Fontana City National - Fontana, CA - April 7th, 2018

(c) Philip Beckman, PB Creative

Thursday at about twelve noon, we left Monterey and headed to Los Angeles. I had all of

my things packed in the car, I'd spun out my legs in the morning and I was very excited to get on the course. After a few hours of driving, we stopped at a Whole Foods in Santa Clarita, grabbed dinner and started on the second leg of the drive to West Covina, where we were lucky enough to be staying at my Uncle and Aunt's house. Once we arrived, I quickly did some core work, rolled out my legs and got in bed.

Friday at about noon we headed to Southridge Park in Fontana where the race would be held the next day. Once I attained my number plate and signed the release forms, I changed into my kit and headed out to do a couple laps of recon. My first lap of the course was not the best, as my shifter cable and brakes had just been replaced due to an extremely muddy NorCal League race two weeks before. The shifter cable began to stretch out quite a bit and my chain started skipping and did not want to shift, making the rocky, technical climbs very tough. After one lap, I went to the Shimano tent and they prompty

Course Profile: 5.4 miles and 730 vertical feet per lap

offered to take a look at my bike. Soon enough, they called me over and handed back my bike. It rode well and the bike was running perfectly smooth! Thank you Shimano! I went for my second lap, heading up the gravel road for the first two minutes. After a couple minutes, the trail quickly turns into a singletrack descent with quite a few rocks and boulders and then pops you out on a steep road climb that lasts about a minute and a half. Immediately following the road, you are greeted by an extremely rocky five-or-so minute climb with a few

descents thrown in. The next few minutes of the lap are mostly directed downhill with a few kickers to be sprinted up. The descent was filled with large boulders and was very dusty with little traction available. Since the boulders were not sharp, it allowed me to run a low PSI of about 18 without having to worry about my tire pinch-flatteing. After the technical descent, the course winds you onto a fire road to a bit of singletrack that leads you into the finish. After finishing my second lap of recon, I was feeling confident on the bike and was looking very forward to lining up the next morning.

At 8:00 am Saturday I lined up for my very first UCI race. The Fontana City National is not only the first stop of the U.S. Cup Series, but it is also considered an HC event, meaning that it is just below the World Cup in importance. Therefore, the race would be worth a very high amount of UCI points that help to attain better race call-ups at later UCI races including nationals. Since this would be my first UCI sanctioned race, I had no points and did not have a call up. A random selection was done for call ups for those without points and I ended up with 46th call up, very near the back of the group. The clock counted down and soon enough, we were off.

A rider directly in front of me missed his pedal at the start, causing me to swerve around him. We rounded the first turn and a very large bottleneck occured, causing the group to begin to split. Around the third turn, a group of a few kids went down and myself and the other riders behind them had to stop and run around the fiasco. I got going again, passing as much as I could and after a couple more minutes, another crash occured on the singletrack. With nowhere to go, I was scrambling around the riders watching the top 40 riders heading up the road climb. After I got around the crash I did my best to avoid getting caught in another bottleneck and put the hammer down up the road climb. I decided that I would focus on passing as much as I could, knowing that it was my best bet if I wanted to move up through the 40 riders in front. I navigated the technical rocky climb and soon came up to Max McFadden (Oakland), one of my competition in the high school races. We headed down the rest of the descent and headed for lap two.

I purposely passed my bottle feed in the feed zone, knowing that I had a nearly full bottle on my bike. Unfortunately, when I reached for my bottle a few minutes later, it had fallen out and was not there. Luckily, it was not too long until I would come around for the next lap and grab another bottle. Up the road climb, I stood up and put down as much power as I could, passing as many riders as possible before the upcoming technical section. Soon thereafter, Max and I, still together, came upon Noah Hayes (Bear Development), our other high school league competition. The three of us continued through the rest of the last lap, making a few passes before the downhill. On the bouldered descent, Max and I got separated from Noah by a few seconds. As we headed to the finish line, I gave it everything I had on the final single track section and crossed the line for 21st place. I am happy with the result and I am very stoked to have attained some valuable UCI points! I am confident that I can advance my placement in the next UCI race that I participate in with the added knowledge from Fontana as well as a better call up at the start and I am looking very forward to lining up again with some of the world's best juniors!

Full results can be found here: https://results.rmraces.live/Team-Big-Bear/events/2018/goldstate-3-fontana-city-national-saturday/results

Just a bit dirty after the race!