Race Report : Falls City Firecracker

The Firecracker is a unique race, sporting a short course multi-lap format [spectator friendly], and winding through a freeride area.

[hmm, how time flies - almost 3 weeks after the fact, I've only writ one sentence]

Was camping with the family at Alsea Falls, and packed up Sunday morning and drove the 2 hours or so to Falls City. Late start - noonish - so no big early morning panic scene. Mostly the same course as last year, with a little extra climbing thrown in at the top. The usual mediocre mid-summer crowd shows up, and there's lots of room as the race starts up the fire-road climb. I have a pretty good start - been training for that - and the first lap climb is done with great energy. The downhill is nice - lots of turns, jumps [but don't take the huge jumps marked with yellow flags - they're often massive freerider gap jumps]. Have to do 5 laps, and do high-fives with the family members each time around. Lap 4 is painful, and Lap 5 is quite a chore. I'm under 26 minutes the first lap, and up to almost 32 minutes on the last lap. Get 3rd out of 7. The first place guy is way ahead - like 15 minutes ahead of me. Hmm... the only other time I raced against him was at FTF where I beat him - are you sure you did 5 laps ? :)

Mackenzie River Trail Epic

This is one of those 'must-do' trails in Oregon - supposedly people come from all over the country/continent/world to do this trail. So when people find out I live an hour away from it and haven't done it yet - well they find that a bit strange. But it's not an easy trail to do just on a whim - it's a 27 mile one-way trail that descends along the Mackenzie River. So you've got to get some biking friends together and organize shuttles - dropping off a car at the bottom, and then driving back up to the top and starting the trail from there. I mentioned it to a few people I know, and had some 'bites' - well maybe nibbles - but it didn't seem to generate any great excitement. I was hesitant to cast a wider net, as I'm afraid I'd catch those who have no idea what they're getting into - yeah sure I mountain bike ! - then they show up on an old squeaky rigid with no helmet gloves or water - let's go !

So I was mulling it over a beer Thursday night, and came up with a great idea to do it solo - I'll drop off my mountain bike at the top, drive to the bottom of the trail, park, and then ride my road bike up the road to the top - switch bikes - then sail on down the trail on the mountain bike. It still seemed like a good idea the next day, so off I went early Saturday morning with both bikes jammed into the back of the Subaru. In less than an hour I found the top trailhead, and locked my mountain bike to a tree - both bikes have the same seat post diameter, so I was able to avoid leaving a $200 seat+post present to any would-be thieves. Of course not
expecting much thievery in the middle of the woods, but been bitten before... Drove down the road a few miles, and hit a major repaving scene, where it was 1-way traffic for a 5 mile + section - had to wait a while for the North-bound cars. Hmm, that fresh black stuff may not be too pleasant on the bike...

After 20 miles it seemed I should be getting near to the Ranger Station where they recommended parking - don't see it yet - but here's a sign for a Recreation Information Centre, yeah pulled in there to grab a free map and a visit to a stall. Then keep on going, through a little town, hmm should have hit it by now. Too far, go back, where the !#$!#@ is the trailhead and/or the Ranger Station ? See a trail sign and pull over to a little parking area on the left on the river bank. Yup : river, trail, this will do. No Ranger Station, but maybe they moved it since the guide book was written 6 years ago.

Get geared up, and start back along the road. After a mile I see a sign for a Ranger Station. Oh. That's the building I was in earlier where I got the map - dumbass ! The road is fairly flat to start off with, and I'm averaging close to 18 mph. Not pushing too hard, usually 90% or so of threshold. Don't want to kill myself before the fun stuff starts - yet again don't want to spend all day on hot tarmac with traffic. Then the climing starts, and speed goes way down. Not much scenery, kind of a boring ride. The climb is a nice grade - and only 2000 feet of elevation to go to the top. I hit the construction area, and cars are backed up for a while. Pass them all on the right, and am about to find out whether the lollipop person makes me wait or not with the cars. Nope, it' s cool to go ahead, and I hear a stream of warnings about trucks and road conditions as I move ahead.
The semi-fresh blacktop makes wierd squishing/sizzling noises, but the tires seem to be handling it OK. I large construction vehicle approaches me head-on, but there's plenty of room. Just as it passes me, I feel something hit me in the chest, and feel a searing burning pain. Damn, must have been a hot piece of fresh blacktop stuck in its tires that flew off, went into my jersey through the half-zippered opening, and burned me. I smack at the burning area with a free hand, but don't feel any lump. It keeps stinging, but can't look as have to keep my tires going straight on the greasy surface, and pay attention to trucks moving this way and that.

Finally reach the end of the zone, and still haven't been passed by any of the North-bound vehicles - suckers ! Get to the trailhead in an hour and 20 minutes. The VT is still there on its tree, and I do the swap. I figure I can do the 26.5 mile downhill in maybe 3 hours, taking it easy, snapping photos, etc. Turns out I was way off. A couple of miles into the trail, you're faced with an option, where you can go right around Clear Lake through a camping area, or go left through sharp lava fields. Hmm, which way do you think I went ? :) Yes, give me the lava ! It is indeed quite technical, with intense lumpy lava climbs and precarious on-the-edge-of-the-lake lava turns. I have to back off on a few of the technical sections, where one slip-up could mean flesh and bone shredded by unyielding sharp lava. Maybe with shin-pads and flat pedals I'd attempt it all. At one point the trail becomes Extreme Lava, and then I guess they got tired of all the law-suits, because after that they paved the sucker for the last mile until the end of the lake. I get confused at an intersection, and start up the other side of the lake, which is probably wrong... turn back - hey my only mistake of the day.

The trail is sweet - lots of swoopy high-speed stuff mingled with technical sections. Snap a few pix of deep blue water. After almost 1.5 hours of this, take a break at an intersection and look at the map to guage my progress. Maybe I'm halfway ? Oops, try 1/6th of the way. Yeah I'm at the 4.1 mile marker, only 22.4 miles to go. Holy #!#@ this is going to take a while ! The river disappears for a while, and then a long while, and the trail gets a bit boring. Hey, I didn't sign up for the Mackenzie Forest Trail, where's the freaking river - I want more waterfalls and blue pools and what-not. Finally see a sign - Blue Pool - and it's pretty spectacular - a huge deep blue pool sunk in the rock. Take pix, but still wondering where the river is. Some dude comes by and mentions that the river goes underground for many miles - covered by an ancient lava flow, and pops out at this Blue Pool. Ok, we're back in business. He asks me if it's difficult negotiating the rough trail on the bike, and I'm like uh, it's really quite a smooth trail, don't see where you get the idea it's rough... Continue on, and then I see what he's talking about, because right after Blue Pool comes several miles of intense lava - lots of technical climbing, nice boulder-strewn rock chutes, etc. Glad I've got the full suspension with 5+5.

The hours tick by and the riding gets smoother and smoother,
Very nice, but when's it going to end ?:) I'm about ready now for that cold drink in my cooler. Several times check the map, and I'm not encouraged by my progress. Start pushing the pace, ripping the downhills and spinning quickly up the hills. Raise my seat back up to where it usually is, and instantly feel a surge of power - I guess my muscles are conditioned to that. At around the 3-hour mark I feel I should be getting close to the end. Talk to some other bikers, and they think it's another 15 miles or so. What, I was thinking 5... As it turns out it was probably closer to 10. Finally reach my car after 4-hours of descending, camelbak drained (10 minutes b4) and brain and body equally drained. It's 4pm, a total elapsed time of 5.5 hours since I left my car. Drink the luscious cold shake I had stashed in my cooler - only 12 ounces left, wish I had 3 times that. Then drive home fast - not forgetting to pick up the Opus waiting chained to its tree - and gorge myself with various beverages and seared bovine flesh.