The second annual Tour de King took place last weekend and like the year before marked the end of my racing season. Good weather is becoming rarer by the week and it'll be less time than you think before those once hard and dry trails I spent an entire summer on, will be covered in snow. Thankfully last Sunday was one of those good days which was in stark contrast to the Tour de King of 2011.I wouldn't say it was hot ... certainly not by comparison to the best of the summer months and had the temperatures been what they were for one ride in the middle of July we'd have complained about how cold it was, but for the last day of September it was a comfortable 15 degrees Celsius. Good enough for shorts though I went with a long sleeve top that by the halfway point I wished I could shed but had no conceivable way of doing so.
The Tour de King is a 50 kilometer -- though closer to 40 than 50 kilometers -- race through the township of King, just north of the Greater Toronto Area. It's a point-to-point race over roads, fire roads and single track, meaning that upon finishing you either take a bus back to your car at the start or leave your car at the finish and have a friend give you a ride to the beginning. The final option is to ride back to the start when you finish, which seems well and good given it would still only be a 65km ride all in, but you're never in any mood to traipse along the road back to the start after ploughing through the back roads and single tracks of King for the past two hours.
This year I went with the cars-at-either-end option which was handy though would have been even more handy had the weather been like it was in 2011. Last year the race took place in one of the coldest days of the later half of the year and that includes days in November and December when temperatures were unusually mild. It was just four degrees and about half way through it started to pour. Everyone arrived at the finish shivering before huddling together at picnic tables for their burger and beer while waiting for the bus ride back to the start. To get an idea of how much worse the conditions where (or of how fitter I am this year!) my finishing time in 2012 was 38 minutes, 24 seconds faster albeit with a course going in the opposite direction but one with more climbing in it. Yes, the conditions were miserable in 2011 though I more than enjoyed the racing part itself and entered again fully hopeful the weather would prove to be better.
It was better to the point that when I finished, the barbecue area was placed nicely in a sun spot that I went looking for a shaded area to sit. No free beer this year however.
The race itself was tough. I had done nowhere near the riding I had earlier in the season and so came into it with the kind of fitness I had way back when the season began. I got around okay, but the pace from the beginning was high for the mass start race. The moment the neutral car pulled out of the way the race was lined out along the back roads. It's been a long time since I was involved in a road race and it's been a year to this event that I was racing a mountain bike on the roads, though unlike the year before where the first half a dozen kilometers were on single track trails with the course coming in the opposite direction, there were lots of road early on in 2012. The pace was hot and I tried too hard to stay with it and when we hit the first single track -- single track that was included last year but which I hadn't planned for this year as it wasn't on the map -- I blew up. I sat up, paced myself better and spent the rest of the day in and out of small groups along road stretches and doing my own thing in the single tracks.
That's the unique thing about the Tour de King as a mountain bike race with some of it on the road and some of it on trails. The race spreads out quickly and you form little groups for a while before pacing yourself out the back or up ahead. Unlike a road race where you know there might be 20km of road to the finish, it's much different in the Tour de King. In that 20km you have to factor in the single track from which 5km of that is a different ball game to 5km on the road. If you don't pace yourself for it, you'll soon know about it.
All this amounts to a good challenge, but a lot of fun and a great end of season event. I wish I had been a little fitter than I was, but I didn't suffer to the point of misery ... just enough to know I had a good workout. And at least I was warm and dry.
Last year I entered what is known as the 'Clydesdale' category for those weighing over 200lbs. I didn't go for that this year as having lost a lot of weight since the end of last year I've been racing at times just under 200lbs. As it turns out though, come the time of the race I was probably a hare over 200lbs and could have entered that category. I kicked myself for not doing so when I seen the results sheet and noticed that with my finishing time of 1 hour, 9 minutes, 40 seconds I would have finished second in the 'Clydesdale' had I went for it. Pretty sure in full gear I'd have passed the post-race weigh-in.
Derek Zandstra, he of recent participation in the mountain bike World championships put in the fastest time of 1 hour, 29 minutes, 59 seconds, showing the golf in class to weekend warriors like myself who trailed in just the 39 minutes, 41 seconds after him. He started in the first wave, ten minutes ahead of me, but I can't use that as an excuse as the times were offset correctly. Suffice to say Zandstra had probably time to finish, grab a quick burger and ride back to the start if it so pleased him before I came over the line.
My time placed me 23rd of 59 in the 30-39 class, 25 minutes down on the winner. There's always next year to bridge such a gape, though if I don't cut out the beer and junk food too much, maybe I'll be able to squeeze into the Clydesdale and pick up a podium finish!
