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Thursday, April 29, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Racing Recap - MSC #1 - Rabbit Valley Rampage
This past weekend saw the opening stop on the Mountain States Cup series - Rabbit Valley Rampage.
Talk about middle of nowhere. The location is only two miles from the Utah/Colorado border, and the only semblance of civilization was the tents and structures brought in for the race.
That, and the huge cellular tower that's about half a mile away from the parking lot...which means 3G coverage is darn near perfect. Strange.
Anyways, Saturday was the "Prologue" time trial - a quasi-technical 5 mile loop of singletrack. I felt pretty good throughout the entire run...my goal was sub-19 minutes. Finished in around 18:40, which I felt was a solid effort for me. Could have probably went as low as 18:20 if everything went perfect. Finished 5th in the time trial. Since I didn't want to waste an entire afternoon in Grand Junction, I decided to drive back home and sleep in my own bed that night for the XC race on Sunday.
Tyler Eaton and I headed back to Rabbit Valley for the XC race on Sunday morning. Got to the spot at about 10:30, which was perfect for a 12:15 start. I get into my usual routine of pre-race fueling and warming up, and at about 11:50, the starter announces that the race was being pushed back to 12:45.
This totally sucks because, as a racer, I'm just looking for consistency. I have my pre-race routine, which I start about an hour before the actual race. When the start gets moved, it throws the whole schedule out of whack. Not to mention that food is a big deal, and at 12:15, I was alright not eating a whole lot after breakfast. With the extra half hour to kill, I really needed something more to eat; I didn't bring anything with me, though.
We finally get all lined up and ready to go. I've never been out on the majority of this course before, so I was totally flying blind. AND I forgot my bike computer, so I was going to have no idea mileage-wise where we were in the overall scheme of the race.
Start goes off, and we proceed out onto a 4 or 5-mile long sandy dirt road, which is part of the Kokopelli Trail. With this kind of terrain, tactics are pretty important. I just sat in the pack and tried to stay out of the wind; I felt like I had a great start. There was one decent acceleration after about 10 minutes, which I stayed on top of, but the group shook about 4 or 5 loose off the back.
About 18 minutes into the race, the dirt road has a little incline. I shifted to compensate, and my chain suddenly breaks. Crap. Everyone's still packed up, so I'm there fixing my chain with my entire group moving away from me at a pretty rapid pace. Coming off the bike with my heart rate at 180bpm, my hands were just shaking...especially because I knew the race was more or less over for me at that point. After five minutes (!) of trying to get my chain back together, I finally get my shit straight to get back in behind the top 3 singlespeeders, the group that started 3 minutes behind us.
For the next 40 minutes, I absolutely pegged it, running the big ring to try and find someone on the back of our group to team up with. Ran by Elgee out apparently basking in the sun (pic right). I eventually caught up with Tyler right at the bottom of the biggest climb on the course on Westwater Mesa - a quarter mile or better of 25%+ grade. It was easily rideable, but I came off the bike because of the effort I just put in to get there. At the top, I finally kicked it into gear, picked up a new bottle at the aid station (managed to rattle one loose somewhere - again - the bottle that had my EFS in it), and started to hammer.
Before long, though, I was into the Overlook Trail - a 10 mile long singletrack that was either whoopty-doos from motos, or massive rough rock slabs. Either case doesn't allow you to put much consistent effort into the pedals. Unfortunately, consistent effort into the pedals is really what my body is geared for right now. This section was like volunteering for torture on my lower back - my back muscles probably won't be kosher for several days. I was racing the Stumpy today, so the hardtail didn't help on the rock sections. I don't know that the Intense's full-suspension would have really helped that much, though. It was just a massive amount of hurt for me.
Throughout the entire race, people were passing me from behind, I was catching up to people, so I really had no clue where I was with relationship to other racers in my group...or with relationship to the overall course length.
After coming off the Overlook Trail, the race started to return on the Western Rim trail (pic left). This fun singletrack contoured along the edge of a massive cliff out there, with lots of sandstone and smooth dirt. Along with the fun riding was also about a half dozen "hike-a-bikes", where the terrain is steep and rocky and only the best mountain bikers can actually ride it. I'm not ashamed to say that I'm not one of them.
At about 2 hours into the race, I completely cracked because of the inability to eat or drink effectively across the Overlook Trail. My mind started wandering, I simply couldn't put any effort into the pedals, and I just wanted to be done. This is where not having my computer really hurt, simply because I didn't know how much farther the race was. The open desert is a pretty desolate place to be when you're in that spot. Somewhere along that stretch, I hit a rock and fat-assed my saddle, so I had to get off the bike, whip the multi-tool out again, and get that straightened out. Which took two tries, because I over compensated the first time, and my butt was sliding forward on the saddle.
Got it fixed, rode for another 10 minutes or so, then had to make a last ditch effort to finish up. I stopped, ate both the remaining gels I had, and drank all of my water, to snap my body out of the funk I was in. It worked, because about a minute later, I was back on the Kokopelli Trail / Trail #2, heading back to the start/finish area. Strangely, I started feeling really good, and was passing people left and right while I hammered this slight grade climb in my big ring most of the way.
I don't mean to make light of others' misfortunes, but damn it was good for my psyche seeing all these other racers coming apart as well. The more I passed, the better I felt.
So one last grunt up the climbs to the finishing straight, and went as hard as I could to cross the line in case someone was following me. Ended up finishing in 12th, at 2h47min.
Everything considered, that was a pretty good result for me. Tyler caught me when I was fixing my saddle, and ended up taking 10th, about seven minutes in front of me. Jake White, another Vail local, must have came apart in the latter stages of the race, finishing 11th, about three minutes ahead. So riding the same ballpark as those guys, for my second Cat 1 race ever, made me feel pretty good. I know I could have been 15-20 minutes faster if everything had gone right. And if I would have had the pack to ride with up top, who knows. Maybe even faster than that; a 2:20 may have been doable. But that's why they run the races; not everything is going to be perfect every time.
And tonight? I'm buying a new chain. And probably new bottle cages...I'm getting really sick of not having a full tank of fluid out there.
Talk about middle of nowhere. The location is only two miles from the Utah/Colorado border, and the only semblance of civilization was the tents and structures brought in for the race.
That, and the huge cellular tower that's about half a mile away from the parking lot...which means 3G coverage is darn near perfect. Strange.
Tyler Eaton and I headed back to Rabbit Valley for the XC race on Sunday morning. Got to the spot at about 10:30, which was perfect for a 12:15 start. I get into my usual routine of pre-race fueling and warming up, and at about 11:50, the starter announces that the race was being pushed back to 12:45.
This totally sucks because, as a racer, I'm just looking for consistency. I have my pre-race routine, which I start about an hour before the actual race. When the start gets moved, it throws the whole schedule out of whack. Not to mention that food is a big deal, and at 12:15, I was alright not eating a whole lot after breakfast. With the extra half hour to kill, I really needed something more to eat; I didn't bring anything with me, though.
We finally get all lined up and ready to go. I've never been out on the majority of this course before, so I was totally flying blind. AND I forgot my bike computer, so I was going to have no idea mileage-wise where we were in the overall scheme of the race.
Start goes off, and we proceed out onto a 4 or 5-mile long sandy dirt road, which is part of the Kokopelli Trail. With this kind of terrain, tactics are pretty important. I just sat in the pack and tried to stay out of the wind; I felt like I had a great start. There was one decent acceleration after about 10 minutes, which I stayed on top of, but the group shook about 4 or 5 loose off the back.
About 18 minutes into the race, the dirt road has a little incline. I shifted to compensate, and my chain suddenly breaks. Crap. Everyone's still packed up, so I'm there fixing my chain with my entire group moving away from me at a pretty rapid pace. Coming off the bike with my heart rate at 180bpm, my hands were just shaking...especially because I knew the race was more or less over for me at that point. After five minutes (!) of trying to get my chain back together, I finally get my shit straight to get back in behind the top 3 singlespeeders, the group that started 3 minutes behind us.
Before long, though, I was into the Overlook Trail - a 10 mile long singletrack that was either whoopty-doos from motos, or massive rough rock slabs. Either case doesn't allow you to put much consistent effort into the pedals. Unfortunately, consistent effort into the pedals is really what my body is geared for right now. This section was like volunteering for torture on my lower back - my back muscles probably won't be kosher for several days. I was racing the Stumpy today, so the hardtail didn't help on the rock sections. I don't know that the Intense's full-suspension would have really helped that much, though. It was just a massive amount of hurt for me.
Throughout the entire race, people were passing me from behind, I was catching up to people, so I really had no clue where I was with relationship to other racers in my group...or with relationship to the overall course length.
At about 2 hours into the race, I completely cracked because of the inability to eat or drink effectively across the Overlook Trail. My mind started wandering, I simply couldn't put any effort into the pedals, and I just wanted to be done. This is where not having my computer really hurt, simply because I didn't know how much farther the race was. The open desert is a pretty desolate place to be when you're in that spot. Somewhere along that stretch, I hit a rock and fat-assed my saddle, so I had to get off the bike, whip the multi-tool out again, and get that straightened out. Which took two tries, because I over compensated the first time, and my butt was sliding forward on the saddle.
Got it fixed, rode for another 10 minutes or so, then had to make a last ditch effort to finish up. I stopped, ate both the remaining gels I had, and drank all of my water, to snap my body out of the funk I was in. It worked, because about a minute later, I was back on the Kokopelli Trail / Trail #2, heading back to the start/finish area. Strangely, I started feeling really good, and was passing people left and right while I hammered this slight grade climb in my big ring most of the way.
I don't mean to make light of others' misfortunes, but damn it was good for my psyche seeing all these other racers coming apart as well. The more I passed, the better I felt.
So one last grunt up the climbs to the finishing straight, and went as hard as I could to cross the line in case someone was following me. Ended up finishing in 12th, at 2h47min.
Everything considered, that was a pretty good result for me. Tyler caught me when I was fixing my saddle, and ended up taking 10th, about seven minutes in front of me. Jake White, another Vail local, must have came apart in the latter stages of the race, finishing 11th, about three minutes ahead. So riding the same ballpark as those guys, for my second Cat 1 race ever, made me feel pretty good. I know I could have been 15-20 minutes faster if everything had gone right. And if I would have had the pack to ride with up top, who knows. Maybe even faster than that; a 2:20 may have been doable. But that's why they run the races; not everything is going to be perfect every time.
And tonight? I'm buying a new chain. And probably new bottle cages...I'm getting really sick of not having a full tank of fluid out there.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
MSC #1 - Rabbit Valley Rampage
Colorado MTB race season officially starts this weekend, with the first venue of the Mountain States Cup series - Rabbit Valley Rampage.
For those of you that don't know, Rabbit Valley is a location full of trails just west of Fruita, and is quickly gaining popularity among mountain bikers. Starting very near Exit #2 on I-70, many of the trails traverse well into Utah before circumnavigating back to Colorado.
Saturday has a 5-mile time trial 'prologue', which should take in the ballpark of 20 minutes to complete, with Cat 1/19-29 time slots starting at 11:45am. Sunday has a full gamut of XC racing, with the Cat 1 waves starting around 12:15pm.
The XC course starts on the Kokopelli Trail at Exit 2, then heads west onto the Westwater Mesa trail. From there, we move onto the Western Rim trail, then high-tail it back to the finish along the Kokopelli to the starting area. Follow the blue line on the map to the right.
Total course length is in the ballpark of 31 miles, and the organizers are guessing the PROs will be finishing in 2h00m to 2h15m. I'm thinking it'll probably be in the neighborhood of 2h45m for myself.
Time to build on the experience from Sea Otter, and go put a good race together.
Saturday has a 5-mile time trial 'prologue', which should take in the ballpark of 20 minutes to complete, with Cat 1/19-29 time slots starting at 11:45am. Sunday has a full gamut of XC racing, with the Cat 1 waves starting around 12:15pm.
The XC course starts on the Kokopelli Trail at Exit 2, then heads west onto the Westwater Mesa trail. From there, we move onto the Western Rim trail, then high-tail it back to the finish along the Kokopelli to the starting area. Follow the blue line on the map to the right.
Total course length is in the ballpark of 31 miles, and the organizers are guessing the PROs will be finishing in 2h00m to 2h15m. I'm thinking it'll probably be in the neighborhood of 2h45m for myself.
Time to build on the experience from Sea Otter, and go put a good race together.
Next Stop - USAC National MTB Championships
Well, not really next stop, but you get the idea. Have a few more races between now and the middle of July.
Fortune has smiled upon me, and the folks at USA Cycling have apparently decided I did well enough at Sea Otter to qualify me for the National Championship XC race, which will be held at Sol Vista Resort in Granby, CO. Raced the National Competition XC race last year in Cat 2...it's a brutal course. You climb up the mountain, then you climb all the way down. The only recovery areas were climbs. No kidding.
Anyway, now that I have my qualification for Nationals set, I can relax and just concentrate on racing...
Anyway, now that I have my qualification for Nationals set, I can relax and just concentrate on racing...
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Sea Otter Classic - Day 4
My last day at Sea Otter consisted of watching the Cat 2 XC race (cheering Tim on), expo-ing or festival-ing all day, watching the PRO Short Track XC races, catching a couple runs of the PRO Dual Slalom finals, and catching the end of the PRO/1/2 Road Race.
Tim started off on his journey around the 19-mile XC course at about 8:00am...many more entrants for the Cat 2 races. Looked like about 35 or so in Tim's age group. He wrapped up the race in about 1h50min, coming in around 20th or so. Good result for him.
Ran into a friend from K-State - Aaron Elwell - who was racing PRO out here this weekend. He was lined up for short track that afternoon, and the XC race on Sunday. We checked out the expo booths the rest of the morning.
Stopped by the Native Eyewear booth for a chat...pretty sweet glasses. Check 'em out. Scored a set of the Grind shades, which I wore for the rest of the day instead of the Oakleys. Very glad I had them...the larger format and polarized lenses were much needed being in the sun all day.
Specialized booth had a SHIV time trial bike there for everyone to see. Man, that bike's doing 40mph standing still. Also stopped by their mechanic pit - bikes for Lene Byberg, Conrad Stoltz, Todd Wells, Christoph Sauser, and Burry Stander were all hanging there, getting worked on. Pretty sweet to see the tools of the pros. Also stopped by their mountain bike booth, and chatted with their western region director of somethin' or other. He suggested I pick up an Easton EC90 seatpost for my Stumpy - he said their freeride guys are riding it (so its plenty strong), and it take a lot of the bite out of the trail on a hardtail. I'll take him up on it...
Also stopped by Turner Bicycles booth - Dave Turner had his Fluxes, 5.Spots, and Sultans out there for test rides. In all sorts of colors. You want a custom bike that isn't truly a 'one-off'? Give Turner a call.Other fun things I saw:
Crank Brothers was doing full pedal rebuilds - for FREE - but they were returning Saturday's pedals on Sunday, so no good for me.
Yeti Bikes debuted their new 29er hardtail. Sweet looking ride...one that a lot of people have been clamoring about. So did Orbea and Cannondale, for that matter.
Lizard Skins had their etching/engraving equipment on-site to customize lock-on grip rings. Purely Custom did as well...that's all they do. Custom headset caps, spacers, lock-on rings, etc.
Mafia Racing had the Pabst tent set up. Yay.
Cytomax had a "refreshment station" set up - with all the Muscle Milk protein shakes or Cytomax ready-to-drink you could stand. Ice cold. Yum...stopped by there probably half a dozen times.
Pedro's was sponsoring the bike wash station - which I took advantage of - by stocking the place with Green Fizz bike wash, Oranj Peelz degreaser, and GO! lube.
On to the PRO XC races: I figured I'd watch Aaron race in the men's short track, as well as catch the women's short track beforehand.
Wow - these guys and gals are FAST.
Women's race saw a split of four off the front, with Georgia Gould putting it to the other three with four laps to go, soloing away for the win.
Got to see Brian Lopes rip down the dual slalom course...let me tell you, he don't suck. Also saw the Bissell road team dominate the Elite Road Race, with Paul Mach winning in a solo effort. There were some bunch sprints...talk about uncorking a sprint. 40 miles an hour on a flat is pretty impressive.
Also got to check out a few other riding events - dirt pump track, dual trials, and the like. Got completely fried - my scalp is sunburnt for crying out loud - and went back to the hotel to pack up the bike and get ready to head home.
Fun weekend. Great venue, great weather, great time. Would I do it again? Sure. Next year?
Training starts tomorrow...:)
Sea Otter Classic - Day 3 (Race Report)
Race Day.
Took it easy throughout the morning, waking up around 8am, grabbing a decent breakfast, and getting ready. Race started staging at 1:50pm for a 2:15 start. Got a great warmup in – felt ready to go. At least as ready as I was going to be anyway. First Cat 1 / Pro Singlespeed, then 15-16 C1, followed by 17-18 C1, and then 19-24 C1. Finally, our group (25-29 Cat 1) toes the line. 25 of us at the start. While we’re waiting through our 5-minute wave separation, the announcer was friendly enough to announce that the defending Cat 1 XC Nat’l Champ was at the start line.
Wonderful. As if picking Sea Otter for my first Cat 1 XC race was enough, now I’ve got the best of the best in the category lining it up with me. No time like the present to see where I stand, I guess.
I honestly entered this race with the goal to not get absolutely shellacked…don’t get me wrong – a podium would be nice – but if I just finished ahead of a couple of people, I’d be happy.
Whistle sounds, and we take off in a pack for a nice little cruise around Laguna Seca Raceway, backwards to just shy of the Corkscrew. We’re all packed up, I’m somewhere around a third of the way back, when we dump off the tarmac and shoot through a two-wide gate and out onto the first section of dirt. Big selection up this first climb, where the group of 25 suddenly became a group of 12-14 and the rest splintered off the back. Turned off the road and hit the first section of singletrack – snaking through the trees. Great trail – too bad I was too concentrated on not getting dropped through here to enjoy it. Hanging on for dear life through the next couple sections of singletrack – one a slight but long sandy climb, and a long descent with deep sand. We come up to the second climb – a steep singletrack section that lasts 5-6 minutes (about 30 minutes into the race), and I finally come off the back of the group. When I say “group”, I mean racers that were in relative contact with each other…I was probably 2 minutes off the pace already at this point. Lost contact with those guys, but kept the pace I could muster for as long as I could.
At about 10 miles into the race, the course turned very sandy. Took a spill on a downhill section (front wheel washed out in 12″ deep sand – all of a sudden it hooked up, shot straight right into a bush, and up over the handlebars I went)…and in the process, lost a water bottle. All of a sudden, I’m down to 1/2 of a bottle with about 8 miles to the lap area, where my reload was sitting; I got passed by two guys in the immediate aftermath that I never caught again, and I have sand in places it took two showers to get cleaned out. Just glad nothing broke and I wasn’t hurt.
The course finally start working back toward the main venue, when you hop out on a doubletrack that is out in the open. Wildflowers everywhere, green grass covers the hillsides like carpet. Quite striking when you’re used to brown grass and/or snow like I have been staring at for many weeks now in Colorado. Anyways, I was at a point in the race where I was just riding to have fun. I’d completely lost contact with anyone in front of me, so I was officially “riding” instead of racing now. Still pumping out as much of a pace as I could, but it was essentially a time trial for me from here on – for the next 25 miles. Anyways – back to the open hillsides…you crest this particular hill, and you can see the doubletrack climb, and climb, and climb. You can see the top of the course. You look at your computer, and it dawns on you – that top is 4 miles away. It looks so close…
I loop through in about 1h25min, which was pretty respectable for me. If I was only racing one lap (i.e. still in Cat 2), I probably would have been in contention for the win. But we were doing two laps, so I left some gas in the tank. I came through the lap area, grabbed my reload bottle (which was my only fluid at this point…uh-oh), and started heading back out for lap two. I remember thinking to myself, “I have to do this again?” I sat in with one other guy in my race, but about halfway through the first singletrack section, he took a bobble and I passed him, never to see him again. I was getting passed up by guys in the age groups behind me, so I would suck a wheel as long as I could, and eventually they’d get away from me. About an hour into the second lap (about 2h30min), I was running low on the bottle I had, and had one gel left. And still had a number of miles to go. The last hour of the race more or less turned from “riding” to “wanting to finish”. When you’re 5 minutes behind the person in front of you, and 5 minutes ahead of the person behind you, and you’re cracked, starting to cramp, and out of fluid – the bike becomes a pretty lonely and desolate place to be.
Regardless, I soldiered on, turning the cranks over yet one more time, until I finally crossed the finish line. Finished in 16th place, in 3h23min. I was waaaay dehydrated, hungry, and blown up.
So, at the end of the day, it was much more positive than negative, regardless of how I finished. I couldn’t have possibly ridden any faster across the course, everything (including myself) stayed in working order the whole race, and I still had fun. I learned that I have a lot of work to do, but being among the top at this level isn’t out of the question. Just give me a couple of races (...or years).
Wonderful. As if picking Sea Otter for my first Cat 1 XC race was enough, now I’ve got the best of the best in the category lining it up with me. No time like the present to see where I stand, I guess.I honestly entered this race with the goal to not get absolutely shellacked…don’t get me wrong – a podium would be nice – but if I just finished ahead of a couple of people, I’d be happy.
Whistle sounds, and we take off in a pack for a nice little cruise around Laguna Seca Raceway, backwards to just shy of the Corkscrew. We’re all packed up, I’m somewhere around a third of the way back, when we dump off the tarmac and shoot through a two-wide gate and out onto the first section of dirt. Big selection up this first climb, where the group of 25 suddenly became a group of 12-14 and the rest splintered off the back. Turned off the road and hit the first section of singletrack – snaking through the trees. Great trail – too bad I was too concentrated on not getting dropped through here to enjoy it. Hanging on for dear life through the next couple sections of singletrack – one a slight but long sandy climb, and a long descent with deep sand. We come up to the second climb – a steep singletrack section that lasts 5-6 minutes (about 30 minutes into the race), and I finally come off the back of the group. When I say “group”, I mean racers that were in relative contact with each other…I was probably 2 minutes off the pace already at this point. Lost contact with those guys, but kept the pace I could muster for as long as I could.
At about 10 miles into the race, the course turned very sandy. Took a spill on a downhill section (front wheel washed out in 12″ deep sand – all of a sudden it hooked up, shot straight right into a bush, and up over the handlebars I went)…and in the process, lost a water bottle. All of a sudden, I’m down to 1/2 of a bottle with about 8 miles to the lap area, where my reload was sitting; I got passed by two guys in the immediate aftermath that I never caught again, and I have sand in places it took two showers to get cleaned out. Just glad nothing broke and I wasn’t hurt.
The course finally start working back toward the main venue, when you hop out on a doubletrack that is out in the open. Wildflowers everywhere, green grass covers the hillsides like carpet. Quite striking when you’re used to brown grass and/or snow like I have been staring at for many weeks now in Colorado. Anyways, I was at a point in the race where I was just riding to have fun. I’d completely lost contact with anyone in front of me, so I was officially “riding” instead of racing now. Still pumping out as much of a pace as I could, but it was essentially a time trial for me from here on – for the next 25 miles. Anyways – back to the open hillsides…you crest this particular hill, and you can see the doubletrack climb, and climb, and climb. You can see the top of the course. You look at your computer, and it dawns on you – that top is 4 miles away. It looks so close…
Regardless, I soldiered on, turning the cranks over yet one more time, until I finally crossed the finish line. Finished in 16th place, in 3h23min. I was waaaay dehydrated, hungry, and blown up.
So, at the end of the day, it was much more positive than negative, regardless of how I finished. I couldn’t have possibly ridden any faster across the course, everything (including myself) stayed in working order the whole race, and I still had fun. I learned that I have a lot of work to do, but being among the top at this level isn’t out of the question. Just give me a couple of races (...or years).
Sunday, April 18, 2010
New Eyewear
Rockin' the Grind shades. Super nice quality, lots of great features.
Full review coming soon.
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