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.