Jackrabbit Trail 6 hr mtb

On 24 Oct I raced the Chainbuster 6 hr solo at Jackrabbit Park near Hayesville, NC. This was my forth endurance race in a month. I did cut back on intensity in my weekday rides lately, but I still had a bit of latent muscle soreness. I've heard and read great things about the trails, the weather looked to be great, and I was looking forward to camping by a lake and then possibly riding some of the annual big 6-gap ride in N. GA the next day with some friends....a biking in the mountains filled weekend.

Two guys that I never beat in 6 hr races were in attendance, so I figured that I'd likely be gunning for 3rd at best....I certainly didn't recognize everybody. Joey Stanley, my longtime racing adversary/buddy graciously loaned me his 2011 Scott Scale Carbon 29er to race, but despite being my first ride on it, I had confidence in having a great race.

The race started at 10 am with the usual mass start. The first 1/2 mile was paved, so it quickly turned into a single file draft which continued for miles on swooping trails. I've often felt the similarity between riding a swoopy mtb trail or a sweeping-switchback-filled road descent and flying the F-16 fighter. The g-forces are obviously much higher in an F-16 and you can swoop going straight up, but the effect is similar. Even non former fighter pilots sense this. From David Muse's blog (he doesn't know me, but I doubt he'd mind) "Yep, flattish trail for a while. I was bound up in traffic but we were fighter-jetting through the woods at incredible speeds. I can't overstate how fun these trails are at race pace, following other fast riders. A hollywood-style fighter jet dogfight is the only worthy analogy. You're just flying, banking hard, climbing and diving and pushing the envelope to hold on to the rider ahead of you. If I ever get to where I can't do it any more, it's the kind of thing I'm going to remember fondly." I raced very well; ate and drank when I should, paced myself, rode efficiently. I knew Josh Fix was way out in front of me (and everybody) and David Sagat passed me on the second lap, but other than that I was passing a lot of riders and in some cases "towing" then on every lap--I guess they thought I was just the right pace because they didn't want to pass. I managed to pass one gal on a husband and wife team on three laps at almost the same spot. One guy I figured was a threat was in a Litespeed BMW kit on a cross (!!) bike. He was just leaving the pits every time I'd roll in. It was not a particularly technical course, but after I followed Shane Schriehart, who was also on a cross bike, bouncing all over the first lap and seeing him crash hard, I couldn't believe anybody could last 6 hrs on a cross bike. Sure enough Litespeed BMW either flatted or crashed (or both) and I passed him for good on my 6th lap. I came in on my 7th lap at 5:17 clock time that gave me 43 minutes to try another lap...or it wouldn't count...so being a realist, I was done. It turns out that James Wiant finished his 7th lap about one minute ahead of me!! This is a frustrating aspect of mtb racing. I always race hard, but over the course of 5 hrs I'm sure I let up/get distracted a little bit--one minute...I think I could have found the energy if I'd known! Forth place for me. Still, I really enjoyed the bike, the course, the scenery and the competitive fun.

12 hours of Dauset 17 Sep

This was the longest cycling only race I've done yet--I've done a 30 hr adventure race. I've raced the solo 6 hr dauset race three times before, so when Van Mixon asked me to race with him in the 12 hr as a two man team, I thought it would be fun to try something different. My concerns were how the go intense efforts followed by sitting around repeated over 12 hrs would affect me, and how well I would race at night. There was a big home town turnout with another two person team, a couple four person teams, and a couple of solo twelve hour racers. The weather was pretty much perfect for the 10 am start and all day/night. Our strategy was for me to lead off with two laps and then alternate two laps each for as long as we could. We felt that our fitness was good enough to go really hard for the ~1.5 hrs two laps would take and then have a good recovery, rather than getting only a little rest alternating every lap. This seemed to work well as we quickly built a lead, and were about 30 minutes up after ten laps at which point we went to alternating laps. It was pretty cool to go as hard as I could every time, knowing that if I did burn out after a lap that Van would be ready to go. I didn't eat quite enough though, because I didn't take into account the hours spent not on the bike. Luckily, the promoters (Gone Riding's Terri and David Berger) had a big pot of spaghetti cooking for the racers and I overcame my calorie deficit as Van was riding--just in time to avoid a serious bonk. My only crash of the day occurred when trailing local Mark Paugh as he jinked around a small tree and I didn't have time to avoid it--that's what I get for following so close! I ended up with 1 1/2 night laps, and it wasn't so bad. One way I could tell when I was coming up on another racer by the sparkles of dust in my helmet light beam. The light forces you to focus entirely on the trail, though the experience of having multiple laps already helped me avoid any more crashes. When it was over we'd done 15 laps total, one lap more than Macon-ites Tim Hargett and Mike Brown in second place. Burgers and beer and a campout followed the award ceremony for many of us.

Black Bear Rampage

On 11 Sep I competed in the Black Bear Rampage, held on the Tanasi trail system and starting at the Ocoee whitewater center near Copperhill Tn.

I hadn't planned on racing this one, but after taking Labor Day weekend off from racing and with fantastic weather forecast, and knowing some of my good racing friends were going, I signed up. This is one of my favorite trail systems to ride/race so win or lose I hoped to have fun on the 40 mile course. Arriving at the parking lot at 7:45 with my good friend Trey Woodall I had plenty of warmup and visiting time...maybe too much with 49 degree temps! We lined up to do a mass start with the pros, but for some reason they (all four of them) were sent off first, followed 2 minutes later by the singlespeeders, and 3 minutes later by we experts. The race started with about 3 miles of rolling-climbing pavement, and we caught the singlespeeders before even turning onto the singletrack. Four of us had split from the pack of about 20 experts by then. I set the pace for the about first 20 minutes of trail before letting two of the guys come around in some rougher descent. Perry Thomas was doing a great job leading over the rocky rough but fast Copper rd section when he suddenly crashed into the trees...ok, but shook up. Erik Carlson then got a little gap on me, but he took a wrong turn...too far to hear me yell and I don't know why the course marshals didn't stop him. That left Travis Fowler and me out front. Travis and I would ride with eachother the whole race, pretty much marking each other while keeping the pace high enough to hold any chasers at bay (at least we hoped). We passed one of the pros and the leading singlespeeder on our way. After completing the last big climb up Boyd gap to the last section of rolling singletrack Travis' support guy offered him a drink bottle, which he declined. I asked "can I have it?" and Travis said "sure"....I think that's really cool that Travis, knowing we'd be battling for 1st, would do that. That's a style that seems very common in mountain bike racing too. After a bear sighting--very appropriate given the race name--we were still nose-to-tail approaching the finish. The course was altered slightly, so we both had to guess where it would be, but coming on to a gravel doubletrack we both guessed it was near and went full sprint side by side. I had just enough punch left in my legs to beat him by about 3 feet for first place in 3hrs 8 minutes. It was my second win in as many races at BBR, so I guess I'll put it on the schedule for next year!