next sections until we separated because a rock cut the sidewall of my front tire. After losing a couple of minutes I went back on the bike knowing that there wasn’t much I could do until the end. Finished 8th 30sec after Akos and 11 minutes to the first of our category.
Overall a great event, very well organized and a very nice venue that deserves more explorations. To the next year with more experience and better knowledge of the course.