Well, I dusted off the ol’ Soul Cycles Matador and did a downhill race on it last weekend. All in all it went very well. There were some pretty fast kids out there…yes I said kids (lol). The older I get it seems like the younger and faster the racers get. But no matter, I’ll still bang bars with anyone who chooses to race against me.
It was best out of 2 runs on a short explosive course. The first part had you zigzag through a series of trees, that if you weren’t careful your bars could clip very easily. Once through this section it dumped you out into a hard right onto the fire road. This is where you could open it up but you needed to be very careful because it basically ended into a hard 90 degree left turn into the woods.
From there it was a matter of making sure you had good cornering skills because the course basically had you go through a series of turns. The key here was to dive into a turn and exploding out of it with everything you had and making sure you didn’t blow the turn (which I actually did both times).
About half way in there was a small double that landed you into a couple bermed turns. From there was a double rock drop leading to a very tricky right 180 degree turn down a 3 foot drop then again a 2 ft drop which was off camber. This was definitely the trickiest part of the course. Quite a few racers mis-judged that turned and it bit them in the ass. The key here was to go at it real slow. This is where you truly make up the time. Then from there it was an off camber rocky straight towards the end of the course that had 2 jumps at the end.
I definitely tested the limits of my new WTB tires. My tire choice for this race was a WTB Prowler MX 2.5 for the front and a WTB Prowler SS 2.3 for the rear. What a great combination that was. The tires were very predictable and I knew how far to push them.
So back to the race…my first run was okay. I felt fast but definitely not as fast as I should’ve been. Maybe had to do with lack of sleep, lack of food in my stomach, or maybe the fact that my drive-train wasn’t working at all (which was my fault). My chain guide was not working as it should which resulted in an extreme rubbing, so much so that you couldn’t turn them freely without putting a ton of pressure on them. A hammer and some spacers were in order to get the thing to operate enough to do my race.
My second run was better than the first. I was able to knock off 3 to 4 seconds off my run. Top 5 in the Elite-A category wasn’t too bad I figure. I was only 3 to 4 seconds off of first place. I felt good about that.
It was best out of 2 runs on a short explosive course. The first part had you zigzag through a series of trees, that if you weren’t careful your bars could clip very easily. Once through this section it dumped you out into a hard right onto the fire road. This is where you could open it up but you needed to be very careful because it basically ended into a hard 90 degree left turn into the woods.
From there it was a matter of making sure you had good cornering skills because the course basically had you go through a series of turns. The key here was to dive into a turn and exploding out of it with everything you had and making sure you didn’t blow the turn (which I actually did both times).
About half way in there was a small double that landed you into a couple bermed turns. From there was a double rock drop leading to a very tricky right 180 degree turn down a 3 foot drop then again a 2 ft drop which was off camber. This was definitely the trickiest part of the course. Quite a few racers mis-judged that turned and it bit them in the ass. The key here was to go at it real slow. This is where you truly make up the time. Then from there it was an off camber rocky straight towards the end of the course that had 2 jumps at the end.
I definitely tested the limits of my new WTB tires. My tire choice for this race was a WTB Prowler MX 2.5 for the front and a WTB Prowler SS 2.3 for the rear. What a great combination that was. The tires were very predictable and I knew how far to push them.
So back to the race…my first run was okay. I felt fast but definitely not as fast as I should’ve been. Maybe had to do with lack of sleep, lack of food in my stomach, or maybe the fact that my drive-train wasn’t working at all (which was my fault). My chain guide was not working as it should which resulted in an extreme rubbing, so much so that you couldn’t turn them freely without putting a ton of pressure on them. A hammer and some spacers were in order to get the thing to operate enough to do my race.
My second run was better than the first. I was able to knock off 3 to 4 seconds off my run. Top 5 in the Elite-A category wasn’t too bad I figure. I was only 3 to 4 seconds off of first place. I felt good about that.
So with that, I will definitely be ready for the next race with bells on (and with a working chain guide). I do have a couple pics from it that I will upload soon.
