Troupe Racing Co.

report by : mykyta yurtyn

We love bike races. So much that we often spend several hours driving to/from the race that lasts an hour and a half. Some times it’s 4 hour drive each way, some times we fly across the pond to another continent (like Italy’s Garda Fest). But some times mountain bike race comes to us, practically to our doorstep, 10 minutes away from some troupers’ homes. How could we not race it? Of course we did!

Over The Hump mountain bike race series started last year with two races at the end of summer as the orange county’s only mid-week mountain bike race. In fact it was and remains to this day OC’s only cross country mountain bike race! Turnout and buzz at the last year races were incredible and future for the series looked bright. This year the series is back not with two, but 12 (that’s right, twelve!) races running on Tuesdays through the summer. And this Tuesday was opener for the 2010 season. Many local businesses from MTB industry and beyond had their booths at the venue – crankbrothers, Verizon Wireless, H2O Overdrive, most local bike shops, Sambazone and many others. It was especially encouraging to see big non-MTB brands throwing their support behind the series in true testament to growing popularity of the sport.

Even more encouraging was to see all the people who came out to the Irvine Lake this pleasant Tuesday evening. Turnout was huge, there were more beginner racers than ever, families came out to race with their 10 year old children. And that’s what makes this event so special. Seasoned athletes can find a very fast race course that will make hearts pump fast and muscles burn hot right from the start and will leave legs jittery and sore the next day. Beginners will find the excitement of the mountain bike race on the fun, not intimidating but fairly challenging course. The course changed from the last year slightly because good part of old singletrack is now flooded by the high waters of the Irvine Lake, which made it necessary to build a 500 foot long floating bridge across the lake. Racing across the floating bridge, how cool is that?!

Troupe was represented by Randy and Me this time. The only drawback of the mid-week evening race is that for many slight delay at work means missing the 6 PM start time. This was the case with many troupers on Tuesday. But we had a great support team present in full force including Tim, Michelle, Roy, Laura and Monica. It seemed that for every turn and climb there was a trouper to cheer us on.

My goal for these races is a solid, high intensity mid week workout ride. Yes, I could do intervals, but where is fun in that? I decided to race in expert category to make the ride longer, efforts harder and solid and strong competition push me through the race. It was great to see many guys I raced at the State and USCup series trying their luck in the expert category too. The hurt was on form the very start. I managed to hang on to the guys in the chase group for most of the first lap, but made a mistake on the narrow singletrack, fell back a bit and ended up chasing alone. Hour long time trial sure resulted in some very hard efforts and great workout. Now I just need too work on improving my time.

Randy had a solid ride, but not without mishaps. He was attacking on the climbs but had several unfortunate crashes on the off-camber turns on the last lap that cost him several spots, but never stopped fighting and finished strong.

It was a solid, fast and very fun race and we will surely be back for more. Look for more Troupe jerseys at the next and future Over The Hump races, and come out to race, too. It’s fun!!!