My soul for a nemesis...

Any good movie hero has an equally cunning nemesis... Rocky had them, he had Mr. T, that blonde Russian guy, and who can remember what else... Austin Powers had Dr. Evil, Batman had the joker and all the others, even the real Slim Shady had a few, but I digress...

When I worked at HP, I had the perfect nemesis, his name was Derrick... Every ride we did Derrick would go out and try to see if he was faster than me. Sometimes it was stressful, most times it was a blast, but regardless it pushed me to new limits in all realms. When our company decided to try the latest MBA buzzword and "outsource", totally shitting on all of their high-level employees, I gave them a big F-U and moved on to greener pastures, but I lost my nemesis... These days everyone I ride with is either MUCH faster or a good deal slower, it's strange to not have that motivation of someone always gunning for you...

But the July 19 and 20 weekend saw the Winter Park double header weekend. The Valley Point to Point on Saturday and the Super Downhill on Sunday. I knew the Valley Point to Point would be the usual suffering, riding my butt off to finish mid-pack, if I was lucky. The first climb started on the oh-so-fun hill climb road, the Winter Park organizers seem to really love this steep widowmaker. I was able to hold only one dude off until the singletrack on the hill climb road, but once we hit the downhill it was what dreams are made of and all the pain seemed to melt away.

Throughout the race a nemesis appeared... to this day I almost think I was dreaming it... Each time I would be slogging uphill I'd come around the corner to find him still on his bike, but stopped hanging on to a tree, he'd take off as soon as I got up to him... I saw him at least a dozen times in the two-hour race. Finally, in the last 3 or so baby-head filled miles (word for rocks in the trail the size of baby heads) I reasoned that my nemesis was in my age group and I needed to catch him as he had my placing. But my nemesis was good, he turned the afterburners on and try as I could, I could not catch him. The rocks take their toll on your back, but I was determined to push through it and catch this guy, gritting my teeth at the pain and pushing as hard as I could. It was to no avail, he was so smooth through the rocks that I didn't have a chance. After the race I congratulated him and found out he wasn't even in my category, but I was thankful for the rabbit to chase.

Sunday came around and it was Super Downhill time. Needless to say I was awful nervous, thinking of some gung-ho, armor-plated downhillers flying down the course wasn't reassuring. We were given an hour or so window to pre-ride the course and I thought I'd take advantage of it. Started out with Erik and the girls and I thought I'd go slow just to see the whole course. Erik had his "wife's" Yeti so he was set up to fly. He started going fast and all thoughts of going slow to memorize parts of the course went out the window, but he still lost me. I went over a small jump, landed it a little wrong, and pinch flatted my front tire. The course marshall urgently told me the Pros were starting in 10 minutes and I needed to get going. Changed the tube as fast as I could and decided to hit the road and skip the rest of the course to avoid getting in anyone's way. Plus, my legs were feeling shot from the previous day's race and I really didn't feel like riding.

So I get up to the start, normally my beginner 35-39 category has anywhere from 15 to 65 guys in it, it's huge. But this race had poor turnout so they were going beginner 35-infinity for the start, that made about 20 or so of us starting at once. We had to run to our bikes and then do a quarter-mile uphill climb before going downhill, I knew that was going to hurt. As usual, most of the people passed me. Out of the gate I stayed ahead of two guys and started to catch another. He was in the full downhill getup and I was worried that even once I got past him, he'd catch me on the downhill. As I came beside him he started to surge to keep ahead of me and I knew it was over for him, I tried to put as much time on him as I could before we hit the downhill.

When I hit the downhill I was amazed at what I saw, or actually didn't see, everyone was gone, out of sight. In a way this made me happy, now I got to cruise down at my own pace rather that sitting on my brakes getting frustrated at someone. It wasn't long though before I caught the first guy and then the two of us caught another. The latter guy knew he was slower and tried to let us pass, he hit a tree though and flipped over backwards, nearly taking us out. The first guy though was going to make me work to pass him, the trail really didn't have very good passing spots and I had to sit behind him for quite awhile. What was even worse was most of the passing spots were on the uphills and I didn't have any short-term power in me due to the day before, so he'd put time on me again there and I'd have to make it up on the next downhill.

But this made me smile a bigger smile than I'd had in a long time. This guy was my nemesis, he was making me work my butt off to get by him. Sure, I could have made some good time on the downhills, but I probably would have lost it lollygagging on the uphills. From how fast I caught him at the start, I knew he was having the ride of his life trying to hold me off on the downhills, and we were sweeping through the trees fast, just inches separating his rear tire and my front. I passed the spot where I flatted on the pre-ride and it was like a sigh of relief, I made it past there, but now everything was unknown.

We hit the road and the slight uphill section. I knew before that I hated this uphill and would have grannied it in a normal race, but I left it in the middle ring and gave it all I had to keep up with my nemesis. We caught one guy walking, he saw us and tried to get back on to ride, but he was shattered, and promptly walked again, we passed 4 or 5 people here. As we busted out of the trees I saw a flat, very wide section and knew that if I was going to get by this guy it had to be here, I had been sitting behind him for nearly the entire course. My legs felt like someone had lit the afterburners and the acceleration that came out of them to get by the guy almost scared me. After getting past him I hit a series of 3 or 4 jumps. I didn't know they were there because I hadn't pre-rode this far, but they were wild. I caught pretty good air hitting the first one at full speed, the same for the second... Then the last one, oh no, it's really loose and I can't get a direct approach, scrub the brakes, scrub the brakes, SCRUB the BRAKES, it's not working, point the handlebars and hope for the best, whoosh, wow... As I hit the last switchback I look back and don't see my nemesis anywhere, so I sit up and roll through the finish. To be honest, it was sort of a buzzkill, to have the excitement meter pegged the whole race and then just roll through the finish was almost sad. Afterwords I congratulated my nemesis and thanked him for making it such a fun race. He told me that after I passed him he felt a big feeling of relief because he looked back, saw no one, and thought to himself that finally he could ride at his own pace. He pushed me on the uphills and I pushed him on the downs, a true nemesis.

I later found out that out of the 20+ guys I started with, only 3 were in my specific age group, so I pulled in second. My nemesis wasn't even in my age group. So now, it begs the question, does second really count if only 3 people are in your category?

Missed having Mike there, don't know when his return to the dirt will be, but it would have been awesome to see what he could have done on the downhill race. Perhaps the coolest thing of the day was Brett's experience. He tried to let someone pass, they made contact, caused him to crash, and Brett lost his bike computer. Afterwords he was talking about it, the guy overheard him, apologized and gave him 40 bucks to buy a new one, now that is cool...