SERC/US Cup East #5--Ducktown, Tennessee (5/15/11) AKA "My Best Race Ever!!" (Part 1)

Last weekend the Mace family traveled to Ducktown, Tennesee for the 5th race of the SERC/US Cup East series. (It's hard to believe we're already half way done.) We knew from friends who had raced there before that the course was going to be a tough one, so we tried to do a little extra preparation the week before.



During the week, I got to go on my first 28-mile group road ride with people from Ocala Bicycle Center. It was a little bit harder than I thought it was going to be, because it made me nervous riding right on someone's wheel, but my dad, and our friend Jane coached me through it and said I did pretty well for my first time. I'm hoping that my dad is right when he says that doing the road rides will make me stronger on the mountain bike and I'm planning to keep doing at least one a week from now on.



Before the dam opened



We got to the trail in Ducktown on Saturday for a pre-ride. The park was really cool, with the Ocoee River running right along the side of it. When we got there, the river was really low and people were walking around in it and sitting on some of rocks in the middle.



After the dam opened



While we were unloading our bikes, a siren went off and an announcement was made that the water level would be rising fast and everyone should get to safety. A minute or so later, a huge rush of water came down the river. One of the giant rocks that stuck up in the middle (and was about as big as the goneriding trailer) was all of a sudden under water. It was amazing!! What started out as a trickle of water in a creek bed turned into a raging river in just a few moments.

Then, about 5 minutes later, the first of the white water rafts came by and the river stayed busy with kayaks and rafts all day. We talked about going rafting after our pre-ride, especially since it was my brother's 13th birthday and he really wanted to, but you had to be 12 to go,and I'm not even officially 11 yet, so we weren't able to do it this time. Bummer! :-(

The reason why you have to be 12 to raft here

Now back to mountain biking....

The mountain bike course turned out to be every bit as hard as we were told it would be. Right from the start, it went uphill (and it was steep too). It continued to go up for about a mile before there was a tiny little break and then it went uphill again for another mile. Just when I thought I was going to die, we made a sharp left turn and it was all downhill for a little while; but not a gradual downhill, a really fast, rocky, rooty downhill. After that, it was about 4 miles of ups and downs (mostly ups) until we got to a gravel road. Then it was super fast downhill on the gravel road for quite a while, before we got to the Thunder Rock Express, which is a steep, difficult downhill single-track. When we came out of Thunder Rock, there was about a mile and a half of riding along an asphalt road (again, more uphill), over a bridge, and to the finish line. I guess it was a good thing I did some road riding during the week.

This race had so many interesting things to share that I'm going to have to break in up into two different posts. Check out part 2 for the scoop on the actual races.