Tumbling Creek MTB Race Report

By Stephanie Rosiak

Yesterday was the 10th Annual Tumbling Creek MTB race put on by SORBA. I can count on both hands how many times I've gone mountain biking so I signed up for the Beginner Division Age 30-39. My first mountain bike race ever and hopefully not the last!

The race was out at Gainesville College. From what I had heard, the course was fast, flat, and fun! Up until my actual race, I had not seen or ridden the course due to a Cross Country Meet that used the course last weekend, and the rain on Friday kept us off of it on Saturday.

Leading up to my race start I was of course a bundle of nerves. I'm still so new at this moutain biking thing, I just wanted to get my two laps over with, with hopefully no crashes. In my age group, it was just me and another girl. She has been mountain biking for years but has never raced before, so she went into the Beginner division. She was really nice so I didn't mind her kicking my ass.

At the start we stayed together, with her in front. About a quarter of the way in, I hit a root at a bad angle on a climb and had to get out of my pedals so I wouldn't fall over. I couldn't get started again, so I jumped off and finished running up the hill. By the time I got up there, my competition was gone! Dammit!

There were a couple of tricky tight turns, some bridges, a couple of fairly big dips which I chose to get off of my bike and run up so I wouldn't make an ass out of myself flipping over on. ;-) But for the most part, everyone was right, the course wasn't too technical, it was fast and it was FUN!

On my second lap, after I finally caught my breath, I was starting to feel better and was a little more confident now that I had ridden it and not wrecked. I actually caught one of the beginner men who started off a couple of minutes ahead of us, and lapped 4 First Timers that had started a couple of minutes behind us. I was stoked!

Although I've placed in a couple of Sprint Tri's in the past, they never had a podium that you stood up on. This was my first time on an actual podium. I got 2nd place out of 2. Although it was only two of us up there, it still felt awesome! I had a blast!

L'Steph