Race Report : Racing Around Williams

This was a new race on the circuit this year. It promised to be 'very technical, but in a fun way', so I signed up. However, with a more established race being run on the next day further North, it would be interesting to see what kind of crowd it drew.

In a rare moment of solidarity, the rains came in on the weekend, on both East and West sides of the mountains. Would it be muddy, or would the parched ground be able to absorb all the water Mother Nature could throw at it, and still be able to let off a few puffs of dust ? As I made the drive Westward, I thought it might be 50/50. Crossing I-5 as darkness fell, I noticed it clearing up. But then it became darker still, and I hit the Wall of Rain. Hadn't seen drops this big since I was freeriding in B.C.

Williams is not a big town - in fact it's hard to tell if there is a town there or not - and signs were sparse. With the pouring rain and bad visibility, I thought I might have arrived in the vicinity of the race, but then again it could well be that I would have to drive 10 miles the next day when I could see where I was going. Getting close to 11 pm, I was ready to setup camp, but the constant onslaught of mailboxes alongside the rural roads meant that this was private land territory. Finally got to a dead end, where a dirt road wandered up the hill a bit. I went as far as I could in the low-clearance van, then made a difficult turn-around where I almost rolled into a ditch. There was a bit of a flat spot on the side of the road where I could pitch a tent, but I was a little leery of the possibility of drunken partying rednecks running me over in the middle of the night. Decided it was time to test the theory "Sure I can sleep in the van - lotsa room, no problem!", so squeezed over to the side of the road to give it a try.

After 20 minutes of rearranging stuff, mostly shoving it into the front of the van, I was able to make enough room to lay down my Thermarest and test it out - lumpy, and I didn't exactly park on a level spot, but it should do. As I got into my bag and tried to sleep however, I realized the convex hump underneath my back was really not working for me. A concave depression you can live with, but this lump was hard to work around. I seriously contemplated setting up my tent in the rain, but decided to tough it out. Managed to get a few hours sleep, and the rain lasted most of the night.

The next morning I found the intersection where the race was supposed to start. Shortly after 8 a.m, no one around, and no signs of a race. Drive towards the last town, and then see the race setup a few hundred yards past where I was on a side road. Hmm, could have camped up here last night. The turn-out is pretty light, and only 20-25 Exp/Pro's take off at the 10 am start. I am in the front line, and am actually in first-place for the first quarter-mile! Ok, we are following a pace-car, but it's going pretty fast :) The pace car drops to the side, and half the pack surges ahead of me. Fools ! I am of course conserving energy, and will blow by them all later when ... er... maybe they all get squashed by a large meteorite ?

It's a 4-mile climb up a dirt road to the top, whereupon we will descend the promised 'technical' single track, get back onto the main road about halfway up from where we started, climb to the top again, do the downhill a second time... and then guess what, climb to the top again and do the downhill a third time. Check out the elevation profile in my cool graph below.

The descent is pretty sweet - lots of high speed forested sweepers, tight corners, baby-head sections. Then a bit of up-and-down technical, before another downhill section, that featured more and tighter switchbacks than Valleycliffe's 7 Stitches. I was jostling position with a couple of others here, but they ended up getting ahead. The third time on the downhill, you went straight instead of going back to the road, and this was the toughest section yet. Probably 2000 vert of narrow raw steep singletrack, reminiscent of the top of One Man's Garbage in its infancy. I passed yellow-jersey guy who I'd been battling earlier - funny because he mentioned he was local and knew these trails - figured he'd be railing the descent. Then as I get onto a flatter area with more visibility, I see another yellow jersey ahead - aha, so that was a different guy. Finally get out onto a dirt road, and I figure we must be getting near the end, and turn it up a notch. But ten minutes later I'm still in the middle of nowhere, no idea how far to the finish. Then yellow jersey passes me, and as it turns out the finish was only a few minutes away. And this was the same guy who knew the course, so he knew exactly when to put in the finishing kick.

Pretty wasted at the end, all that up-and-down really takes a toll. I ended up first in my class, which only had 2 people in it. So probably most who attended this race got a medal, due to the low turnout. Why the lack of racers ? Many possible reasons :

1) New race this year

2) Advertised as a difficult technical course, so this scared away all the roadies.

3) There was some road race happening the same day, so roadies had a great excuse :)

4) There was another more established mountain bike race the next day near Portland, so it was more convenient for many people [yeah, they had 9 racers in my class at that one]

But I would rate this race pretty high : great open start on ascending road that spread everybody out, and awesome technical downhills. I think this was the first time I did a race in Oregon, where my upper body was sore the next day [like it was when I did the Gearjammer last year]. See ya next year.

Race Report : Cascade Chainbreaker

Last year it rained the morning of the race - although West Coasters would probably call it a drizzle - and I remember thinking how it sucked to be wearing a jacket that cool wet morning. But by the time the race started it had all cleared out and it was another perfect High Desert sunny day. Little did I know that the rain was a blessing in disguise - for this year, there was no rain, only Dust. Yes, big billowing clouds of it that blocked out the sun and sand-papered your eyes.



I rode the course the day before, and observed a few sandtraps and thick loamy downhills, but gave it little thought. It was a bit dry, however the dust cloud behind me looked rather minor. But as the race got underway Saturday morning, hundreds of rapidly churning wheels kicked up the soft dry road surface, and within seconds we were enveloped in a thick cloud of choking dust. Visibility was 5 to 10 feet as the pack surged forward. I guess the first 10 riders must have been OK, but the rest of us couldn't see where we were going. 20 seconds after starting, a huge pile-up occured in front of me - bodies and bikes flying everywhere. I narrowly avoided getting caught in in, and dove far left, only to get mired down in a 6 inch deep trough of sand. I was stuck in this for a while, unable to see what was coming up as I blindly forged ahead. Finally things thinned out and I started rolling normally. Heart rate was maxed from spinning in the sand, and breathing was ragged and gaspy.

A short loop back to the start area, and the single track began. I was amazed how unclogged the trail was - quite a difference from Sport class, where I was continuously frustrated by overly-amped starters who wailed for the first 2 minutes, then died in the bottle-necking single track, slowing down everybody behind them. But what was good about Sport class was I was usually a front-runner and had the run of the trails. In Expert though, seems like there's always someone nipping at your heels.

We were to do 3 laps of this course, which is at least 90% singletrack. Passing was available in short stretches of fire road. But I found everytime I was stuck behind someone on some downhill section, waiting to pass them when we got dumped out on a road, they knew what was up, and would floor it to the next piece of single track. So I never passed there - would take too much effort - in fact didn't pass much at all. Got passed quite a bit though. I knew this race would be competitive, as it would seem a lot of the Bend uber-athletes who normally don't race mountain bikes, decide to do this race as part of their training or something [more on that later]. And the course isn't very technical, what many would call a 'roadie' course.

As I finished my first lap, I was greeted with a chorus of "Go Marc!" and other chants from the numerous spectators. This seemed a little strange to me, until I looked behind me and saw Mark, the mechanic at the Web Cyclery bike shop who sponsored the race. Oh, so it's "Go Mark"! then. I yelled that I was Marc[k] too, but I don't think they got it.

Started the second lap, and the temperature was climbing up there. I was thinking it was going to be a long hot dry day. But I had 60oz in my Camelbak - should be plenty ? The ony thing I hate about Camelbak's is you're never really sure how much you've got left. Bottles you can see it, but with Camelbak's you put your hand back there and heft it up a bit, but you're never quite sure... The dust is taking its toll - my lungs feel raspy, and my left eye's vision is at 50%. I finish the second lap at the 2:07 mark- a big improvement on the 2:20 I did last year for the 2-lap Sport course. Still feeling pretty good, but definitely slowing down a bit. I try to catch up to riders I see in the distance. It take me at least half-an-hour to catch one guy, and after I pass him, it seems like it will take me another half-hour to get away from him. I push it on some of the downhills, and am on my own as I get close to the finish area. But here's the fun (or annoying) thing about this course : once you get near the finish area, the trail starts to do freaky things like loop back along itself, and has a few clover-leaf like loops that throw you out half a mile before you come back again.

I had felt the Cramps creeping up in the last few minutes, and had started chugging lots of fluids to keep them at bay. But in the first finish area loop, they hit hard and fast. Less than 10 minutes to go, and all of a sudden I'm going at half-speed, trying to fight them off. Guzzle, guzzle, stand a bit and try to shake it out. They're persistent, but I know from experience that they magically go away, usually when climbing up something. I keep waiting for the guy I passed to catch up to me, but I guess he was hurting too. The pain is abating, but then I feel that strange sucking sensation that means my Camelback is out of juice. No problem though, only a few minutes to the finish. Look behind me to make sure there's no late surgers, and cruise across the finish in a time of 3:11. I see everybody is caked in a black layer of sweat and dust, and realize I probably look the same. Take off my glasses, and hey I can see again! My time is good (or bad) for 12th out of 19 in my class. I'll take it - especially with this tough crowd.

Now about that Bend uber-athlete phenomenon. Here's proof : every heard of Steve Larsen ? Well, he won the Expert class, finishing in 2:37. This guy was US mountain bike champion at some point, and now finishes top-10 in Ironman triathlons. He even has a mountain bike tire named after him for chrissake ! So this is what you have to deal with in Bend. It was pretty funny hearing everybody bitch about it on the on-line bulletin boards today. Some people basically calling him an asshole : "No wonder he wasn't chosen for the Olympics, he has no honour!". Give it a rest. Personally I think it's kinda cool that I'm racing with someone of that calibre. But I guess if you finish second maybe it's annoying...

So all in all a great 38-mile dust-fest race. But next year, I don't mind if they add a few bucks to the entry fee, and bring in a water truck to douse the road at the start. Oh yeah, they ran out of drinking water too - but there was a refreshing keg of cold beer :)

I Invented Mountain Biking

OK, so many people believe that mountain biking began when those dudes in California, like Joe Breeze and co., started putting fat tires on their regular bikes in the early 70's and taking to the mountain trails. But often when I pick up a new bike magazine, there's some article about how some person is the 'real' father of mountain biking, cuz they were riding dirt trails on their bikes way before that. But if you think about it, the first bicycle ever made (in the 1800's?) was a mountain bike, since dirt roads and trails were all they had then.

In any case, the term 'mountain bike' is somewhat of a misnomer anyways, since you don't need a mountain to ride trails.

But in the early 70's I too was a pioneer of 'mountain biking'. It was around that time when myself and my childhood friend Andreas, dumped our choppered out Stingrays (which were getting too small anyways), and moved up to full frame 26" CCM bikes. We both bought the same bike at the local bike shop, Castonguay's (I wonder if that's still around). They were bright red, had a 3-speed shifter, and pretty fat tires too. We found these bikes could handle all kinds of terrain - pavement, dirt, neighbour's lawn, etc., and at a pretty good speed too.

Around that time they had started work on adding another 9 holes to the golf course in our neighbourhood (destroying the Bush we had spent many years foraging in), and the area behind our houses became a massive bulldozed dirt playground, with a mixture of old trails, mountains of dirt, streambeds, downed trees, and half-finished golf holes. We started ripping around there on our bikes, flying off jumps, riding obstacles and descending dirt chutes. We were mountain biking, man ! And we even had a cool name for it - "Rough Riding" - better than "mountain biking" I think :)

Yeah, so next time you go Rough Riding you can tell your biking buddies where the name came from !

Race Report : Ashland Spring Thaw

Some people dis' this race, saying it's not a real mountain bike race, what with all the fire road riding and general lack of singletrack. But it's a great test of overall fitness, with a bit of strategy thrown in. Sure, roadies can do pretty well in this race - but at least the rutted descent at the end keeps most people from using their cyclocross bikes. It starts off with a half-mile of street riding, winding up the hill that overlooks the town. Then onto fire roads, with a pretty consistent grade and 3000 feet of climbing. By the end of this climb, the race is almost half over time-wise, and the place in you're in now will be pretty close to your finishing place. A bit of single track is thrown in, and then you're onto a long stretch of mostly level fire-road that wraps around in a horseshoe shape. This is where they say you 'win or lose' the race. If you find yourself alone on this 11-mile stretch, you will be going much slower than if you are in a paceline group that is drafting, and you are 'screwed'. Somewhat true, but there are enough people in the race that a paceline will probably come along at some point, and if you're alone you have to keep an eye out for that, and jump onto it before it zips by you. After this you've got a nice steep smooth singletrack descent that is over much too quickly, a bit more putzing around with fire roads and scraps of single-track, and then what's probably a 3000 foot descent on a rutted twisty double track. If you don't have good technical descending skills, this section will eat you up and spit you out : huge trenches and whoop-de-doos abound, and it's amusing to see riders get pinballed all over the place. Then back to steep descending tarmac for the last mile, and you're done.

I left for this race the night before, planning on finding a camping spot in the dark, within half an hour of Ashland. Took the boring 97 South for 2 hours, then West on the twisty Route 66. I was aiming for the last mountain pass before the town - where there was a 10-mile road up to some reservoir recreation area. Darkness fell and out came the bugs - 10,000 splats later I was at the turn-off. Never sure what to expect when scouting for camp spots in this state. Either every square inch of land is private, accompanied by No Trespassing signs, etc. Or you're in the middle of nowwhere and it's easy pickings. Luckily this turned out to be the latter case. Found a good pull-out down a side-road, and did the customary tent setup and beer drinking ceremony. During the night heard these occasional low-frequency hummings in the distance. I remember hearing these last year in another campside that was 20 miles away. Definitely something weird going on the woods around here - probably aliens.

Got to the race by 7:30 the next morning, and tried to figure out the parking deal. Last year got a ticket for exceeding the 4 hour limit. Found a little parking area that had no limit signs - seemingly too good to be true. After scouting around for hidden signs or other tricks, decided it was safe to park there. Some other guy from Bend in a camper was parked beside me. Little did I know we were in the same race class, and would finish within minutes of each other (else I wouldn't have been so friendly :). Some punk-ass dude across the way was blasting shitty rap music - the same swear words repeated over and over with the same boring beat. So I countered with some YoYo Ma.

These guys didn't mess around with the 9am start time. I had just finished my 20th trip to the bathroom and was slurping down a GU as I got to the line, expecting the usual delay, when "30 seconds to start!" was announced. The stampede begins - but not as crazy as usual due to the wide open spaces. The pack gets quickly strung out on the climb, and I pick a group to try and follow. I'm not expecting to feel too strong today, since did intervals the last 2 days, but I actually feel pretty good. But the group is definitely slipping away. Get near the top, and I'm pacing with the lead pro woman. Approach the dreaded 'draft or die' section, and we agree to work together. It helps a bit, but we don't pick up any other stragglers to make a good paceline. Then a few people pass us, and one of them is a woman! This woman has an unusually low posture, her back almost horizontal, and a very large posterior that must be full of muscle. The former lead chick and I try to catch up, but can't quite bridge the distance. After a long while we see signs ahead, which must mean the single track descent is coming up. The lead woman slows way down - maybe not a good descender - and myself and another WebCyclery guy launch down the trail. I stay with him through the twisty narrow trails, and soon pop out onto the last fire road climb. I conserve energy a bit, remembering that there's another tough single track climb further up, but it's actually really short. And then all of a sudden the last long steep rutty downhill begins - damn, still got lots of energy !



I'm following a group of 5 or 6, going a bit too slowly for me, but no real safe place to pass. But a couple crashes later, and some miscellaneous attrition, and we're down to just 2. Pop out onto the pavement, which is uber-steep with some good hairpins. This is where I passed a whole bunch of people last year, due to my incredible braking prowess. OK it's not really that great, but having disc brakes, and having ridden a motorcycle for years, I'm pretty good at braking as late as possible into a turn. A tight steep hairpin approaches, and I easily outbreak the guy beside me, almost laughing as he seems to be going backwards. OK, getting within a 50 feet of this bad-boy curve, time to start braking harder... Then all of a sudden I get one of those nasty disaster premonition flashes, as my brakes start to fade. The grip I'm expecting is no longer there, and I'm hurtling towards the outside of the turn at uncontrollable speed. Time slows down, and I can see the hard curb approaching, and the steep drop off on the other side. I know something 'bad' is about to happen, and am powerless to stop it. I can smell burning rubber as my rear brake completely locks up. Squeeze the front brake as hard as I can, but it's gone. As I reach the outside of the turn, still not going nearly slow enough, I hit dirt and gravel, and put the bike sideways in a skid turn. Luckily this does the trick, time speeds up again, and I scrub off speed going away from the turn. Jump off the bike, do a 180, and crank it back in the right direction. One more turn to the finish line - I can't catch the guy I was ahead of, but no one else catches me. Finish in 2:11, 11 minutes faster than last year. End up 5th out of 12 in the Expert 40+ class. Everybody was faster this year : last year 40 people were under 2:15, but this year 61 were under that time.

Race Report : Bear Springs Trap

I have no idea why they call it a 'Trap' - but I was determined to find out. This race is brought to you by the fine folks who put on that race I ragged on last year, with all the confusing intersections. I guess that's just their style, because in the race flyer they warn you about blowing by important junctions and watching for signs, covering their ass so to speak.

I followed the directions to the race start on Sunday morning, an hour and a half drive North of Bend. This worked out pretty well, so I was encouraged the course would be just as easy to follow. Then I discovered the Trap : you had to pay $5 to park in this part of the forest, or buy the the yearly forest service pass for $25. Well my pass from last year should still be good.. except I left it in the other car. Oh well, wrote a little note explaining this which seemed to work.

So after riding in 70F degree weather in Bend the previous day, I wasn't worrying about it being cold. Then how come the thermo is reading 4 degrees outside the car ? Hmm, it's only 9:30 am, it should warm up. Luckily I threw my long riding pants in the car at the last minute, along with my goretex socks and winter gloves. Yup, needed them all. By 10:30 it was up to 7 or 8 degrees. I changed layers several times, but retained full coverage. I was all ready for the race start at 10:45 am, but there were still 100 people in line waiting to get registered. Finally ready to go at 11:20, and by this time I was getting a bit hot, and my bladder was nudging me to take a little walk in the forest. Then ensued what seemed like half an hour of explanation about the course - something about pink ribbons. And the obligatory category roll call, whereupon I discovered everyone in my class was way ahead of me in the start chute. Hmm so the race hadn't started yet and I was already in last place :) Well my plan wasn't to go balls out today anyways, just ride at a steady pace. It's cool, I'll start way back here with all the feebs and grommets and ladies. Never understood why people push so hard to get up front, squeezing themselves into any little opening, anything to get further ahead. You bend down to tighten your shoe, and wham - five people squeeze ahead of you. And many of these people are slow, causing bottlenecks as the road funnels into single track.

Well, enough chit-chat, the gun goes off and a group of 80 or so Pros and Experts start racing up the tarmac towards the 90 degree turn onto dirt a quarter mile away. It doesn't clog up too bad, it's rocky double track for a while so passing is available if you want to risk going off the main path onto bigger rocks and sticks. I love doing a race where you've never ridden the course, and have no idea what the terrain is like. This race had a fine helping of almost all kinds of riding : steep muddy climbs, baby smooth downhill sweepers, rocky twisty steep descents, log rides, baby-head talus slope traverses, bridges, everything. It's all good, and I'd forgotten about all the pink ribbon warnings as I followed a group bombing down a nice descent, when I see the tell-tale sign that it's all gone horribly wrong : a bunch of riders are climbing the trail back up towards us. They are yelling something - what's that, a bear ? Is that the Trap ? Oh, "Wrong way!" is what they're saying. We all do 180's in place and climb back up - yeah we blew by that little pink ribbon - tough to see a 90 degree turn to the left when you're flying by in a cloud of dust. Cool - now that we've totally screwed ourselves on any podium finish, let's just have fun ! Actually it only amounts to a few minutes lost...



I have kind of a blank spot now about what happened for the next little while...I was churning along at 95%, keeping a good pace, but not wanting to push it too hard since with my limited riding time I wasn't sure if I'd blow up or not. I passed more people than passed me I think. Went across a nice bridge in an open meadow, the birds were singing and the sun was shining, and then... I saw someone I knew ahead - my buddy Chris who I raced with quite a bit last year. Aha, if I can just sneak by him undetected...not a chance, I can see his eyes widen as he looks behind and recognizes me - then it's like his ass is on fire and he cranks it up a notch and takes off. This was one of the guys in the paceline I was in in that Ashland race last year, the roadie race at 5000 feet, my first race in Oregon. I ended up catching him at the line in an all-out sprint finish, beating him by a second. Then every race after that I was often a few minutes ahead. Now I can see that he's determined this will not happen again. I decide to stick with my game plan of riding a steady race, and don't match his intensity. It's not like I'm riding slow, but he's definitely getting away. What the hell - I nudge up the intensity just a tad, and start gaining on him. Get right up beside him on a dirt road section, and start talking it up. But he's not much into conversation, and keeps forging ahead. I have enough in reserve that I could initiate a good pass attempt, but then this might cause a bit of "Oh yeah?!", back and forth, as we yo-yo the intensity up until one of us collapses. So just stay behind him, like 10 feet behind, even on the high speed downhills.

This goes on for like 45 minutes, as we thrash through some muddy, rooty, riverside trails that sap your energy. Another guy is in our group now, and it's getting harder to stay with them, as Sport class riders who did a shorter loop are now clogging the trail a bit. I finally pass them on a steep uphill, as they're pushing their bikes while I grind up, still in the saddle. Again I decide not to put the hammer down and try to leave them in the dust. Then I realize this is not possible anyways, as a branch has become stuck in my derailleur cog, playing the spokes like a hockey card. Normally I would stop to pull it out, but not wanting to let them by, I just start shifting all over the place and hopping up and down on my bike, trying to dislodge the little bugger. Finally it comes out. I miss a turn across a bridge, put on the brakes, and the other 2 end up sandwiching each other behind me. The third dude gets hot and starts blaming Chris for backing into him, as we all try to reorient ourselves to walk across the bridge, which is nothing but a series of stumps in the mud. Seeing how these guys are being a bit aggro, I motion them to go ahead of me, and take it out on the trail. Thinking back on it, I should have just pushed them both down in the mud and taken off !:)

They get ahead again, and we end up coming out onto a road. I'm sucking back some fluid and thinking about popping another gel, when I realize, 'Shit this is the road just down from the start line!' I'm a few hundred feet behind Chris when I stomp on it, going full blast for the finish line. People appear on the side of the road as we get closer, screaming for blood. This doesn't help my stealth attack much, and I end up being about 20 feet short at the line. Well, as it turns out a medal wasn't at stake, as we finished 5th/6th out of 15 or so in our class.

Awesome race, probably the toughest technically that I've done in Oregon. Today, don't feel too bad. Did some 8 minute MSP intervals, and then yeah OK starting to hurt. Next stop, Ashland.