This past weekend was the start of the New York State MTB Series. Race 1 was the Williams’ Lake Classic held on the grounds of the Williams’ Lake Resort in Rosendale, NY. The trails are on private property and therefore, NOT open to the public for riding…except for this event.

I’ve raced here many many times and it has always been one of my favorite race courses. There is a lot of flowing singletrack, fast double track, all leading to the coolest feature that I have ever come across in a race course…a cave. Yeah, that’s right, the course actually goes through a cave. Years ago, the Williams’ Lake Classic was always held on Halloween weekend, and it made the cave just a little bit cooler, and even with the race being early season now, the cave is still pretty cool.

I decided to race singlespeed this year, for no other reason than I like riding my Redline MonoCog Flight 29. Good move? Bad move? I don’t know. Sure, I was looking for another couple of gears on the climbs, but a singlespeed is always fun to ride.

I didn’t really have a great race. In fact, this race hurt. The race course seemed more demanding than I remembered…especially on a singlespeed. With a time of ~2:35:37, I finished 7th of 8 riders.

Coming up I have two time trials, a couple more mountain bike races and a road race before cyclocross season starts. While I like all the racing, I’m rally looking forward to cyclocross…for me, the season can’t start soon enough.