Over the Hump Series

The over the hump race was on Tuesday this week, not the traditional hump day, but still a great day for racing. There were 415 riders out at Lake Irvine, all getting there close to 5pm for the 6pm start, on a course that no mountain biker would consider fun without the other 414 other riders out there mixing it up. Apparently people want to race, and like it when the race is close to home, has a course that accommodates beginners, and spectators, has good prizes, and fun atmosphere. Imagine that. 415 riders is over 100 more than the turnout for the CA state champs on a one lap course in the back woods of Big Bear last year, a race that was still fun to attend, but lacked all of the above things that made the over the hump race great...

The pro race was pretty tactical the first 2 laps (we did 4, 4mi laps) with plenty of good drafting to be had broken up by sketchy turns where it helped to be in front. Then came the lapping of other categories, which lasted the rest of the race. Given that we lapped AT LEAST 200 of the 400 riders in a 45min time span, that means passing someone every 15 seconds or so. Manny and Sid started putting the hammer down on laps 3&4 until the 3 of us were off the front and with about 5min to go Sid put down an attack that we couldn't follow, with Manny also getting a gap on me for 2nd while I cruised in for 3rd.