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Early yesterday morning I headed out to Ingham County’s Burchfield Park for the first Burchfield Time Trial. Despite being almost two hours away I figured it’d be a fun time, and it was. The trail was a mixture of Tree Farm-esque twisty single track with lots of roots, more flowing sections through the woods, and lumpy grassy trails through fields. There’s also a couple super-nifty areas that wind right along the banks of the Grand River. Weather started out cold with temperatures in the upper 30s when I arrived at the park, but by the time we started it’d moved up nicely to the mid 40s, and finished around 50. Insulated knickers, a base layer, a short sleeve jersey, toe covers, and medium weight gloves were perfectly comfortable for this, and the only thing I had to change was pushing my sleeves up while out in the sun in a field.
After reading a bit about the trail and getting input from some folks I took my rigid single speed Salsa El Mariachi to the race, and for the most part this was the perfect bike for there. The grass field areas were a bit rough, and lacking the ability to shift gears I was a bit slow on the flat sections, but it was still fun. In the end I placed 15th out of 18 (with 5 DNFs) in Class A, which was the geared or ss, sport or expert class. Had I pushed a little harder and cut only 30 seconds off my time I would have moved up two places.
The awards for the race were also really nice. Each was an 18T cog stuck in a slot cut into a birch log with a finishing place decal applied to the cog, hand-made by one of the people who’d worked on the race. These were a great alternative to the traditional medal.
The photo above was taking near the top of one of the longer hills, a mile or two before the end of the race. Here is another one of me from the same spot, taken slightly before this one. I’m not quite sure who took the photos, but they were posted here on Photobucket under the username DeadTreeRun. I particularly appreciate that they offer the full res photos for download without charge.
