What's the best book you read this year?
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood blew my socks off. Never has a futuristic novel been so real, logical, and frightening. I know the novel came out a while ago, but having only just started discovering Atwood's vast collection of work - I'm excited to read more. A lot more!
The rides are getting dark and COLD now that night-time temps dip into single digits. The trainer is dusted off and in use, and the DVD collection becomes the focus of some attention, again. Christmas day was perfect - for getting crushed by the fellas in some mighty nice weather. In a word? Perfect!
The Hawke-Cross-Old-Fashioned-Coop-Cup is coming up for a pair of races in Albuquerque - should be a challenge! I'll be out, and hope to remember to put the CX wheels back on the CX bike, as it is now officially the road machine too. A bit heavy - but oh-so-comfortable! Seems like I've halted the precipitous loss of fitness and am able to churn out something approaching a respectable functional threshold... now if I can keep the weight coming off - a slow and difficult task this time of year - I might not get nuked at any event I dare show up at next year!
That's it for now - and no pix, as I seem to have lost / misplaced my trusty little Canon Point-and-Shoot camera.
Next up: The Santa Fe New Years Resolution Ride / Torture fest. A giant loop that heads east, south, west, north - then east back into town, mixing up the areas best CX routes and some serious road miles.
Snuck a wicked ride in this fine, warm, overcast morning - from downtown Santa Fe out through Tesuque to Chupadero, up Pacheco Canyon Road all the way to the Ski Basin Road - where I stuffed my jacket with this weeks edition of the Santa Fe Reporter and bombed back into town.
The punchy hills on the way to the start of the dirt road climb served as perfect capillary-bed-blood-flow-inducers, just in time for the wicked crawl up the mix of mud, snow, and hard-pack - with some loose stuff here and there - on my overgeared new CX bike. Still riding the 53/39 chain-rings up front, and a 12-25 cassette, so man! I was turning like 45 RPM's at times. Who needs the gym and those squat sets anyways? THIS is real power training!
More importantly it was absolutely beautiful, solitary, and an all-around perfect way to start the day (or continue it, as it started just before 4AM...) at 530AM. I thought for sure I'd get snowed on by the time I reached the top, but t'was not to be, as it seemed I was chasing the cloud 'ceiling' higher and higher with every turn of the cranks.
Even at the top-out point, it was mild - as has been the case this fall, alas. Last year seemed to have started slow - then hammered us with snow, but this is terrible. Worst I saw this a.m. - up at 9.5k feet or so, was an inch or two of old granular / packed powder stuff that was easy to ride through & over. Lame - though obviously I took advantage of the 'conditions' to ride way higher than is typical for December.
NMCX State Championships - Killer B's Race
I'm tired and sore indeed
With a shiny new Redline Team Edition frame and fork to bolt all my trusty old road bike parts to, I was ready for a test ride - or the state championships! Same difference, right? Late Thursday night I built her up - bleary eyed, weary, fried, and exhausted. Kid duties, work, architectural licensing exams - life in general these days - has me working mighty hard just to keep up. Bike ride, maintenance, and general goofing off time are at an all time low, so I built the bike up fast, but solid. I do have a little experience there.
In bed by midnight then.
Friday - woke up and felt like I had been up way past my bedtime, as early as 7PM at times. Rode the bike to work - it felt good; just needed a little rear derailleur adjustment, and headset snugging. Always have to be nervous about over-torqueing the stem and expand-o anchor in/on carbon steer tubes!
Saturday - no time to ride/tinker.
Sunday - race day! Not much sleep. Start caffeinating.
Rich, and his wife / personal photographer / cheering section Tanya,
picked me up and off we headed for another edition of 'Cross Mania in
New Mexico. On the way to the races, headed down I-25, I wondered just
what was so appealing about this pernicious form of on-bike torture. I
came up with a few basics; though in Albuquerque - the events have been
close to home - a real bonus given current time constraints; they are
cheap - also a real bonus given the new financial constraints; and they
are over quickly - but offer ferocious training/racing experience -
even if one has to get off their bikes as part of the race. What else?
Fantastic group of people putting the race on, officiating, and of
course, to line up with.
Our 'B' CAT had a huge field at the start! 45 - 47 folks, including some fast Veteran racers, a faster yet pro-lady, and the sick-fast Nob Hill Velo young bucks. Their yellow-and-red kits blotted out all else, and they took the appropriate spot(s) at the front of the start line - in fact, I think they had the whole front of the line covered themselves - where we'd take off ON FOOT! Yes indeed, a LeMans start to sort it out - just before the set of (4) barriers. This made the start of the race thus: Dash 75 meters or so to our bikes, pick them up, and run another 25 meters or so to the barriers. Run/jump through and over them, hop on the bike, and grind up the rest of this long straight away, climbing yet more at this far end. Ow.
What's been hard to get use to is the quick, subtle way the starts seem to happen. I was headed back to the car to tweak gear and nutrition, when I heard "B's to the LINE, NOW!" and abruptly changed course and headed over. I had too light a jersey on, too heavy a hat on, and too much water in my bottle - and sure could use more coffee! Eh. So it goes. Dump bike, remove jacket, head to the start. There was a quickly growing crowd - both of racers and spectators! How cool, and rare in my experience racing these past few years. It seems that the race organizers could not get permission to start us out on the adjacent road - thereby triggering the need for the LeMans type start.
So before you could say "run and jump", off we went, to run, jump, and
ride! The course was fast, but hurt like a mofo - but the new 32c tires
and 'real' cross bike ate the grass up right-quick.
No idea where the heck I was initially. Managed to get my bike, run with it, jump those hurdle-things, and dive ahead. Once on bike, I was already tired! Ow. Need to work on running, and efficiently negotiating those hurdle-things... seems like I must have been 12-15 people back from the front, and man! Where was Rich? He's mastered the on-bike starts, but somehow I edged him out on the running and jumping mayhem. Luck! The leaders were already quite far ahead. Well, I know that in 'Cross it's pretty much always 'now or never', so went into attack mode as best as I could, at a pace I hoped to sustain. Pedal, turn, pedal, brake. Repeat. At one point, clawing past #6 and #7 - both on the aforementioned Nob Hill Velo Team, I was chucked an elbow! I went wide and left a lot of space on the inside. This young dude, riding DEFENSE for his team mates 'up the course' actually through an elbow my way! This was in addition to responding to my 'attack' by drifting WAYYY off his line. I laughed, tucked back in, whipped around after the next corner and dropped these two. Of course, his tactic worked - as I had started digging in for the pass / effort previously, but had to 'check it', then gather another head of steam and repeat. I saw my quarry ahead, a skinny dude in maroon and silver I've watched masterfully race these past few weeks. He was in 5th, I believe - so I worked out the pace necessary to get up to his wheel. It took a lap, but I caught up. I'm pretty sure he feighned distress here and there, and after a while - when it felt like EVERYONE was about to pass us - I once again took the bait and punched it, coming around him just before a long paved stretch where I kept the wattage up and opened a gap I hoped to sustain.
A few laps later, I passed one more guy and continued to try desperately to reel in the leaders. They appeared to be working well together and when they saw I was sneaking up on 'em, seemed to magically pull the stops out and up the pace - keeping me from ever getting closer. At this point, I was lapping some racers, and that made it a little more confusing - but as Rich noted - it didn't matter if they were in my class or on my lap - or not, they were THERE and needed to be passed, if I could dammitall. I spent a lot of energy getting by a lot of these folks, and then noticed my maroon-and-silver chaser had me back in his sights, with 2 laps to go. Next thing I new - BAM! He went by, fast. Gone. Buh-by. See yah hate to be yah. Erg. After a 1/2 a lap of recovery and thinking, I started to feel OK and the gap ceased to open, and I was holding a surmountable deficit to him. I dug deep, checked the reserves tank, and felt all systems were a GO to reel him back in, as I thought we had 1 lap to go - when they said we were done! Doh. This dude - Chris aka Mr. UMass - is smart. Why I passed him earlier on shows my rookie-chump-weakness. I should have strategized a little differently and stayed 'near' him, then approaching the finish tried to out-sprint him (yeah....). Ah well - all that stuff about 'hindsight' being 20/20 and all.
It ended up being a Nob Hill Velo trifecta on the podium, two seasoned CAT4 guys - who've been doing double duty racing both the A's and the B's - came in 1st and 2nd, towing their young phenom to a solid 3rd place. Then it was UMass Chris in 4th, and myself hanging on for 5th place. I think NHV represented 5 or 6 of the top-10, amazingly - and had more racers to spare! Wicked.
Time to hunker down for winter base/sustained effort training, and man! Must stop eating so much yummy food and drinking so much booze. Bike felt great, the free post-race burritos (or pre-race for the crazy youngins racing the juniors race!) hit the spot, and we stuck around to watch the A Race. THOSE guys make it look way too easy... I'll try and post some of the videos from my camera - as it is pretty cool.
start and barrier section:
up the skinny sidewalk connector:
Having
fully caught the 'Cross bug - I had to try it again this past weekend
in Albuquerque. The venue was sure to punish as it was almost entirely
on grass - and full of steep punchy climbs with sharp turns on/in them.
While I'm in the process of deciding on and building up a
cross-specific bike, I'm stuck with the big fat tires on my XC mountain
bike race-rig. It worked pretty well a few weekends ago out at Mesa del
Sol - on a fast, dirt/sand course with some moderate technical/loose
spots. I eeked out the win in a TIGHT sprint finish that lucky day -
with another mountain bike racer!
Holy Christ I was going to learn a lesson and pay the piper THIS day; this time the course was going to work me and my sluggish self...
Great turnout for our fast and furious B Race - including nationally ranked pro racer lady, Nina Baum - and a number of her Nob Hill Velo (a main sponsor of the series) hammers. I knew we'd be in trouble as these are not only smart and fast racers - but know how to work together and race smart. Throw in Smokin' Ray and the Cruces Crew - and look-out! Good times ahead.
In the oddly low key way I'm just getting used to - we were OFF!
I took off on the very outside, right behind one of Nina's young & strong teammates. He set a blistering pace, and I hung on for dear life. 2-3 laps later things were sorting out, and we had a few folks with/near us, and a long string of racers spread out on the twisty grassy course. I kept ignoring the red alerts going off from my engine room, and kept chasing this guy - who just wouldn't slow down! Of course I knew he was the rabbit I was chasing, while his two team mates, Nina and Alex - were building into a sustainable race pace while I was cracking. Bad. In a flash, Nina came around and gapped us! Amazing how fast races evolve... A moment later, her young 'cross phenom / team mate Alex did too. Then I realized I was going to be lucky to just survive this race. Wow. Every time the course hit the flat or climbing sections of grass (oh right - that describes 98% of the course!), it felt like my legs were pushing twice as hard with half the resultant speed I was used to on dirt - and 1/10th that of the road bike on that joyous, smooth, blacktop stuff (never thought I'd say that as a devout disciple of the Church of Dirt!).
Cruising around in damage control / survival mode, I watched as the best of the rest started closing in on me - a particularly mean aspect of these tight, twisty courses. Sitting out in no-mans land, I pushed and pushed as best possible, and coming through the start/finish area saw the official waving - I started thinking "cool - 1 or 2 laps to go, I can hang on". HA! He was telling us THREE to go. Each lap was in the 7-9 minute range, but felt like a hellish hour or two. At the next gradual, torturous grassy climb, one of the chief instigators in the B's - Chris aka C Cow - came around me and absolutely dropped the hammer. On a single speed CX bike. AND stood up and crushed the climb making me feel like I was stuck in reverse! Dang. That's how you pass!
Next up, with 1 or 2 laps to go, was my buddy Rich - newly minted cross addict - and his chaser. They'd been trading punches the whole race, and were grinding each other to a pulp. They came by, and once again I tried to hang on - but alas, my personal 'lights-out' bell lap was 15 minutes ago! Off they went and continued to push to the end, well ahead of me. Thankfully, on the quiet back-end of the course - there was a lone cheerleader; fellow FooMTB fool, Paige - who was unwavering in her ability to egg us on, and make me smile as I clawed my way up and over the run-up and the hurdles. On the front side, by the PA system and the finish line was Doug, aka Dug-da-goat, who was also relentless in his good natured cheering and coaching - and has showed Rich and I the best post-race breakfast burrito spot in Albuquerque.
At this point, it felt like I may not even make it around once more - though I'd rather crawl to the finish than give up just yet - and wait! One more straggler / chaser is reeling me in! Eh. I decide to do my best to hold him off, and we mark the finish at the last turn and then he was within a few bike lengths in no time, but just a bit late as we crossed the line in 8th and 9th places.
Holy crap that hurt. No joke. Granted, I'm at the end of a nasty cold that took me out the past week, and am way out of shape, and all those other excuses - but THIS day marked a clear need for a dedicated grass-conquering cross bike. Yow. The power I was pushing should have netted far more speed!
Next up? The end of the series and the state champs! A 1 - 2 punch the first weekend in December. MAYBE we'll even have some cooler weather and precipitation (gasp!) for one of these slug-fests. Whatever the weather - the NMCross folks sure know how to have fun, and I can't thank 'em all enough. If I can, and have the CX bike built - I'll even try the Saturday Night MONSTER CROSS in Tijeras under the lights.
Lord this will be a quickie.
After parting out and selling most of my road bike - but as yet without a dedicated CX bike, I hit Albuquerque with Rich ready to rumble on my Yeti ASR-SL - a great XC race bike, but not all that great for CX.
Couldn't possibly do worse (dnf) than the previous event, where I destroyed my buddies uber-bling 'crosser, and dammit - I wanted to finish a race! Got a tepid start position (again) and worked to the front as quickly as possible, where I found Rich ramping up quick and setting a great pace - came around him, told him to 'hop on' (my wheel / aka draft my big butt) and let's go!
I thought he was there, but he took up the team Glen and Rich defense and blocked all the other attackers from getting up to me and the few others at the front. Cool! The guy who set an initial pace of super-fast-drag-race-till-you-die all of a sudden decelerated and cracked (been there and done that!) - never to be seen again. This left me and one other guy, slowly gapping the field on our mountainbikes, which helped a little in the sand, but were a liability on the flats.
Six laps later we had both traded pulls and tactics, and were still neck-and-neck.
We rounded the last corner wheel-to-wheel and it was ON!!!
Given 100 more yards, he'd have got me - but thankfully, when it was done, I'd won. It's all I could do on my little guys first b-day, since I got the green light to race - I'd better make it worth it, or die trying.
Fun series we've got brewing here in NM - and excellent folks putting these events on. The 'cross crowd is as unpretentious and fun as you'll find anywhere - so run what ya brung, and have fun!
Stolen photo/link from Rich's blog - credit to his wife for snapping the shot:
NMCX Series #4 - Wildflower Park, Albuquerque, NM
I'm not a racer, I'm just racin'....
My buddy Rich motivated me with not only his excellent race report from NMCX Race #1 a few weeks ago, but from his enthusiasm for the discipline as well. This is part of the roots of mountain biking, right? The real hardcore dudes rode regular old steel road bikes off-road in decades past - through some of the worst sort of conditions imaginable. And drank beer. And loved it! And did it some more.
I had the further bonus of getting hold of a sweet loaner Specialized CX Bike from a good buddy and fellow hammer; a beautiful, hand-made in the USA S-Works from a few years ago, but with a new drive-train of high-end Campy stuff, race-ready Easton Wheels, Carbon WCS bars, and more. In a word: FAST!!!
Now, I haven't raced in a good long while, and certainly not ridden at the intensity THIS sort of effort would require in more than a year - but what the hey, eh? The course was a meandering, 'technical' sort of labyrinth laid out all over Wildflower Park, near the Balloon Fiesta venue north of Albuquerque 'proper'. It featured a big sand pit, more curves than last months copy of Hustler, a few hurdle-type 'cross obstacle contraptions, and a fast, relatively long and hard stretch up a concrete diversion channel. Key points were (a) dropping into said channel, and (b) exiting out the same - adjacent to the start/finish area, which was also the prime spectating area, of course. You crash - everyone sees it! Which was easy since we were directed to exit up the bank to a hard right turn - so no airing out no-footed can-cans... as that would launch you way off course!
Anyhow, I signed up for the 'B' Race - a mix of fast juniors, fast older guys, and a lot of other FAST and skinny types. Duration was aprx. 45 minutes, equalling 7-8 laps, TBD when the race was underway. They staged the start at the bottom / far-end of the aforementioned diversion channel with the idea it'd be a good field-spreader-outer.
It all looked ridiculous, silly, fast, and fun for sure. Weird thing happened this morning - I actually had race-day jitters for the first time in a LONG time! Cool. I had/have no expectations, but still was nervous and fretted over what to eat when, and how much. And remember to chew really well. And Hydrate. And so on... Nuts, huh?
Pile self, wife and little dude into car, pick up Rich, head south from Santa Fe. The park the race was held at was downright LUSH, and the weather was perfect. Clear, mild, light breeze. Get bikes ready, get self ready, register ($15!!! A real bargain) and start riding around. Right away we realize that the grass is dang hard and slow feeling. Rich was worried the mtbike tires he was rolling on were going to really be an issue - especially on the longer portions of the course on the grass or in that diversion channel stretch... BUT he had tried this mayhem once before - so I felt he'd be fine, 'seasoned pro' that he is.
After practicing a few sprint/dismount/run/remounts - I felt as ready as could be. How weird! A bike race you get off of your bike on purpose for. Go figure. We stage up, roll-call and rules are read, and I still don't really have a sense the race is about to start - then it does!!!
I was in the front 1/3rd of the field while standing around a second ago, but immediately am in a bunch, near the back to the left - and see Rich absolutely punch it and fly up the right outside 'line' to a great spot near the front. Damn! I quickly assess the situation, and determine that in fact the race has started. I immediately worry about Rich's warning(s) of traffic/choke points he has experienced at the first sign of anything technical/off-camber/loose/up
Rich in Blue Foo gear and a wicked game face:
I'll post another pic or two when I fix the glitch at my server...)
Stay pretty conservative the first lap, where I try and ride the sand trap(s) and fail. Run through the rest, try and pedal smooth and recover from this running and jumping nonsense. I realize immediately that the efforts after remounting need to be smooth and moderate, as it hurts! After a minute or two of tempo paced recovery spinning, legs start to feel OK again. As we start the 2nd lap, I ride the corners and other obstacles much more efficiently, and start ramping up the pace on the longer straighter stretches. Sitting in 5th - 6th wheel, I nail a smooth ride in and out of the 2 sand traps this time, zig and zag through a number of grassy chicanes, and then as we drop into the channel again, I get on #5 guys wheel - but he immediately eases up, as it's his teammate leading now, and is pulling ahead! Well, shoot. I remember what do with these situations... Feign a slight bit of distress, keep an eye ahead, come around and HAMMER it! I pass the fellas in positions #5, #4, and #3 here and floor it - opening a gap but not quite up to #1. As we zip up and out of the channel, he's close though, and I catch on in the park area's grassy loopy twisty sections, and take it easy trying to catch my breath. We're about 15-20 seconds up on #3, so we cruise a bit seeing how the rest of the field would respond. I say to him that if we had 1-2 more racers with us, we'd have a working group. I get a muttered response - which is what I wanted to hear! He's pushing hard, and I'm feeling good now.
Me in blue FOO kit - running...?
I go by and "pull" a little, but go pretty easy to give him a little recovery, as well as hope he figures I'm some old fart about to crack, but grabbing a 'moment of glory' out front. A moment later he comes back around. I study his lines. I try and do better. I'm getting the hairpin corners down now, and start setting up for the sand traps. Get through those, twist, turn, swoop about and head for the diversion channel. So far maybe 15 minutes has elapsed, but it's gone like a flash and the pumps are primed, ready, and good to GO. With no plan, I decide I'd like to pass him once we're in he channel, and on the way down the embankment, clip one of those little wire survey flags, and PRESTO! Drive-train destruction.
I figure "OK! No biggie! Clear it out of rear derailleur, get chain back on..." which would work if the 'G' pulley hadn't been sheared off and was jamming the rear wheel up against the chainstay!
Doh.
I was surprised how spread out the field was - as they ALL eventually went by in the next few minutes... Rich still holding a great position at the front end of the group. As for me - I hiked it out along the top of the embankment, staying out of the way. I had no idea you could have a whole spare bike in the 'tech pit'!!! Not just wheels and tubes and tools, but a whole dang bike! Neat-o. I did not have a 'spare' anyhow, but was offered one a few times! That is the sort of vibe that was apparent at this crazy race. If that's not racing camaraderie - what is? Even better was to see all the juniors out - and those dudes were rockin' it too, especially with the support of a local club and the free entry incentive the promoter offers.
Turns out my skinny little leader pal won the race, but the guy who had been 3rd wheel until my implosion caught up and held on for 2nd place - in a very funny, almost slow-motion grassy uphill sprint. That winner dude looked like he had too much gas left in the tank, and likely would have cracked me with his smart and consistent racing. Next time, buddy! See you this Sunday - unless you upgrade to the A's...
Shoot - does that sound as though I (still) like to race?
Coyote Classic NMORS #1, or what else can go WRONG? - DFL is better than DNF!
by Glen Gollrad
Despite what you may think - it's NOT fun racing/riding with fork oil soaking into flesh wounds - and that's just part of my story at the Coyote Classic race, in El Paso TX.I had been planning on this race since last fall, coming out and riding strong in my debut Expert race and the first in the NMORS (New Mexico Off-Road Series) of my second season. It favored my kind of riding style, requiring technical skills to climb & descend the gnarly, rocky - off camber at times - terrain. It also required strength & endurance, as the total mileage for the expert loops (one long and one 'short' - the short being 8-9 miles of hard riding!) made for 28-30 miles of racing; pretty rough given the low average speeds and the intense amount of effort needed to climb the steep loose trails. I was ready. Fresh off of the NOVA NORBA race 2 weeks ago, I knew I could hang with the fellas in my group, provided I rode smart, ate and drank accordingly and kept an eye on the stronger guys. It would be hot 2.5 ~ 3 hours of racing, as the forecast was for mostly clear skies and temps in the 70's. Feels hot after all the sub-freezing 'training' lately. Especially in the sun. Felt damn good in fact!
I lined up with the 30-39 pro/expert group, maybe 20 of us all told, and we waited for the go ahead. The start was rather anti-climatic at first as we had a neutral road section down the park entrance road, to a turn-around, then rode straight back up towards the start of the singletrack. Once we hit the turn around, we still sort of cruised, waiting for someone to "break" and string things out a bit. All of a sudden the few pros and semi-pros went off! I stayed relatively close to the front but just before the singletrack, 1-2 guys snuck by. A gap started opening too quickly, so I got by them and stayed in contact with the lead 5-6 guys. The race was on! This first stretch of singletrack was mostly descending, technical at times, and FAST. It was punctuated by a few nice, hard, steep, loose climbs out of drainages. After about 10 minutes we popped out off the trail, across the park entrance road and onto the beginning of the main loop(s). Fast and flowy, still generally descending behind a series of hills that separated the start/finish area from the rest of the frontside of the course - the trail bed was typical southwestern DG (decomposed granite) so at times was a little loose and always demanded attention - as a mistake would net an encounter with the prickly flora that bracketed the trails.
So far so good. Riding fast, hard, and efficient. I lucked out descending the scary drainages efficiently, which helped propel me up the opposite sides and keep close contact with the main group. 2-3 guys, the fastest of the Pro/Semi-Pro's, were opening a bit of a gap, but were always in sight. On a scale of 1-10 I felt maybe a 7, so not optimum, but pretty good. It had been a fitful night of sleep and a tense start, but I was now settling into a good race rhythm. I'd have a little ground to gain on the 1 guy I was keeping an eye on in my group, but knew it was a long race and if ridden smartly, would catch him by the end, no problem.
Near the end of this first part of the course, comprising 1/2 of the "shorter loop" there's a hell of a series of climbs that bring you up to a saddle, then drops you down to the main/backside part of the course. Still feeling good as I cruised down the fun descending trails, taking a clean hard left at he first of 3 water stations (!) onto a rocky wash. From here, it's a long 10-12 miles that takes racers out to the furthest extent on the course and then wraps back to start the big climb back into the start/finish area. At this point, me and two other guys are working within contact of each other, but the terrain was rolling and undulating enough to not have much of a "line of sight" ahead, so at some point we loose sight of the lead few guys. No biggie, as we're riding well. Then I notice my fork is rattling a little bit. Loose headset? Noooo..., headset is OK. Hmpf. Oh well, deal with it later. We drop off the trail into another, slightly climbing rocky wash and I have no idea where the course is all of a sudden - then I see where I must have overshot a left turn*. I stop, see the other two guys climbing off to my left, so I head back and up the rocky jeep road/trail they are ascending. Must be the beginning of the long, hard, loose climb up out of this sort of valley we were down in. We're heading in the right direction generally (so I thought), so it?s time to concentrate on climbing efficiently. Somewhere along here, I really start to feel good, and catch one of the guys I'd been with. The other is motoring ahead, setting a good pace, so it continues. 20 minutes later, the guy I'm with asks if we're on course - I say, "I think so, as long as we keep heading (I point up, to the right) that way". Well, 5 minutes later the guy leading up ahead turns around and comes back to us. We'd hit a dead end!!! Fahking hell.... My heart sank. 30+ minutes of climbing, off course, way out in the middle of nowhere. We descend back down into said wash* we had initially hit, see other older sport level folks heading up the wash further, then exiting out to the RIGHT side! There was our mistake. The course really should have been marked a little better, as it was confusing despite the fact I'd been here before.... Later I heard locals saying they knew of the spot and have made the mistake occasionally! Such is life sometimes...
Totally deflated, I notice that my Fox Float 100RLC has a problem. The red damper adjuster knob and shaft are sticking up out of the fork about half an inch. I push and twist it. It goes down. I hit a bump - it pops up an inch! Repeat a few times, as the dampening system in the right leg appears to lose it's "return" circuit, so the fork is compressing and staying down - more and more. Shoot, that's not good, I still have 20+ miles of "racing" left! Not for the win, place or show, but for the finish. God help me, if I can, I'll finish this dang race. The only DNF I've ever gotten was due to, um, unexpected unconsciousness and a ride in an ambulance to the ER. I ride on, noting how rocky the course really is, now that I can feel every square-edged boulder, slam through the dips and drainage crossings, and feel like my kidneys are being punched. Oh joy. Not much further along, I hit another bump and the fork temporarily springs back up - cool! No dampening, but at least I have some shock absorption... One bump later ~ plooosshhhh!!!! The damper adjuster and the rod it had been bolted to fly over my shoulder, propelled by a geyser of shock oil, re-compressing the fork fully, and spraying me, my bike, my cuts, and my water bottle. This is not fun. I stop, retrieve the broken shaft and knob assembly, Velcro it onto my seatpost with the CO2 cartridge and ride on ~ now completely defeated feeling. Amazingly I'm not having the WORST day, as one of the guys I had been riding with on our off-course bonus journey has now had 3 or 4 flats, and may have called it quits.
Finally I start the last major climb up to the start/finish area, picking my way up the techy loose steep climb. The smell of BBQ is really messing me up and I contemplate quitting here - but no, I crest the hill and begin the "shorter" second lap - 10 more miles of rocky, abusive hell, all over again! All I remember later on in this lap is getting to the Tee intersection I thought I'd turn right at, and close the last loop, but I was WAY off. We were to turn left here and right at the NEXT one. Ow. These rocks are really starting to thrash my wrists, shoulders, kidneys, head, eyeballs, and so on. The stinky oily slime all over my bike and me had a lovely effect on my disk brakes too ~ making them very sluggish as the pads were now totally contaminated by the repeated mini-geysers of oil shooting out the top of my right fork leg. About 30 minutes to late, I get the brilliant idea to Velcro my glove over the hole in the top of the fork - so I stop, rig it up, and press on. It works! Better late than never. I did have the clarity to keep the glove on the hand that I had punched two deep gashes into the night before, while putting my bike on the rack - I was tensioning the rubber strap when it slipped, and my hand whacked my big chainring - right in the meat of my right palm! Joy, deeply embedded oil in puncture wounds, on a critical load bearing part of my hand...
The last lap took about 45-50 minutes, making for a hell of 3 hour, 30 minute "ride". Thankfully there were still marshals on the course, and bottles of water - so I grabbed one before the last big climb (again) and rinsed myself down - getting a pleasantly refreshing boost to boot. Crawl up the last climb and call it a day. Done. Finito. Over and out.
Crawl to the car, pile in, head for the Flying-J truck stop, take the hottest, best shower I've ever had and we hit the road for the 5 hour drive back to Santa Fe....
