MPF Athlete Evan Fineman placed 2nd in the Singlespeed-A-Palooza MTB Race this past Sunday! The weekend before he also came in 2nd in the Blue Mountain MTB SS Cat 2 Race. Here is his latest race recap from the SS-A-Palooza. Next up for Evan is the Wawayanda Spring Cleaning MTB Race this coming Sunday (May 5th), part of the H2H Race series. Evan races for CRCA/Breakaway Courier-CBOE.

This mountain bike race is always on my calendar as it's local (Newburgh, NY) and its singlespeed only. So the race is a sick 25 miles of which the majority is tight singletrack. This year they ran it as one big loop as opposed to two 12.5 mile loops like in past years.  The race is capped at 300 riders with about 60 in my NJ Sport class.  

The race starts with about 3 miles of fire road to spread the pack out and spread it did. I lined up towards the front as I knew guys would be running a bigger gear than I brought and therefore able to get away if i didn't pay attention. There was a nasty crash right in front of me on the road as a rider tried to squeeze through and wrecked a whole bunch of guys.  I just avoided it and then had to work my way back up.  I rode the road section like a road race - just drafting from bike to bike with the goal of conserving as much energy as possible for the singletrack and I found myself top 4 as we hit the woods, I felt good.  A fellow local led the pack of about 10 for the first 10.5 miles.  During which we had a lot of traffic to cut thru as our class was 2nd to last to go out. I worked my way up to 2nd and then at about mile 11.5 there was this steep hill and his gearing, legs or both failed him and I went by hard. I maxed my HR out and just went. I stayed all alone on the front for about 6 miles (thinking of Chapman style wins). At mile 14 there was a neutral pit stop in which I was told I could come in hot and my bottle would be handed to me but they blew that and I had to stop and wait for it...I lost about 10-15 seconds but my bottle came in handy later.

I was alone and my pace dropped at about mile 19 as I thought I had 6 to go.  Unfortunately it turned out to be only 5...my bad. I got passed by the guy who ultimately went on to win by 53 seconds.  Then at about mile 22 I got passed again and I hopped on his wheel as no one else was coming through. I was on his wheel with nowhere to pass and I blew the finish. As we came out of the woods I went to go out sprint him and then the race just ended...damn it.  1 second ahead of me.

So I had 3rd place at the end of the racing but at the podium the guy who took second wasn't the guy that signed up to race. So I am assuming in the official scoring I'll take back 2nd. *Result update: Evan did place 2nd as the rider was disqualified.

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