Race Reflections — 2023 Mountain Man Biathlon
Over the past year, I’ve discovered a love for mountain biking. But coming from road cycling and road racing, I couldn’t resist the urge to try mountain bike racing as well. I am still a complete newbie and mostly MTB on my own since most of my cycling friends are road cyclists, but I figure some casual local races would be a nice way to learn a bit more too.
As the road bike season was winding down, I wanted to dip my toes into MTB races and planned to sign up for a local enduro race. Unfortunately, the race ended up filling up before I could register. I was too slow to even register :(
Fortunately, I found another MTB race that same day in the same area — the Mountain Man Biathlon. The name says biathlon but it’s technically a duathlon. Biathlon is the winter even with Nordic skiing and rifle shooting. As a duathlon, this race required running, and I am a terrible runner. Aside from a few fun-run 5K’s, I have not actually run outside of playing sports like Ultimate or basketball in about a decade. The last time I truly ran was the Philly marathon in 2013. And as you can tell, after that I was pretty much done with running. The only upside of the run legs was that it was trail running, which I found a bit more tolerable than road running back in my high school days when I had cartilage in my knees.
So, I went into the race without any training runs, because that’s just how much I dislike running. It was just as awful as I expected it to be, but overall I had a lot of fun at the race. The MTB race vibe is much more party-like and goofy, and focused on having fun vis-a-vis the road race culture of intensity and competitiveness.
The ride itself was rough. It was very wet and rainy that day, and the trail was your typical east coast trail — many rock gardens and root gardens to navigate. I was riding a hardtail (Specialized Rockhopper 29), so I was definitely getting bounced all over the place. I did flip over the handlebars on one descent while going around a bend, but no injuries. Hopped up immediately to grab my bike and get out of the way of the riders flying down the descent behind me. Not to long after, my tires slipped on the wet rocks while ascending a climb and I did not unclip my shoes in time to catch myself. That fall was pretty painful, as my left hip landed right on a rock and got a huge and gnarly bruise covering almost my entire hip (and broke skin somehow). My first thought when I hit the rock, grimacing in pain was, “Did I just break my leg?” Fortunately, no broken femur. But that does bring up the question of… MTB pedals/shoes. Should I be riding with clipless/cleats or flat pedal?
The first handful of times I was MTB’ing, I had to get used to riding on flat pedals. I was very used to road cycling and being clipped into the pedals, so I kept thinking I could adjust my pedal position by pulling up on my foot only to realize that my feet were now flailing in the air. Sometimes when I get bounced around by the rocks and roots, I also feel like being clipped into the pedals would help me stay more securely attached to the bike. But times like this or taking sharp turns on dirt trails, I see the benefit of not being clipped in. For this race, I decided to use dual flat/SPD pedals but spent most of the time riding clipped in. Is there a rule of thumb on what to use based on different trail surfaces or type of MTB riding? Should I just go with dual pedals that are flat on one side and SPD on the other side?
Overall, I would definitely sign up for this race again. It was tons of fun, despite how painful the running was, and rain did not dampen the party atmosphere. The band was rocking, the beer and red bull were flowing, and the jokes were plentiful. I guess I’ll need to start training for running if I want to actually improve my time and be more serious. Or I’ll do more duathlon events to use those runs as my training runs.
