(written 03/95)
Wowwee! My first Race! Was I excited or what? I was getting ready for my first race. Now the only question is where would it be. I really wanted to go to the Specialized Cactus Cup, but Monterey was closer. The Classic took place during the 24-26 of March. I met two of my buddies there, one who is a Expert/Sport racer and the other a beginner like me. We got there on Saturday afternoon and we went to check in for the race and check out the sales booths there; man what pandemonium. Then we got down to business and went to ride the course. Immediately, Steve, the Expert/Sport racer, broke his brake cable and went back the sales area to try to find a replacement. Mike and I continued on, we knew Steve would be able to catch up to us. We met a lot of people out there on the trail who were getting ready to ride. Some of the course was not really clear, there were three different courses for different levels of racers, all muddy. So we kind of just muddled along on the course, noting places that would be hard and places that would be easy. I knew that this was going to be hard. I'm one of those riders that can easily go the distance, its just that I always go in a group. That means every time we stop to take a quick breather, we end up shooting the shit for about ten minutes; which is good, I like riding that way. However, this was 12 miles straight, no long rests, all out. Well, afterward we looked around the booths some more, wishing we had brought more money. That night we went into town for dinner and to find and ATM, it was a successful venture. Man, if we ever got mugged the mugger would've been in good shape, we had about $300 on us each. Later that night we preped our bikes and prepared ourselves by horsing around. Finally, around 12:00 we climbed into our tent and went to sleep.
7:30, and we were out of bed and getting nervous. Steve's race was at 8:30, but ours wasn't until 9:25. So we had some breakfast and powerbars and sat around waiting. At around 9:00 Mike and I went on a warm up ride and moseyed on out to the starting line. Man, you think that you have a nice bike, shit wait till you get on the line. I could pay my college tuition with the bikes that were out there. You see people on the latest full suspension bikes, exotic frame materials, and Tioga Disc Drives; and this is in the beginners race! I was just drooling over some of the bikes there, but I couldn't help but wonder who here were actually great riders. Everyone began talking with everyone else, and the mood was light. Before we knew it we were at the starting line and... we were off!
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