MMBA #2 Clifford Park

Historically, Clifford Park is a race that rides me hard and puts me away wet. It is so technical that it is a true test of man and machine. Of this year's 168 starters, a full 22% bailed before the end of the race, a pretty high percentage given that there is almost no climbing in the race, just unrelenting physical challenges in the form of shards of broken granite, giant boulders, g-outs etc. Personally, I've never dropped out of this race but I have ALWAYS wanted to.


To try and limit my level of suck in the race the fam and I headed down the day before for some zoo/fair time followed by me riding a couple of laps on the race course. During my pre-ride laps I found myself actually enjoying most of the trail, sure there were parts that made you want to ride off the nearest cliff (never far away) and end it all quickly but overall, I was feeling pretty good. I was coming off a rest week (and according to my training plan, the worst week in the 12 week block to race) so I had no idea how the legs would react to the punishment but at least I could expect to ride the sections well if not fast.


On race day, I did my pre-ride and realized that I hadn't considered on fairly large element for the race. It was warm and VERY freakin humid and I had stupidly not brought my endurolytes so my fueling plan was going to be key to having a good race.


The race is part of two race series, the Maine Mountain Bike Association series and the New England Championship Series so the pool of talent was considerable despite there being a NORBA race in the region on the same day.


At race time, the organizers announced that the elites would be going out first followed by expert senior 1 and single speed followed by my class, expert senior 2. I was bummed because I really wanted to duke it out with the 10 elites in the days field plus I really didn't want to have to work my way through the s1 and ss class going out two minutes before us.


At the start four of us got off the front but on the first tech climb, one of the guys who gunned it from the start slowed quickly, fell off his bike and forced us all to dismount. In the process, on guy (Dylan) got around and had open air while the rest of us got stuck behind someone who could obviously sprint but had no staying power or tech skills. I was stuck behind this dude for a couple more minutes (the first 2/3 of the course is very tight singletrack with little opportunity for passing) and when I finally did get by, Dylan was gone. Later in the lap, I caught a glimpse of Dylan as we crossed on seperate parts of the trail. I estimated he had roughly 1- 1 1/2 minute lead on me so I dug in and tried to close the gap by riding the tech sections as smoothly as possible, chugging Heed on the short smooth sections and hammering when I could.

At the end of the first lap I hadn't caught another glimpse of Dylan and because of the classes that started before us no-one knew who was in what position in which class so I just put my head down and settled into a comfortable pace that I felt I could maintain. This lap saw me catching a lot of the earlier starters but thankfully I seemed to catch most of them in the few open sections and not in the tight singletrack so lost time was minimized. 2/3's of the way through the lap I once again caught of a glimpse of Dylan. He was roughly 30 seconds up at this point so I knew I was on the right track.

lapping through after lap two. somehow marcy took this pic while holding a bottle out for me AND watching brynna.

As I lapped through to begin my third lap, Marcy told me that Adam (leader of the expert senior 1 race that headed out 2 minutes before us) was 30 seconds up. I knew that Adam was riding with Dylan (I had seen them together earlier in the lap) so I had a clear goal ahead. Catch the two of them before the end of the lap so that I could make a move on the final lap.



About a third of the way into the lap I caught up to Adam and Dylan who seemed to be chatting a bit and were unaware that I was behind them. On a challenging uphill, Dylan bobbled and I motored right on by the two of them in a washed out creek bed that was full of leaves. I had tried the line in my pre-rides and determined that it was unrideable but somehow the motivation of the lead kept me on my bike and I cruised on past. Initially Dylan didn't respond to me passing and I opened up a small gap. Before long though he kicked it and and quickly reeled me back in.



For the next lap I kept my pace with Dylan right behind and tried to figure out a plan. There was no question in my mind that he was the stronger rider but I seemed to have a slight advantage in the tech stuff so I decided to try to keep ahead of him and hope for a bobble on his part in the tech stuff to allow me to open a gap. That did happen several times but after each bobble he'd quickly catch back on because I didn't have the gas to really open it up. Near the end of the final lap when we entered the longest double track section Dylan attacked. I tried to grab his wheel but I had nothing left in the tank and had to watch him ride away and he ended up putting a whopping 30 seconds into me in the final two minutes of the race so I was relegated to 2nd place on the day.



One concellation was that near the end of the lap I caught up to Wheels (who was racing in the Elite class) so it was nice to finally finish ahead of him. It doesn't happen often so I'm going to relish it.



From what I heard after the race, Michael Patrick and Andrew Freye were really duking it out for the Elite win with Michael taking advantage of some lapped traffic to finally pull away for a narrow victory. Congrats to both!

Also, a major thank you has to go out to Marcy and Brynna. To Marcy for single handedly taking pictures, handing bottles, giving splits and watching Brynna. And to Brynna for somehow being at the race venue for 5+ hours and still managing to hold her shit together, as a matter of fact, she didn't want to leave and we had to bribe her with the beach!

Freye Guy at the start.

Wheels rolling through. Sorry it's so dark.

Scott and Bill after surviving the Sport race.