Racing with the New BMX Pedals

The pedals and ride proved out to work for me yesterday at the Sabertooth Duathlon at Natural Bridge Caverns. 

The race started in the "belly" of the cave as a time trial start.  You had to climb out of the cave as part of the first two mile run.  Then you proceeded to the bike.  There were four duathlons going on all at the same time, three road races and one off-road (the one I chose). 

The bike couse was tough.  It was rocky, full of rotting tree limbs and bark (aka unprocessed mulch), and hills.  I had been doing quite a bit of practicing in Garland, but was not real prepared for this course.  While portions of the trail were jeep trails, much of it was a fresh cut, technical nightmare (for me).  Rock after rock, rut after rut, more "mulch" sucking the life out of my tires...  There were two technical (extremely rocky) decents that I just walked down.  Then of course, what goes down, must also go up; so this race director decided to pick the toughest climbs possible.

By the second climb, my rear derailer was having issues, leaving me no choice but to walk it up that hill.  The remaining few miles were fortunately on a dirt road.  I quit shifting my rear derailer to try to keep the cassette in tact enough to make it back to T2, using only my front derailer to address changes in terrain.

Entering T2, my son walked up and said he caught a stick in his rear wheel that ended up tearing up is rear derailer, and had walked his bike in.  He ended up running the second run for the heck of it.

Based on the technical difficulty of the course, I was really glad I had my BMX pedals.  I didn't have any major falls as a result, and where I did have to walk, it was easier with running shoes on that the cleated shoes.   Leading me to a first in age group win.  I am going to continue to use my BMX pedals.

I recommend trying out this race if you want to test your off-road biking skills.

Train safe!