First Time for Everything

With three first place victories under my belt in the ICup series thus far, I was feelin' pretty good about myself heading into the Draper ICup race. I even preregistered for this event! I was THAT excited. Then reality (and the crappiest weather Utah has ever seen) hit me like a ton of bricks.

As I kept refreshing weather.com every five minutes during the week leading up to the race, I was confused as to the forecast: cold, rainy, and even SNOWY. 38 degrees Fahrenheit was the temperature at race time. In fact, had I not preregistered for this race, I wouldn't have even driven to the event. Ed's alluring tweets of 'great conditions' somehow convinced me to make the drive to Corner Canyon and see how things were looking.

As it turned out, aside from a few muddy bogs and cold temps at the beginning of the race, the overall conditions weren't too bad. Finally, something positive from the last week of hell's fury in the form of rain.

Leading the pack out of the start area--a first for me

As the Expert Men 19 - 29 lined up at the starting point, I looked around to evaluate my competition. A few familiar faces, one of which was Justin Griffin--the phenom 15 year old kid who led the entire St. George race except for the last few minutes when I passed him on the downhill for the victory. I pretty much knew there'd be some stiff competition for this race.

From the start, I felt surprisingly fresh (unlike at Soldier Hollow the week before), and jumped into the 'shakeout loop' in first place. Justin was on my wheel the entire time and as we entered the tunnel and began the climb into the main loop, there he was, stickin' on me like glue. If someone is sticking on your tire for that long, it usually means that they can ride faster than your current speed and are just waiting for an opportunity to pass. It turned out this was the case. Once the trail opened up to double track, he zipped past me. I kept him in sight pretty well for the remainder of the first lap, but he'd probably gotten ~20-30 seconds on me.

Have I mentioned before that I have never DNF'ed nor had a mechanical problem during a race? Well, as I was bombing downhill near the end of the first lap, I'd gotten in a great rhythm and I figured I was catching up to Justin. Well, as I upshifted to get up a quick climb, I heard a "SHKKDTTK" from my rear derailleur and knew something was amiss. A quick check confirmed that I had a problem: the rear derailleur cable had snapped and so I couldn't shift in the rear and I was stuck in the smallest cog in the back, essentially leaving me with a VERY hard gear--nay, an impossible gear--to use in the climbs.

After pushing my bike for a bit, I hopped on to see how ridable it was on the way back to the starting line

At this point, I figured my race was over so I started pushing my bike back to the start line. As I was walking, though, I thought to myself, "Well, you can't shift the rear, but you have 3 gears up front, maybe you could try to finish the race." So I jumped back on my bike and finished the first lap, but knew I couldn't do the rest of the race with the current gearing I had. So I pulled out my multi tool, tugged the remaining derailleur cable out as far as I could, manually pushed the rear derailleur up into the 2nd to highest cog (easier gearing for the climbs) and locked it into place. It worked! So I had three working gears (by shifting the front derailleur), but always struggled to get into the 'hardest' gear up front (largest chain ring) because my bike was all muddy and I was cross-chaining the bike (largest gear in front and rear). BUT--I could finish the race.

Deciding to finish the race, I turn around and head back to the trail

So, I hopped back on my bike and began the last 1.5 laps with a gear that would allow me to climb well, but completely spin out on the flats / downhill. The time I spent walking back to the start line and fixing my bike was probably ~5 minutes, but I didn't know how many people had passed me. I knew I wasn't going to win, but I wanted to have as strong as a finish as I could with my handicapped bike.

As it turned out, I had pretty good gearing for all of the climbs, but on the long flat road out north before the BST switchbacks, all I could really do is coast because I'd spin out otherwise. After knocking out lap #2, I realized that I'd passed a few of the people who had passed me in the interim. I was actually feeling VERY strong at this point in my riding and was somewhat frustrated that I couldn't go faster due to the bike.

Shooting downhill trying to keep momentum as pedaling yielded no results when I had speed

Anyhow, on the final 1/2 lap, I caught and passed another expert 19 - 29 racer--which meant that I wouldn't come in last. Nearing the end of the race on the final 'shakeout loop' I actually saw one of the other expert 19 - 29 racers no more than 30 seconds ahead of me. He saw me too. I sprinted through the next 1-2 miles as fast as I could, but without the appropriate gearing, I just couldn't bridge the gap. In the end, he finished eight seconds ahead of me. So close, yet so far away.

One of the flat sections where I continually would spin out in my attempt to catch the guy in front of me - harumph!

Looking at the results post race, I found out that I'd actually come in 3rd out of six (one guy DNF'ed due to a mechanical). I was ~8 minutes back from Justin in a 2+ hour race. In hindsight, if I hadn't wasted 1-2 minutes walking back to the start, and had worked on fixing my bike more quickly, I probably could have caught and passed the guy who beat me by eight seconds. I do wonder, though, whether I would have taken 2nd overall had my bike not had a mechanical. I know myself enough to recognize my strength comes after 45 minutes of riding--the way Justin was cruising though makes me think he would have been too tough to catch.

A couple firsts for me: first time I had a mechanical (no DNF though), and the first time this season I didn't take first. Seems like the perfect time to move up to Pro and get my butt handed to me, right?

Next post will be of a much more humbled rider.

The Pain Cave

After two good races in Southern Utah, the next ICup race for me ended up being over a month and a half later (I spent two weeks in Europe with The Wife for her college graduation present during the Five Mile Pass Race, and surprise surprise, I got sick the weekend of the 'Sundance' race (held at Soldier Hollow)). I just used parenthesis within parenthesis. Is that taboo?

Though the week leading up to the Soldier Hollow race was absolutely NOTHING but rain, I was still hoping that the race would occur. Sure enough, Ed Chauner (race organizer) used his magic tweets to convince me the course would be dry enough and the race was on.

My rear tire is completely spinning out in mud / water. Yeah, the course conditions were FANTASTIC!

Having spent two weeks in Europe eating too much bread, cheese, fatty sausages, and chocolate, not to mention not getting in too many bike rides, I wasn't feeling too optimistic for this race. Regardless, I'd show up and give it my best.

I reviewed last year's times for the expert class and the winners came in ~1 hour 30 minutes. I'd forgotten, though, that Ed shortened the course last year due to--wait for it--rain. So my expectations for race duration were seriously screwed up. Total race time ended up being ~2 hours 10 minutes.

I have participated in the Soldier Hollow weekly race series many times, so I know the course fairly well, but I never expected the Pain Cave to hit me as hard as it did on this race. We took off from the start (Expert men 19 - 29) and began cranking it on the pavement before the first singletrack. A Kuhl racer got ahead of me and was the first to enter the singletrack, I was the 2nd. I figured I could stick on his wheel for the first little while then try to pass him, but as it turned out, the distance between the two of us kept increasing. The Lindt factory chocolates in Switzerland had gotten to me and I was now slow again!

Trying to catch up to the Kuhl rider early on

The Kuhl racer continued to gap me as we did the initial climbs and descents right around the Soldier Hollow complex, but as we hit the long switchbacks heading up to the top of the loop, I noticed I was making ground on him. Eventually, we got to a short pitch where he spun out in the mud and I was able to pass him. As I passed he said, "Dude, you rock," or something like that. My only response was, "You.reamsdimaldf." I meant to say, "You're an animal." I was red lining it too much to provide a coherent response.

Later on in the race, making the downhill turns in style

My feeble attempt to jump the little stream going across the trail (I made it I think)

Needless to say, that was the last time I saw anyone from my category for the rest of the race. As the race continued and the Pain Cave became more Painful, I'd pretty much passed every Expert 30 - 39 (they started before us) by the end of the 2nd lap. I don't know if it was the mud, the race duration expectations, or the 'interval-esque' type course, but that race immediately threw me in the Pain Cave and kept me there the entire time. Even though I usually finish stronger than I start, I really had to dig deep to keep my pace up for the last lap of that race.

The Pain Cave

Near the end, I found that I'd gotten within 15 seconds of the last Pro rider, so that made me happy that I'd caught up to the tail end of the Pros (I never ended up passing him as he started his final 1/2 lap).

Ultimately, the race ended quite positively for me. I took first place out of all expert men by about 2 - 3 minutes, so I'm feeling that I'll probably do one more expert race at Draper, then move up to Pro so I can get my butt kicked week in, week out. Sounds like fun, eh?

A MUCH more reasonable length of post, was it not?

Carrots

Long gone were the glorious moments of victory I held in the Desert Rampage ICUP race held about a month ago. I had accomplished what I'd set out to do throughout the winter--beat myself down hard enough on the trainer to start the season off strong. It had paid off, but now came challenge #2--Cholla Challenge, that is.

The second ICUP race of the season--Cholla Challenge--was down in Hurricane, UT (read: Hurr-i-CUN, yeah, I know, it's weird). Since the weather up here in Northern Utah has only been so-so, I was very excited to get back down to the warmth of the St. George area. I had kept a fairly strong training regimen to prepare for race #2 of the season. The only thing that saved me during those crappy-weather days in which I had to ride the trainer were the NCAA basketball tournament games. I'm not a huge sports buff, but while watching college basketball, I can just zone out and ride for a couple hours.

I had pretty moderate expectations entering this next race. I wasn't anticipating a victory or anything, but I wanted to have a good showing. I got down to Hurricane on Friday evening to do a quick pre-ride of the course and found it to have short downhills, not a lot of climbing, and plenty of rocks to roll over on the flats. The course essentially played to my weaknesses (especially on the rocky flats since I'm still sporting a 26" bike--the horror!). Regardless, I completed a lap of the course at an easy pace and told myself, "Do what you can chucklehead, cause you're going to get your butt kicked tomorrow." Oh, did I mention race-time temperatures were expected to be ~80 degrees with wind gusts 10 - 20 MPH++? Should be fun.

Woke up the next morning in Virgin, UT (where I was staying), downed some oatmeal with The Wife's homemade peach jam, packed up my stuff and headed to the course. I arrived early enough to have plenty of time to not only warm up, but also warm up again. And again. And again. One benefit, though, of arriving too early is that I didn't have a long wait in line to make my pre-race deposit in the porta-potties (and there was still TP available).

Unlike the Desert Rampage, the expert men 19 - 29 started 3rd (Pros went first, then expert men 30 - 39). Now comes the clarification point as to why this post is titled 'Carrots.' Starting AFTER the expert men 30 - 39 was actually a very strong motivating factor to race hard and catch fellow racers up ahead. Essentially, I had a pack of 'carrots' (my driving factor / incentive) that I was working to catch / pass the entire race. I think that it actually translates into a faster race time.

Lining up at the start, it looked as though there would be nine of us in the exp. 19 - 29 category (one more than in St. George, even though only four finished that race). A few familiar faces from the last race, but a couple of 'Cole Sports' jerseys stood out--one guy had long, scraggly enough hair and a couple days of facial hair growth to come off as intimidating; and since I am generally a wimp, I knew I'd be in for a big beat down.

5-4-3-2-1. Go! We were off. Sure enough, the two teammates from Cole Sports jumped out quickly ahead in the initial shakeout. I've been working on starting a bit faster so as to not lose the lead group, and I did a good job of trailing these two guys for the first minute or so. Once we got to a moderately long stretch of double track, I felt the pace was light enough that I could pull out in front, so I quickly passed one of the guys, then caught up to and passed the other (scraggly hair dude). Out in front now, I was leading the pace for our group and found out rather quickly that the predicted wind gusts were very strong. Needless to say, the guys who I just passed took the opportunity to draft off me for the next little bit until we hit the technical slickrock section of the course.

An aside: I love mountain bike racing for many reasons, one of which is the fact that it's generally you vs. the mountain. You don't sit in a peloton letting everyone else do the work and then sprint at the last minute to claim victory. In mountain bike racing, victory is achieved nearly 100% through your own merits. Thus, I hate drafting--getting a free ride while someone else pulls.

Me, leading the pack of expert men 19 - 29 on the slickrock--look at scraggly hair guy! He's gonna kill me if he catches me!

Kudos to scraggly hair guy though, cause he stuck on my wheel like glue through the windy doubletrack, the slickrock section, and for about the next ~5 minutes, there he was, keepin' up. At one point, we were about to enter a section of singletrack and the fastest riders of the expert 19 - 29 group were already catching up to and passing some of the expert 30 - 39 men. I saw a fellow UMB rider whom I was about to pass, so as I passed him and jumped onto the singletrack I quietly mentioned "block this guy behind me." If scraggly hair guy was gonna draft, I was gonna use a teammate to hopefully slow him down on a section of singletrack that required much more effort to get a pass in. Apparently it didn't work though, because he also zipped by the UMB teammate and kept on my wheel for the next bit. So much for my attempts at strategy. Looks like my legs and lungs are going to have to carry the day.

Look at the face I'm making. Sometimes I amaze myself at how much of a doofus I am.

It gets even better! Now I'm sticking my tongue out the side of my mouth. Why do I even try to pretend I'm normal...

The next 10 minutes or so of the first lap included a lot of suffering as the racers were pushing it hard to hold position, and in my case, continuing to see those 'carrots' up ahead and keep on passing them. I also began to notice that scraggly hair guy wasn't right on my wheel anymore. I was beginning to gap him and that made me very happy.

At one point, I passed two expert 30 - 39 racers on a section of sandy singletrack, only to have them blast by me once we hit some doubletrack. I was amazed--I felt like I wasn't even moving with how quickly they shot past me. Well, they must have really been red lining it because I actually caught and passed both of them within the next few minutes.

Lap one finished with one expert 30 - 39 guy on my wheel. As we entered the stretch of windy doubletrack on lap two with him still following closely, I jokingly shouted back to him, "Next lap, you pull!" He responded, "Don't worry, you'll drop me on the slickrock up ahead." He was good at prognosticating--I didn't see him again after that.

Midway through lap two, I downed a Gu (Vanilla Bean is the only edible flavor during a race) and kept my race pace up fairly high. In addition to downing the Gu, I found myself munching on carrot after carrot as I continued to catch / pass riders in the 30 - 39 category. I've found that during rides / races, I really get my 'motor' running at a good pace at the 45 min - 1 hour mark. This point came midway through lap two and I just kept pushing it. The temperatures were high, the wind was fairly brutal at times, but I had hit my cadence and I was just cranking it.

Here's the money shot that makes up for how stupid I look in the other pictures: shooting around a turn, cloud of dust in my wake--I'm cruisin', and looking good doing it (ok, ok, looking ok doing it)

By lap three, I had a couple more leaders of the exp. men 30 - 39 group passed, and I'd figured that I had gapped them all 1/2 way through the lap. As I neared the finish line, I cranked it up the last hill and sped across the line. As I rode back to check on my time / pull tag, I noticed that one 30 - 39 racer had come in ~20 seconds before me. But due to the fact that he started a minute before me, my overall time was 40 seconds faster than him. (Though I was told he wasn't pushing it very hard on the first lap and just sped away at lap two. Thus, he probably could have gotten a faster time. But he didn't, so I'll relish in this.) I'd gotten first out of all expert men. Last race, I took fifth overall. All of those nights of riding the trainer / Lambert Park are still paying dividends!

Don't know what my next steps are. I plan on keeping the training regimen up and doing my best, but The Wife and I have a two week trip to Europe planned at the end of April, so I'm hoping I don't lose too much fitness out there (I plan on riding as much as I can--Tour of Tuscany, around Lake Zurich, etc.).

Also, for the first time while riding my bike, I enjoyed a head wind. With the temperatures so hot, when we had a tail wind, it felt as if the air were standing still, so the heat became almost overwhelming. The headwind was cooling and nice. Now, I'll never state that I enjoy a headwind again.

Are these posts getting longer? I need to find a way to shorten them.

Red Rock Rampage - Let the Races Begin

Prologue to the prologue: Well, it's been awhile since I have decided to jump on the ol' blog and provide a few minutes of reading to the two people who actually read this (my wife and my dad), and since the mountain biking season officially kicked off last weekend with the Red Rock Rampage, I guess it's time to let the blogging commence again!

Prologue: Highly depressing winter. I could never imagine that I'd hate going downstairs to ride the trainer as much as I have. The only thing keeping me going was the knowledge that if I didn't train regularly, I'd get all pudgy again and have to work that off--no thank you. So somewhat religiously (haha, the only religion I claim to have now) I would suit up, head down to the trainer and let Bruce of UMB.com beat me down with the "Utah Mountain Biking Power DVD." It is quite the workout. Thankfully, three to four months of winter pass and the signs of ICup racing are starting to poke out from under the snow, and I'm starting to get excited. I have been training pretty well all winter, I'm feeling strong in my riding, I'm going to move up to the expert racing category--life is good! (Yeah, like it's going to turn out that easy.)

The weekend before the Red Rock Rampage I was actually planning on heading down to St. George with a friend / co-worker to do the "Zion Early Spring Century." As the date approached, the weather down there seemed to be getting worse and worse, so I opted to not go since riding 100 miles in 35 - 45 degree rainy weather was not my idea of fun. It's a good thing I opted out because starting on Friday I starting coming down with a little cold. "Not to worry," I thought. "I get over little sicknesses in a jiffy." Well, this one (given to me by my kid with a double ear infection) wasn't so tiny--I was completely knocked out for the entire weekend and Monday. Great. One week before the first ICup race and I'm completely laid out, suffering in solitude since The Wife was taking care of The Kid (and doing all of her school work simultaneously).

Ensue more depression. Blech. Well, Tuesday comes and I'm feeling a bit better--not phenomenal, but I can get by. At this point, I'm thinking I won't do the race, but just head down to enjoy the nice weather and spend time with the fam. As Wednesday and Thursday come, though, I start feeling much better (my Wolverine powers kicked in), and I was able to get ~1 hour on the trainer each night--no hacking cough, not too difficult to breathe. I was feeling pretty good! The race was on.

The Pre-race: Saturday started off quite nicely--breakfast at the hotel, packed up everything in the car and headed to the Green Valley Race Loop for the event. Once there, I did a quick review of my bike to make sure everything was good. Uh oh--I'd failed to check my disc brakes the night before, and my front pads were nearly worn out. I ran over to the UMB tent to see if they had any available and thankfully, they did. I grabbed a pair, ran back to the bike, replaced the pads, and thought everything was good to go. Well, as I pumped by brake lever to make sure the pads were braking properly, the lever stuck. What. The. Crap. I'd never experienced this.

So I ran like a little girl in a pretty little dress over to the UMB tent where I asked Mike (the UMB fix-it guy) if he'd ever seen this. He'd never seen it, but he got to work trying to bleed the brakes thinking some air / pressure might be causing the lever to stick. It wasn't that since he couldn't get any oil to flow through the brakes, so we were now down to taking apart the entire brake lever (and the multitude of tiny little pieces involved) to solve the problem. To make an already long story somewhat shorter, Mike ultimately got the lever piston up top unstuck (I helped a little bit!) and my brakes worked flawlessly for the race. A MAJOR thank you to Mike for that (he told me that I'd need to bring a blue ribbon for payment, but I knew that wasn't going to happen. OR was it?!?!? Forebode.)

The Race: With my brakes fixed, I was ready to go. Having decided to race Expert Men 19-29 now, I was hoping to come in middle of the category and somewhat middle of the pack for all experts. Truthfully, I didn't exactly know how I'd do. As we lined up, I did recognize a couple of those phenom younger kids (aged like 15 - 18) in my category who would definitely kick my butt since they are like national champions in their age category. Oh well! I'm out here to have fun, right?

After the Pro Men took off, our category was up next. Side note: expert men racers are so much more friendly / congenial on the trail during passing situations than sport men racers, and a benefit of starting right after the pro men is not having to pass expert / pro women who REFUSE to move over because you are a lowly 'sport' racer. --End rant--. Lining up, it looked like there would be eight guys in the 19-29 category. "Ok--shoot for 3rd or 4th," were my thoughts as I prepared to take off. 5-4-3-2-1-Go! We were off. The start was actually not too intense, but we all kept a pretty good clip from the get-go. The two phenom kids led the way out and I was close behind in 3rd.

As we continued up the first long climb of the loop (a total of 3 loops for expert), the two younger phenom kids were beginning to gap me and a couple of the guys who were behind me had covered some ground, one of which was right on my tail. After the first long climb, there is a relatively long descent before the 2nd major climb of the loop. As I started bombing down the descent, I could see one of the phenom kids not too far ahead of me, but one of the kids had experienced a mechanical and was off on the side of the trail presumably looking for a part of his bike (sucks). So I was back in 2nd! Didn't last long though. On the 2nd major climb of the 1st loop, the guy behind me in my category (as well as two guys from the expert men 30-39 group) passed me. Nuts.

I wasn't too worried though as I was feeling pretty strong and was enjoying the race. On the major descent back to the starting line, I actually caught up to the guy in my category and passed him, following one of the guys in the 30-39 group closely for the rest of the descent. I was back in 2nd and feeling good as I began the 2nd lap.

One of the few pictures where I don't look too much like a doofus hyperventilating

The 2nd lap flew by without much happening. No one in my category passed me, and only one guy from the 30-39 group passed me (and I believe I caught up to a Pro racer or two as well!).

As I began the 3rd lap, I was feeling a bit of the fatigue I was expecting, so I downed a Gu and sloppily drank from the water cup that the volunteers were passing out. As I motored through the first half of the 3rd lap on both the ascent and the descent, I didn't see anyone close on my tail. I was still riding strong, and I figured I could finish in 2nd. On the final climb of the 3rd lap, I switched positions with a Pro rider a couple times who ultimately passed me before the finish, but he was off to do his final lap (boy was I glad I only had three to do rather than four).

On the top of the last climb, I looked back and didn't see anyone I could recognize (by now I was passing a lot of sport riders so it was difficult to know with whom I was competing anyway). On the final descent I knew I wouldn't get passed because I was handling this downhill extremely well, and I was just BOMBING down the trail. Concentrating on getting the 2nd place finish, I was enjoying this quick descent. But wait! Who is that up ahead? The 15 year old phenom kid (Justin Griffin is his name) isn't that far ahead of me!?! I decided to let off the brakes a bit more and rocket down the trail as fast as I could. As I caught his wheel, I waited for one second for the trail to open up and shouted "PASS!" (quite breathlessly I might add) and zipped by him. I couldn't believe that I'd caught up to him no more than two minutes until the end of the race.

After the long downhill, there is a short 'flatish' section right before the end. I motored my way to the finish line and crossed with a time of 1:24:33. Wow. I was glad I was done. I was also quite pleased with how my bike performed during the race. And I'd taken 1st place. Not bad.

Yay, look at me! I can hold my arms up.

Net net, I took 5th out of all ~70 expert men (3 30-39 men, and 1 40+ had better overall times than me), so I'm feeling pretty good right now, especially after having come back from a sickness. Ironically, doing well only makes me want to train harder (I have probably done the Suncrest loop 3 times since then just to keep my climbing legs going).

Oh, as an aside: the following morning, I did the Zen trail and my rear derailleur somehow got ripped off as I descended some rocks. So there's another $200 repair I'll have to take care of. But I went on an awesome hike with The Wife and The Kid, so I didn't really care about damaging the bike.

Man I am wordy. Hope you enjoyed.