Southwestway Park Night Race Report

 

Night riding in a blast. Night racing is even more of a blast. So, with Planet Adventure putting on a series of local night races in follow up to their race last August, I immediately put them on my calendar with the intention of riding in the provided singlespeed division. The first race in the three races series was at Southwestway Park on the Southside of Indy.

The singlespeed class only had 7 riders, so it wasn’t huge. Unfortunately, two of the riders who showed up are extremely fast, and one is the trail boss for Southwestway, meaning he could ride the trail with his eyes closed. 

The start line with the light fading.

The course was 5 laps on a roughly 2.5 mile loop which started on a gravel road for just under a half a mile, dropped into single track, and then a crushed lime stone path which follows a levy along the White River for another half mile. The course ended with a climb up a washed out gravel road and another short stretch of singletrack.

My gearing was not quite suited to the gravel start as four riders got ahead of me. I was behind a rider on a cross bike who kept up good speed, which I thought would help on the levy portion of the trail. He wasn’t as fast as I thought which resulted in a gap. He then bobbled on the trail just before the climb which allowed a pass. I attacked the climb and tried to catch third place, a pursuit which was ultimately not successful. In retrospect I should have passed the CX bike on the levy. I kept up a good pace for the remaining four laps, while pushing hard on the levy section (often spinning out at about 18 mph) and on the climb.

On lap four I began to tire which resulted in mistakes. I nearly missed the drop in to the trail, and crashed soon thereafter when I had a pedal strike on a root which pushed me off of my line and caused the edge of my handlebar to clip a tree taking me down.  I untangled myself, checked to make sure my chain was still on and my GPS and water bottle were still in place, and took off again, although with the new edition of a badly hurting left knee and arm.

 

I included this shot because of the light streaks and my own transparency.
Kind of a cool pic. May be my new banner header soon.

Admittedly I was more cautious on the remainder of lap four. I upped the ante on lap five, passed a few Cat 3 geared riders (who started 5 minutes before the SS) and wrapped up the race in fourth. According to the times, I was about a minute and twenty seconds behind third. Maybe if I had broken away on the levy on the first lap and not wrecked I could have caught him. Who knows. The top three riders were all pushing smaller chains rings on the back than I was (16t and 15t) so that speed helped.

Still, it was a great night, with clear skies and cool, almost cold, temperatures.  I think Planet Adventure has hit on a good thing with these night races. A little more promotion would help to get even more people out, as well as a possible partnership with local bike shops (or perhaps one of the lighting manufacturers) to rent lights to participants. I think the lack of proper lights is a limiting factor for these races.

There are two more nights races, both a Town Run, with one being on a reverse course. I’ll be out of town for one race, but I’m thinking about getting a 16t cog for the one I can make. Might help me keep up through the flatness that is Town Run.

I’m thinking some night riding may be in order later this fall. A trip to Brown County in late October (assuming the trails are dry) would be fun, with the cooler temperatures and the leaves having fallen. Could make for a quite an adventure.