Race Recap: Sansom Park
The second race of the Team trail Party Texas Enduro Cup was at Marion Sansom Park in Fort Worth. We rented an AirBNB for Friday night so that we could pre-ride each stage before race day.
Sansom Park is on the edge of Lake Worth, opposite a Naval Air Station / Air Force Reserve Base so all day long there were F-18 and F-16s flying overhead which was pretty neat. All the trails are steep and loose and most corners felt off camber - or at least all the memorable ones were lol.
The highlight must have been Chute Show - appropriately named - it was basically just an erosion rut down the side of the hill. There was a b-line around it but by the time I learned that I was already practiced and ready to commit to the chute.
Candy Bar was also tons of fun. Once again the theme here was “janky ruts”. Party Trail and Threefer Madness were also unique and got the adrenaline spiked. I will spare you much about Hot Sauce and Danger Cat. These were pedaly and had some uphill bits - most unpleasant - but Hot Sauce did have a really neat roll over a root into a deep G Out that was a lot of fun.
The climb out of each stage was ridiculous. It left me gassed for each stage, and in the video edit you can almost see my lack of energy and willingness to pedal. It was something like 1200’ of climb over 11 miles total but you have to assume at least five of those miles were exclusively downhill.
I played it very conservatively and did not try for speed. I wanted to survive the weekend uninjured. Mission accomplished!
