2016 Hill Country Challenge Mountain Bike Race - Flat Rock Ranch Race #3

My Cat2 40-49 mountain bike race video from the 2016 Hill Country Mountain Bike Challenge held at Flat Rock Ranch near Comfort, Texas. The 3rd race of the Texas state 2016 series. After flatting out at Flat Creek Crossing, I was a little dejected on racing. I kept my head up and kept prepping for the Flat Rock Ranch race. I was all kinds of spaced out the week of the race due to various life reasons. I made it out to the venue, but not without forgetting SO MANY things! Most of all, I forgot my sleeping pad so camping out the night prior. I also forgot my HR monitor, my battery in my power meter died, I didn't bring anything to start a fire in my cooker, forgot any kind of eating utensils... yeesh... At any rate, Comfort is often a surprisingly decent race for me and I had hopes of finishing well. My strategy for this one was to get in with the leaders and ride as long as I could. Up the first climb, I was surprised to find I was able to hang in there decently well. I fully expected Rolando to really fly up the initial climb and leave me with a lot of reeling in to do. He and I battled it out for the rest of the lap, where he again got ahead of me and started putting some time on me heading up the next big climb of the race. After I had again reeled him in about halfway up the climb, I knew that I had a shot. I just had to keep him within eye shot by the time we hit the top as I fully expected I could catch and pass him on the descent. This played out perfectly, with him having about 20 seconds on me at the top. At that point, the course was in my favor with fast, technical downhill to finish. I caught up with Rolando with a bit more to go to finish. I tailed him until my opening, which I jumped on and shredded it the rest of the way to finish, crossing the line in 2nd place! I was stoked to be able to get a 2nd place finish. Marc still finished 90 seconds ahead of me, so I still have some work to do to try to close that gap. The final showdown, and opportunity for a (dare I say it?) win will be in 2 weeks at Pace Bend. That will be the last course that favors me, and will also be the last possible chance for me in Cat2. Once I move up to Cat1, I will be relegated to mid pack obscurity, ha! Dashware used for gauges/HUD: http://www.dashware.net Strava - https://www.strava.com/activities/522566357