My legs are sore, my eyes are sore, everything about me is SORE.
I actually went through with it....and surprisingly finished... and with a decent time in my humble opinion - considering the amount of work I put into it (or lack there of)
So this will be a long post.. I have a few pictures... some good some not so good.... but read on.
Well, as you know, this is my first mountian bike race in about five or six years... I woke up grudgingly Sunday morning, about 7AM, let the dog out and started fixing breakfast and coffee. My plan for breakfast was some eggs and bacon, as I'll take some left over pasta to eat prior to the race.
Back in the day this little ritual would be accompanied by the soothing warming sounds of Slayer or Pantera, but now it was disturbed by the likes of "Best Of Both Worlds...." (Hannah Montana), as the oldest child in this house has to get up at the crack of dawn and begin her 24hour fix of the Disney Channel.
I feel that my 9am phone call from Mike (aka Diesel) and Andy (aka Ahole) could not come soon enough. But the little one can cook eggs, which gave me plenty of time to fill up some bottles and such and double check everything. This type of organization is new also, as in the past it would be just throw it all in a bag at the last minute and sort it out later.
I get my call about fifteen after nine and head to Charleston, arriving at Kanawha state forest about 10am +/-. With the parking lot full of various cars with bikes in various stages of assembly. On top of cars, off of cars, front wheels off, and rolling around with riders milling about here and there ~ as I remember the typical prerace scene. The more things change the more they stay the same.
Grab my check book and pay my $35 to registar. This get's me a number that I can keep and use in another race if decide to do so. A T-shirt, and a packet of "Gu". Heading back to the car, I see a few people that I raced with previously. One is racing beginner while he follows his son along the trail, and of course you see all the same faces that I remember seeing years ago - typically with just a few more grey hairs here and there.
Once back to the car, you go about your routine of getting ready.... The expert classes start at 11AM, as they do an extended course the actual 40K (24Mi). The sport classes, including mine ~ Clydesdale, start at 12AM and end up doing closer to 30K (19Mi) than 40K.
Clydesdale - this class was created for folks my size 200lbs and over. When it started, it seemed it was mostly for people that enjoyed going out and drinking prior to a race, showing up half hungover etc. Then sometime over the years it involved into actual competition. They would bring scales to the races.. You'd have to weigh in, etc. Then the prizes got better, and suddenly the 195lb guys began entering the races.. This is about the time, I started dreading the race scene. But Clydesdale is where I belong.
So while Andy and Mike are getting their stuff together, I decide to start planning my strategy. Other than trying not to get picked apart by vultures somewhere out on the course, the only strategy I have is to finish, and not to feel miserable doing it. I'm hoping that part of my crappy group ride, was due to lack of eating and general nutrition. So at about 11:30 I'm going to eat my pasta and a protien bar and beef jerky. I have two power bars, and three power gels layed out for the actual race. one camel back of water, and one water bottle of gatorade made the night before.
In my left most jersey pocket I place the the two power bars, the center pocket goes one gel, and the right pocket the Canon Elph. (don't ask why I'm taking a camera)
The two other gels - Vanilla (non caffiene) will go in my left leg underneath the shorts, and the strawberry (caffinated) one on the right leg under the shorts.
If you can read the pofile of the course, you can see there are five major climbs. My eating strategy is such:
Drink at least every 15 minutes, gatorade every 30minutes. The vanilla (center jersey pocket) power gel, I'll eat going up the Mossy Rock uphill. Going up the longest climb - Hoffman Hollow, I'll eat one of the powerbars, going up Pigeon Roost the other vanilla (left leg) power gel, up Dunlop Hollow the other powerbar, and once at the top of it, I'll take the caffinated power gel (right leg). That's the plan.
BTW, the pofile also shows my actual Heart Rate for the ride... I know it's a small scale, but you can see at about mile two, it jumps up.. that's when the race was on, that first two miles was basically following the pace car.
The sport class riders including "Clydesdales" and all the beginner riders start at noon and for the most part the race starts on time... maybe five minutes later. The course starts out by at the pool parking lot and heading out the main road towards the park entrance following a pace car.
In the past it never failed in starts such as these - and today five years later it happens again, some over zealous riders naturally those that think the race will be won in the initial two miles of the race, are riding too fast trying to pass everyone and make it to the front so they can draft the pace car or someother useless reasoning... Ride up fast onto some rider, whom slows down for whatever reason, causing the overzeolous rider to have to slam on his brakes, crash and burn. This happened a couple times, although I didn't see anyone actually aquire any road rash, there were many sounds of skidding tires and such.
Once at the park entrance the promotor points everyone to the right on the road that heads out to the shooting range... this continues level for about a half of a mile before turning up our first climb of the day - Middle Ridge Road.
Middle Ridge is about a two mile fire road climb, the grade's not bad at all and normally I can easily do it in my middle chainring. Racing though, throws all normalcy out the window.. Luckily for me I had planned on just pacing myself... It wasn't long till I got my first taste of how my pacing was going, when my former race mate and former Clydesdale whom was racing beginner with his son passes me and says something to the effect of "The begginers are riding with the Clydesdales.", my reply was simply "Kind of shows you where I should be riding now doesn't it?"
I make it to the top, surprisingly I'm feeling pretty good.. but the ride is far far from over. I take a swig of gatorade, and UGGHHH!!!!!
I should have tasted this yesterday when I made it... I think I used too many scoops as I have this overly sweetend mix. I made Gatorade Concentrate and not the sport drink... Oh well old timers mistake.... This could be a problem as in the past the sweeter drinks have done me in.
In the next sextion of the race they will send us down a fairly technical bit of single track, that pretty much it seems drops straight off the hillside and brings us back towards the pool area... Teaberry trail. I've attached a google image of it. Us riders are coming down the area with all the switchbacks heading towards the parking lot.
I naturally walked several of the steeper rocky sections... and found myself dismounting, turning the bike, and then getting back on at two of the last switchbacks.
Once down Teaberry you pretty much immediatly start your next climb... Mossy Rock.. so you proceed up the hollow past the pool, and then get up on a fireroad and stay on it for a short distance. Then you turn left onto some singletrack, and head up. Mossy Rock is a great downhill, going up, well not so great. Least for me as I'm better known for sitting on bar stools than riding a bike up a hill. But it was here that I started getting a feel for my competition. There were two / three large guys in the group I've been hanging with, and after a bit I realize they are clydesdales too, or should be. I figure with this many in my group, I don't think I'm doing too terrible. But I didn't want to get too "cocky" as this is only the second climb, and there's three more after this.
Also it is now that you start to see those riders and if you've ever raced you know who they are. There's always some.. where nothing is going right for them... they're whining, screaming, cussing, complaining (probably what I used to do) about everything. They entered a mountain bike race and low and freaking behold - it was difficult. Imagine that. You had to climb. Go up, get off your bike, there's a rock. Whaaaaa Whaaaa Whaaaaa... Well I encounter one here...
I didn't really catch what this guy's - we'll call him CryBaby - issue was, but whatever it was he wanted everyone to know about it. I passed him and moved on....
I get to the top, and we do a short section of Middle Ridge Trail, and it was at this point I had my first "incident".
Remember this picture?
The one with the frayed derailure cable? Well along Middle Ridge, I started noticing my shifting wasn't working well. It was getting stuck "thankfully" in the easiest gear (large cog on the back).
I could kick it, and it would downshift, but once back up it would get stuck again.
At a large log across the trail, I decided to inspect this a little more, and this inspection cost me at least one position, because a fellow clydesdale, passed me and I never saw him again...Crybaby has passed me also.
But it appears that all the shifting has mangled the cable even more thus not allowing the cable to release. Again I'm glad that happened in this gear as for this race that's the gear I use the most. However this did convert my 27speed to a 3speed bike.
So the lesson is that if you have a frayed cable, and you have access to one of these:
A new cable... and you have plenty of time to replace it.... as I had both on Saturday. Be like NIKE and JUST DO IT.
It's like that whole "prevention" and "pound" statement, it's true.
Nevertheless, this was not a major issue and it just took me some time to get used to it. I mostly noticed it when I had to shift quickly, and with this course and the amount of climbing, it was ok.
So after dealing with this, I try to catch up to the guy that passed me, and I do see him a few times going down Ballard Trail, but I just couldn't keep up with him, as I lost some valuable time on the technical areas of this trail, and I suspect he cleaned them and moved on not looking back. But there was one more guy that I was clinging to whom had similiar technical skills like myself - that being none, we'll call him X.
I pass X going down this hill, and at the bottom the Ballard trail exits right near the shooting range, at which we head up the highest and longest climb of the day. Hoffman Hollow... Hoffman is about three miles of mostly gradual climbing for the first half. It was in this first half that X passed me and took off. My Middle gear was just too easy for this section, and if I shifted up to my large chainring, it was just too had, I felt I actually needed some of those missing gears. But I watched X pull away and tried not to cuss, and get pissed, because I still had two more climbs to go, and I was still worried about not even finishing this race. I'm here to have fun right?
This next image is of course from Google, and shows Ballard coming in from the lower right, the race went down that, then proceeded up Hoffman... this is a decent view of that gradual climb where I lost X. Where the course starts up and around the first right hand curve, is where the trail steepens up some.
During this issue of climbing, another guy passes me we'll call him WVU, as he must be with my alma mater's cycling team and decked out in the jersey and pants.
Well WVU passes me and starts pulling away. We get up to the first steeper section of this climb and it levels off again... he pulls further away as I can't keep up with out the faster gears, but by watching him on the steeper climbing sections I have a suspicion he's used me as a carrot and once passed me he's got nothing to latch on to.... as he's having trouble on the climbs, and isn't really pulling away. I have two more steep sections before the top of this climb.
On the next one.... I catch up to WVU, and this is actually where I find out that WVU is a Clydesdale. I walk by him on this steep section... I joke that he needs to pick up the pace and get up here with me as we are not doing too good. However it doesn't seem he can manage that bit of inspirational advice.
Getting up and by him, I get to the next steep section and this is the longest on the Hoffman climb.. There he is... X, he's just getting over it. I may not catch him on the climb, but I know I can catch up with him on the Black Bear decent. I was joking when I said I had "no technical" skills. I have a few they're just not very good but I have some... So as long as I can put distance between WVU and me, that will be the goal of this climb.
Nearing the top, I see X just crest it and make the turn toward Black Bear... I guess I'm about two maybe three minutes behind him... he's caught on black bear. Get to the top, head toward Black Bear and make the left on it.
The Black Bear trail is what I guess gives this race it's namesake. It's a steep drop off of middle ridge. I have never ridden this trail in it's entirety. There's a middle section that is nothing but about a 30 to 50 yard long rock garden... then there is a single track section and then "spectator falls", however todays course is bypassing spectator falls for an extended version that goes on out the hillside before cutting back down shown by the trail pointed to the left. The race is coming down from the left of the picture crossing the road and up Pigeon Roost on the other side.
Back to the race... I proceed down Black Bear, and I can't see him - X, but I hear him down there.. There's two steep drops on this upper section, that I make pretty easy, and then I'm facing the rock garden.. and X is halfway through it... I figure, because of the race, it's easy or at least not as difficult to see the desired "line" through this impending hazard... I decide if I'm going to ride it now's the time to do it. Well I don't complete it, but I catch up to X and about crash and burn before catching myself on a tree. This keeps X in front of me as we hike through the rock garden.
On the single track section, the bastard manages to get away again, mostly due to my gearing - least that's what I'm writing it off as. But when we do the turn back to the left to head on down, I have another little dismount mishap... and this allows X to get over the next two rock drop offs and gives himself a cushion on me. Bastard.
I finish the downhill and thankfully there's a water station at the road crossing so I need to waterdown the overly sugar gatorade concoction that I made.. and top that waterbottle off. This allows X to get up and over the first steep section of Pigeon Roost.
While filling up I don't see or hear WVU.... So back on the bike and I manage to ride up the first steeper section of this trail, X is over the lip and can't be seen... I have to hike the next bit... and well... I need to take a leak...
If X beats me, well he beats me.. but right now, I'm dying and I need to take a leak... so with no one around, I just do it right there in the middle of the trial and leave it for the next guy - maybe WVU. Well back on the bike and hiking up the top part of this climb, it starts to rain or drizzle, as it's looked like this all day... and then I really get down as I'm screwed if it starts to rain I can't ride flat ground if it's muddy, much less this. Nevertheless I don't see X again until I get to the top of Pigeon Roost...
By now I'm starting to feel beat down at the top and this concerns me, as the trail here is a fire road and will do a few rolls that takes us to the Pine Ridge down hill. Again similiar to the Hoffman climb... my gears are too easy... I can't get any speed and X just pulls away and is gone. Pine Ridge is not my best trail, so I'm starting to realize that X may be gone for good.. Oh well WVU is still lingering back there... so I'll wait for that disappointment to soon follow.
I take one of my power gels, and some more gatorade, thankfully it's waterdown some... snap this picture...yes the suns back out, and looks like the rain is passing us by.
On this short section as I mentioned, I'm starting to feel it... getting a little empty in the stomach, so I open the other powerbar also, and take part of it, and drink some more Gatorade...
WVU still hasn't shown up, and I manage to make it to Pine Ridge without anyone getting by... hmmmmm
Pine Ridge is a singletrack down hill that is flat at the top goes over some huge rocks, then drops down, levels off, drops down, level and the drops down again.
I manage to see X getting back on his bike at the second to the last of these drop downs.... So I'm like I've caught him.. there's one more drop and I know he'll be walking it... I clean this first section albeit with white knuckles.... then start down that last section, and immediatly I realize this section is worse than the last as it has a lot more loose and larger rocks.. that are making it difficult for me to keep my balance... so in one of the most wimpy crashes you'll see I'm able to simply lay my bike against the hillside, and get get unclipped just before running into X. He still stays in front of me throughout this downhill.
And we turn up the last climb.. Dunlop Hollow.
With X in front of me, I start climbing up this fireroad... get into my pocket and start eating the remaining powerbar.. drink some gatorade.. I have one Power Gel that I'll save for the top.
Dunlop is a relatively short climb, with the first half an access road that leads to like a gas well or something, Then turns into singletrack.. It was right before this that I passed X with a shit eating grin on my face as I introduce myself like Johnny Cash... "Hello, I'm Ron Stanevich".. and we enter the next section of single track. This singletrack shoots Straight Up the Hill... for a good 50 yards I bet.
In the Picture this will be about 1/3 down from the top as the trail is curving to the right. The top is where it curves sharply back to the left. Oh and the picture doesn't do it justice.
This is a HIKE-A-BIKE from hell.. Sometimes I wish I had a rope... As me and X are getting close to this Hike-A-Bike... I hear someone talking about how he would like to "strangle the race promotor"... "never seen anything so stupid"... CRYBABY... is doing what he does best.
Well this is a tough walking section, and as an OLD wise man once said: in times like these it's best to just take what's in front of you and put it behind you... keep doing that and eventualy you'll get to the top. That's what I did.. and I actually manage to put some distance on X. Crybaby must have decided to sit down and pout.. because I get to the top, and I can't really see either of them down the trail.. Consume the Gel and don't look back as this is the home stretch. (BTW, I don't think Crybaby was a clydesdale, I was just wanting in front of him on "principal")
It's just a short section that takes you across the ridge and then to Wildcat that we'll go down.. Unfortunatley it was on Wildcat that my gearing issues were prevalent once again... So I just put it in the largest chainring and pedaled as fast as I could, or dropped it in the easiest for the uphills and either spinned or walked.. but for the most part the middle gear was useless on this section. But I manage to get across the top portion to the final downhill of the day.
The finish of Wildcat has several switchbacks before emptying out into a field... The picture shows wilcat coming down from the left, at the very bottom is a short climb up Polly, and then on out the road to Davis Creek trail at Copperhead rock.
During the decent off of wildcat I notice no one behind me. At the bottom we do a quick turn to the left and go up Polly, a trail I've never done... It was a short climb but I had to hike it, and there was a rider there at the bottom cramping up...
Up and over and onto the asphalt road heading toward Copperhead Rock... If I was going to loose anymore positions, I figured here it would be... as I looked like a guy pedaling with no chain... I probably had 150RPM for my pedaling cadence... (again too easy of a gear) I see Copperhead Rock ahead, look back and NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Turn right onto the Davis Creek trail (or whatever it's called, that's what I call it) and head toward the finish line. This flat single track was too easy for my gears but I managed to keep going at a quicker pace and then music to my ears when I hear cars and people, up and over and too the finish line...
Where I recieve one of my best prizes..... A 16OZ Pilsner Mug!!!! (shown here - in its most pristine shape - FULL) I loved that man...3:31 minutes.
Mike, Dwayne, Andy, are all finished...
Reflections
Well, I figured it would take me three hours to complete the race. I finished 6th. For the results.. There was nine riders, one DNF'd.. in my class. To be in first place I would need to to be about fifty minutes faster... Still didn't get last, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well I actually did do. I could have rode harder... some trails I wussed out on but over all I rode some I should have walked and walked some I should have ridden...
As for the race Everyone walked away from the prize table with something.. I got a pair of socks, that I'm wearin' today...
Ahole finsished 8th, doing the full expert course on only a single speed.. Insane in my opinion.
Mike 2nd place
Dwayne 6th
Overall I had a blast....
One final pic of me and my loot
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