On Thursday I entered my first MTB race. This race was the 2009/2010 AMTBC Summer Series ‘Dirt Crit’ No. 1.  A ‘dirt crit’ is similar to a regular road crit or criterium in that the course is very short, but it differs in that the course is mostly dirt, hence ‘dirt crit’.  The race format sets a fixed amount of racing time for each race grade plus one finishing lap after the allotted time has elapsed.

This being my first race, I wasn’t quite sure which class/grade to enter. The grade system for this race was A through E, A being fast/elite and E being something like slow/recreational.  The E grade raced 15 minutes plus one lap, and each successive grade added five minutes; the A grade raced 35 minutes plus one lap.

I entered in the B grade.  My logic was that C must be average, and like everyone else, I think I’m above average.  As I checked in and realized who was racing and what grade they were in, I began to question my self-assigned grade.  But, it occurred to me that the worst that could happen was a last place finish.  And, as luck would have it, that is exactly where I finished.

My official results; minutes:seconds:

Lap 1	Lap 2	Lap 3	Lap 4	Lap 5	Lap 6	Lap 7	Lap 8	Lap 9	Lap 10	Lap 11	Lap 12	Lap 13	Lap 14	Total Time	Average Lap Time
2:05	2:13	2:15	2:14	2:18	2:27	2:23	2:19	2:26	2:27	2:25	2:20	2:24	2:23	32:39	2:20

For comparison, grade average lap times; minutes:seconds (number of laps completed):

A Avg. Lap	B Avg. Lap	C Avg. Lap	D Avg. Lap	E Avg. Lap	Overall Avg. Lap
2:12 (19)	2:14 (15)	2:19 (14)	2:28 (10)	2:33 (9)	2:21 (12)

Full results and more info available on the Adelaide MTB Club site: www.amtbc.com.

My average lap time was 2:20, which was only one second slower than the next fastest rider, but I was behind the cutoff and finished one lap down.  Comparing my average lap time to those in the C grade, it looks like I could expect to finsih somewhere in the middle grade.  This being the case, I think I’ll spend some time in the C grade and see how things work out.  But, we will have to wait for the next dirt crit in January to see what happens.

Until then, a photo of a camera Velcro’d to a helmet (if ‘Googled’ is a word, then so is ‘Velcro’d’):

…and a koala from Eagle Park: