Day three at the Transylvania epic stage race was a completely new format to me. The entire stage was enduro format, which means that there were 5 timed downhill segments, all of which were very short (2-6 minutes each). We had to ride to the start of each segment under our own power, but we're able to do so at a our own relaxed pace.
The name of the game for this stage was 'survive'. Looking at last year's times the total accumulated racing time was roughly 20 minutes- so not enough time to really make a big dent in the overall standings, but plenty of of opportunity to lose time if you crash or have a mechanical. I'm here to make it through the whole week, so gunning for the downhill segments isn't something I'm after. Plus this is a stage where a lot of riders will switch out their cross country race bikes for a beefier longer travel all mountain bike, I didn't have one so even more reason to preserve my equipment. The scalpel 29er has been awesome so far, but I didn't want to push my luck.
I was pretty nervous about the enduro stage, mainly worried about how technical the descents would be. But overall, the whole day was actually really fun. It gave me a chance to ride with Chris Cyr, John Burns, and Matt Williams throughout the day. We rode light endurance pace on the climbs since none of us really likes stopping and waiting all that much, and then we were able to regroup at the end of the segments and roll on.
There were no major mechanicals for us, although Matt had a couple of flats. Even though his second flat came towards the end of segment 5 which required a fair amount of pedaling, he still faired pretty well. The trails were awesome, not nearly as crazy as I expected, and a lot of me we're repeats of trail from wilderness 101 which I've done the past two years. The Wildcat trail on segment 4 was probably the most technical as we were dropping into a stream bed towards the bottom. It was also one of the few places on course were there was actually a crowd watching riders.
Next stage is a longer day in terms of mileage, 43 miles heading up to Coburn where we will hit more of the classic riding that is part of the wilderness 101 race- sand mountain, fishermans trail and the railroad tunnel. There is a lot of dirt road riding in this stage so it should be fairly fast. The key here will be to not get caught riding alone. Although, we have thunderstorms rolling through right now at 7:30 with start time only two hours away. Pace lining and drafting off of someone's wheel on dirt roads with mud getting thrown up for 3 hours I'm sure is going to be a good time. But maybe, just maybe, with wet conditions making the trails that much more technical will equal an advantage for me? I doubt ill make up my nearly 2 hour deficit in the GC but this could end up being an okay day. I'll send out another update once I get back and get all of the grit cleaned out of my face!
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