Cranky Monkey #3 - Quantico

Today was the Cranky Monkey series race at Quantico. I had been looking forward to this race because I had done a practice adventure race at Quantico a couple of years ago and did not recall too many technical features but did remember a lot of climbing. My recollections were somewhat accurate although the course was definitely more technical than I remembered. The day of my previous ride it rained the whole day and today it was quite dry (note sandy) so there was also a big difference from that perspective.

I don't know how many started the Sport 45+ race with me but the were quite a few Sport 35+ in front of us. The course went maybe a quarter mile on a dirt road before entering the woods but there was a lot of fire road trails so there was no issue concerning getting around folks. The laps were nine miles in length and well marked with mile markers along the way. There were quite a few log ramps, one of which was taller than the handlebars on my bike but negotiable all the same. I finished the first lap in around 57 minutes and started the second feeling really strong even though it was pretty warm. I was catching and passing quite a few of the Sport 35+ riders and I know I had picked off a couple of riders in my race. I had made a goal to finish in the top ten and I thought I had a pretty good chance to do it. However, luck had other ideas. Right after one of the fire roads turned onto a single track trail where there was a drop off to the bottom of a dry creek bed and a corresponding climb as I came up out of the creek bed I heard a horrible sound that sounded like a high pitched grinding noise. At first I thought it was coming up behind me but then I realized it was my bike so I looked down and saw a huge stick stuck in my rear derailleur. So I stopped and pulled it out hopped back on my bike and tried to downshift to climb the hill in front of me but the pedals wouldn't turn. The chain was in the smallest cog even though my shifter said it should be in the largest. I got off again and found that the stick had caused my rear derailleur cable to detach from the derailleur itself. So now I had to decide whether I should try to finish using just three gears, small cog in the back and three chain rings in the front but I realized I would have to walk up a lot of the hills which would not be fun. So I decided since I was close to the start/finish line I would ride back to get some help fixing the bike. The Bike Line guy was nice in that he tried to help get me back in the race but he ended up cutting some threads on my derailleur cable in order to get it to shift somewhat properly on the stand. I did not feel comfortable heading back out to ride with a bike that may or may not shift correctly for the rest of the lap so I chose to DNF. This is actually my first DNF ever at a MTB bike race. This was the last race of the Cranky Monkey series and although I did not do well, I fully intend to ride the series again next year.