Summer weather on Coast for ‘Classic!

Ryan Rides the Fence!

On Sunday May 5th 2013, Jeremy Warnicke, Dave Hill, and I headed down to Newport Oregon for the Coast Hills Classic mountain bike race. Last year we were very lucky to race in warm sunny weather at the beach during the race. As luck would have it, we hit the lottery again and raced in unseasonably hot weather on the Oregon coast in 80 plus degree heat. After applying about a gallon of sunscreen to my wintery white skin, I still managed to end the day with a sunburn.

Jeremy and I raced the single speed class while the elderly speedster Dave raced the cat 1 50 and over class. After a slow start off the line I was able to move up a couple positions on the uphill climb to the first trail. After being slowed a bit on the trail I was able to make a pass into fourth place as the trail hit a long gravel road section. As my legs and lungs were both yelling at me to slow down because of the high intensity start, I was only a few seconds behind the leaders and tried to charge up to them. I caught up to third place but this was as close to the leader as I would get. Third place and I battled back and forth for most of the first lap but all I could do was watch as the top three riders slowly rode away because my legs just didn’t have the snap they needed to go fast.

By the end of the first lap I was able to settle into what seemed like a more comfortable pace. I rode almost the entire second lap alone with the exception of passing a few cat 1 riders. As I could finally start to feel my legs slowly clean out I was putting in some time on third place and finished about thirty seconds back in fourth place and three minutes behind the leader. If the race had been three or four laps I felt like I would have possibly been able to catch up and battle for the lead. Jeremy pedaled to an 11th place finish in the single speed class and Dave won the cat 1 50 and over category.

The Coast Hills Classic crew did a bang up job for this event. There were many booths and bike company demo’s set up in the expo center. A local pizza company provided some delicious and very filling pizza for all the racers. A rock wall and kids race were set up for all the little ones. And I give a high five to the person who ordered up the sunny hot weather at the beach!

Thanks for reading!
Ryan Eisele