After taking the remainder of the week off to rest my knee, it was time to make the 4 hour trek up to Minden, LA (near Shreveport) for round #2 of the LAXC race series: Racin' Caney, at the Caney Lakes Recreation Area.

Saturday
We drove up on Saturday morning to pre-ride the race course and pick up our registration packets. None of the riders in our group of 5 had ridden these trails before, so we headed out from the trailhead relatively blind. The only thing I knew about the course was there was a tough, technical, 1.8 mile long section named "Lost Woman" which the Cat 3 racers have to skip altogether due to the high degree of difficulty...yeehaw, can't wait!

I was also trying out something new on my bike this weekend...clipless pedals! I had been a platform guy ever since I started riding, and was known to throw out a PFL (platforms for life) chant from time to time last year, but I had decided to take the plunge to clipless due to the amount of XC racing I have planned. I know, I know...you're not supposed to change anything right before a race, but I actually really liked the feel of the clipless pedals out on the trail Saturday, so I decided to leave them on for Sunday. Oh yeah...I converted my front tire to tubeless on Friday night...another risky, yet brilliant move!

Sunday
Race day was upon us...its go time, kids! We got to the race about an hour early and got going on our pre-race preparations (eating GU, repeated trips to the toilet, stretching, warm up rides, etc.). I was feeling pretty good and decided to grab a front row starting spot for the first time.

The start consisted of an asphalt climb, followed by an asphalt descent before dropping into the singletrack...can you say "big ring"...? I didn't kill myself on the initial climb, and dropped into the singletrack around 6th place. The first couple miles of trail was very flat and fairly straight...roadies definitely had the advantage here. Luckily for me, my buddy Ben was the first rider into the singletrack and he purposely slowed down the pace to keep us from blowing up right away. I was very appreciative of him as I was feeling good and cruising along with the pack.

After the first mile or so, I looked back and noticed that I was actually the caboose on a 6 rider breakaway at the front of the pack, and shortly after that one of the riders in front of me slowed down and faded back into the pack. Talk about a confidence boost! My buddy Ben had lost the lead and was now the right in front of me. I noticed the new leader taking off as we were approaching the middle section of the course which was made up of rolling hills with decent climbs and fast downhills. I made the move around Ben into 4th overall, encouraging him to hold my wheel as I made a run to catch back up to the top 3.

After getting back on the wheel of the top 3, I noticed that the leader was not going to last much longer. He was pushing hard up the hills, but riding the brakes on the descents...DOH! After picking up on this, I would simply cruise up the hills and bomb the downhills to get right back on their wheels. Eventually I started doing some heckling to try and get in their heads..."you guys want to stop and get a photo taken? ...we've got a great back drop in that lake over there!" I'm thinking I should've kept my mouth shut because shortly my heckling the 2nd and 3rd place riders made a move on the leader, picking up the pace immensely. I followed them through, but couldn't quite hold their wheels as we were approaching Lost Woman.

Lost Woman was ROUGH...nothing like steep, technical hill repeats when riding as fast as possible! I watched the leaders slowly pull away in the first half of this section and concentrated on making it through each section clean. The final few climbs out of Lost Woman are especially difficult as the steepness goes up a notch, bringing out more tree roots and loose soil. The 2nd place rider was having trouble in this area, allowing me to catch his wheel again. During the final climb out of the section he had to get off and push up the hill...luckily I was able to squeak around him and make it up the climb and out of the section clean.

After Lost Woman, the course dumped us out onto path crossing the lake's dam before returning to the start/finish line. I got passed back to 3rd on the dam as I was eating my GU packet and had about a 10 second gap to make up before I was back in hammer mode. I caught back up to 2nd place within the first mile of the 2nd lap and we rode through the flat section together (gotta love drafting).

The course had a handful of water crossings for us to negotiate, which were becoming quite muddy by our 2nd lap. One crossing in particular was approximately 20ft long and extra muddy underneath the water. My bottom bracket felt gritty for about a minute after crossing this thing which made me very nervous, but eventually it went away and felt smooth again. Turns out that one of my bottom bracket bearings got cocked sideways and wasn't spinning freely, but I had no idea at this point...pedal pedal PEDAL!!!

Once again, the 2nd place rider pulled out a lead on me in the rolling hills of the middle section of course. My game plan was to save my energy for Lost Woman and make a run at him at the end of the race after seeing his weakness on the first lap. We passed some of the singlespeed riders before Lost Woman, and it was obvious that they were not very excited about climbing those hills again!

I was probably about 30 seconds out of 2nd place when entering Lost Woman and immediately picked up my pace. Unfortunately, I blew myself up on the first couple climbs, forgot to downshift for a steep climb after an extended descent, and ran out of steam at the bottom of the hill before I could get into a lower gear...all of this, combined with it being my 2nd ride on clipless pedals resulted in me falling over on my side, still clipped in, flopping around like a fish out of water trying to get back up! I had a singlespeed guy right behind me and I didn't want to ruin his momentum for the climb, so I sprinted to the top of the hill and hopped back on my bike. That'll get the blood flowing!

After my silly tipover, I got a 2nd wind and was able to really start hammering on the climbs again. By the time I reached the end of the section I was once again right there on the back wheel of 2nd place. Unfortunately he cleaned the climbs on the way out of Lost Woman and onto the dam. I was right on his back wheel, but he was able to push a bigger gear than me right away and got a bit of a gap again. I finally decided that it was now or never, upshifted and pedaled as hard as I could to start making up ground. I was right on his back wheel as we rounded the corner towards the finish line but he was able to keep me at bay. Third place...I'll take it! Turns out the 1st place finisher is 15 and the 2nd place finisher is 17...don't they have a Juniors class down here!?

My buddy Ben ended up 30 seconds back in 4th place, and my other buddy (named Ben as well) broke his chain halfway through the 2nd lap and had to bypass his derailleur to create a full suspension singlespeed with what little chain he had left. All in all, it was a successful race weekend and I had a ton of fun (doesn't hurt getting to stand up on that podium!)