Piggy's Revenge 2017

Piggy's Revenge is a great event put on near Venice FL by SCORR. $35 gets you a 40 mile race, a brat, and beer.  Doesn't get much better than that!  I love this type of race.  Single track to keep it interesting, and some long two track/gravel grinds where all I need to do is pedal -hard. The other cool part about these types of races is the "mass start".  I love this because I can start with my guy friends and race against the guys too! The morning started out a little crazy with temperatures in the 30's...with bitter wind....in SWFL....say whaaaat??  I grabbed all kinds of different clothing but didn't have much since I left my true "winter warmies gear" in MI. My friend Jen and I rode up together and I think we both felt a little crazy getting up before 5am to race in the cold!

I found a pair of toe warmers in my gear bag!

After a few last minute wardrobe changes I headed for the start. My race plan was to head out with the lead group of guys and hold on to that group if it killed me.  I've never done any road biking/training, ever, until 4 months ago.  I was anxious to see how months of training on the road would pay off.
There was a 1 mile roll out before we dropped right in to the single track.  The leader had a nice pace going, one I could easily hang with.  A mile or so in, the rider in front of me was getting dropped.  He let me and my friend Joe pass, and from there we formed a group of 5 and left the rest of the riders behind rather quickly. Riders 1 and 2 were local and they knew the course and the single track.  Rider 3 was a fast rider that I have raced with before and know from the Naples Velo road rides. I was 4th and Joe was 5th.  Poor Joe had to follow my sketchy lines through the single track.  I actually heard him go down behind me at one point.  I thought for sure I had accidentally brake checked him but it turned out to not be my fault, phew.  I slowed down to see if he was OK, then yelled at him to hurry up and get up! We had a pain train to catch! The five of us worked great together.  I did give the boys a little crap when they happily let me pull for a while on a two track. 
Somehow the perfect mountain bike race never stays perfect, does it?? In the second set of single track I crashed.  Nothing crazy, but Honey Bee was making a weird noise after that.  It took me a while to figure out what was going on.  I looked down and saw the skewer on my front wheel was coming out!  Ugh, crap, $*%! I had forgotten to tighten it down after transporting my bike inside my car with the front tire off.  Stupid E, stupid stupid stupid.  I had to completely stop and get it all fixed up.  Major bummer, now I have no one to draft off and no one to follow through unfamiliar single track.   Shortly after this the trail signs point to a river....like IN the river.  It took me a minute to realize we had to cross the river.  Not enjoyable with a 40 degree temp.
At this point the race is about halfway.  So much for my "easy pace" with a group.  However, even with my stop I was still in 5th place.  No one had caught up. I'm thinking in my head that I'm really going to have to drop the hammer to catch 4 fast guys working together while I blow myself up in the wind by myself.  I did drop the hammer but it was funny because the ground was so uneven and bumpy...11 miles an hour was balls out.  This part of the race was a two track along power lines.   It was painfully boring and just mile after mile of grinding along by myself.  I got excited multiple times because I would see people but it turned out they were racers doing the 20 mile race.  I asked a few of them if they had seen "four fast guys".  They said "yes, but they were long gone." I tried to not get defeated but I was pretty tired at this point.  Just as was starting to feel completely blown up my friend Kris came FLYING up behind me.  "Hop on Erica"...and I did.  I think he must have drank jet fuel or something.  He was flying!  Amazingly enough we caught Joe (he unfortunately had a tire that kept going flat, boo) But then we caught and passed "Rider 2" he had fallen off the two lead guys.  I lost Kris, he didn't share any of his jet fuel, and I just couldn't hang after my solo grind. I pedaled to near death to make sure I didn't lose my 4th place finish!  Photo below of the top 4 finishers.

Joe went through 4 air cartridges to keep his tire inflated and still finished right behind us in 6th

What a super fun day with my FL mountain bike gang. My new Stradalli bike was awesome, the food and beer was great. We even had two of our friends join us for their first mountain bike race.
Quiet Waters Jan 29 is up next!