Test of Mettle...I mean Metal

So this story starts with me sitting in front of my computer hitting the refresh key over and over at 1 minute to the opening of the Test of Metal lottery. I'm hoping to be one of the lucky ones, and then wham I am....I fill out the form and submit and it says I've made it and will receive an email confirmation. I don't. Then I try again and the website is down. Then within a few minutes the website says that there is a problem and the lottery is closed. Oh man...that's a bummer. I check the next day and they are going to re-open the lottery the next day. Trying again. The last 400 spots sell out in 10 minutes and I'm one of the lucky ones. I get my hotel booked. Setup a vacation day. Pray for good weather! Now months go by and it's time to roll. I've been to Squamish once before but it was like 8 years ago and ALL the trails scared me back then. Now I'm doing a 42 mile mountain bike race with 5000 ft of climbing, in the heart of the North Shore. I talk to friends and find some who've done the race and give me the lowdown on the course. Now I'm more scared than ever. I keep hearing about the need to go really fast at the start on the road until it enters the singletrack. I hear about the long 9 mile climb which is immediately followed by The Powerhouse Plunge which is suppose to be a very long and technical descent that non-Canadians fear. I do also. then it's suppose to just get better, you head into the steep climb of Crumpit Woods...AKA Cramp-it woods.
Now to add my personal experience.
Molly and I drive to Squamish on Friday and the rain showers hit off and on. The weather is mild and will be nice if it stays like this. We go to registration and I'm one of the first to get my packet so it goes quickly. We head into town and walk through the T.O.M. party and hit a local place for dinner. It's slow but the food is great. We retire back to the hotel and I get everything in order for the race. I'm nervous and sleep as such. I get up at 7am and leave the hotel by 7:30 and drive to the race course to place my bike. At the Test of Metal it's first come first serve behind the pro's. Signs mark your estimated time you think you'll finish for lining it up. But there is no one there. The start area isn't setup. I'm embarrassed at my eagerness and we head off to breakfast. We roll back in around 8:30 and there are some people there but the start isn't set up yet. I find out that you can't place your bike till 9:30 anyway. Guess I could have slept a little longer. I get to hang out with some Washingtonians and Canuks. Then I see people setting bikes and cruise up to the 3-3 1/2 hour mark to place my bike. I want to hammer hard at the beginning of the race and get into the singletrack early. Over the next hour hundreds and hundreds of bike line up. All wheels up to make room. At a few minutes to 11 there are a little over 1000 racers standing and ready to roll. We hear a speech, some native dance and the Canadian Anthem and instantly we are off. The pace cranks up on the road to 25 mph and then we come around a corner and climb and climb and climb. Pace is still fast and I'm maxed out but I'm not being passed. We finally reach the dirt after 4 1/2 miles of this blast. The entry is tight with a fence on the left, a post in the middle and a tree on the right. Basically enough for two riders at a time to come in. But some idiot tried to be number 3 on my left. A gentle extension of my elbow put him into the fence at 15 miles per hour and the thud was quite loud. I felt bad for a second but realized that if he had pushed in I would have hit the metal post at 15 mph. OK, I feel righteous now and I'm going full on. Now to cut this short nothing too crazy happens for the next 20 miles. I am still pegged and hoping that I'll have enough gas to complete the race. At mile 20 we come into the "feed zone" for the first time. WOW! Hundreds of people lining the course, cheering, handing out food and drinks. A stage with a band. It's crazy and I am lucky to spot Molly holding a bottle and food. I do the exchange a cruise through the zone and hear at the end "your 1 1/2 hours in....great job!". We now hit 9 mile climb. Oh, I was hoping it was a mistake and it would be 9 kilometer climb. No luck. This things just goes and goes. I'm in my last gear and dying. Not getting passed much and holding my own but this hurts. My eyes are burning from all the sweat pouring down my face. The climb goes from fire road to singletrack and hurts even more as it's steep and a bit rocky. Once we hit the top we immediately hit a big ring descent for a few miles and then hit the very scary Powerhouse Plunge. I roll in and ride a big of it and I'm feeling scared yet thrilled to be surviving and then it happens. I hit a descent and a big rock deflects me and I'm off. Sliding across the rocks and my bike on top of me. I jump up to make sure I'm not blocking anyone and twang both hamstrings cramp. I try to run a bit and it's killing me. I jump on and start pedaling and no pain or cramping. MUST RIDE ALL I CAN. But then I come upon a group of cheering people and drop down another section and crash again. Cramps return. I run and ignore the pain and then jump back on. I figure out that where ever people are standing around and cheering I should jump off my bike and run. Those are the crazy sections. Every time I get off it hurts bad. But I finally exit the plunge and head into the feed zone again. It's a slight climb into it and now my inner thighs cramp and cramp bad. I can't pedal. But this happens just as I come up on Molly. I grab a pocket full of Endurolytes and Lava Salts and suck them down with a half bottle of ZipFizz. Molly pushes me up the feed zone and I eat some Sharkies. Within 5 minutes the cramps are gone and that's a good thing as we now go into some seriously steep singletrack. I pass a lot of people here. I realize it's Crumpit woods...AKA Cramp IT woods...I'm now feeling great with all the caffeine from the ZipFizz. We finally drop out of this section and we are on the gravel road that heads to the start finish line. A guy jumps around me and I chase. We are going hard and the guy that was holding my wheel explodes and pops off. I can't catch this guy. Glad he's in his 20's so I can use my age as the excuse. I finally come into the finish line. We line up in the order of finish and they take our number tag. I walk into the exit zone and drop my bike. I don't dare sit down. I walk around and quickly find Molly and grab some food and drink. We walk around and I run into Justin who kicked my butt. We wait and watch others come in that we know. I continue to walk around and eat and drink. It's almost 90 minutes before I can sit without fear of cramping. I actually feel pretty good. Results only show the top 15 people in each category and that's not me. We head back to the hotel, clean up and join the crew at the Shady Tree Tavern. Food and a beer go down easy. We talk about the day and realize that it didn't rain on us. Our bikes are mostly clean. Virtually no puddles. Temp was the upper 50's to low 60's. NICE! So for the first 15 minutes of finishing I'd decided I didn't ever want to do this again. My mind changed after another 15 minutes. I'm coming back. I'm going to ride more of the plunge. I need the challenge to make me learn to ride that more technical stuff. So now for the technical stuff; I took 3:27 to finish the race. The winner did it in 2:30. I was 237th out of 1009 starters. I am happy with the results. Can I do better....yeah....but only 10 minutes at the most and that's if I can ride the Powerhouse plunge. I was as fast as I've ever been on the rest of the race. They really did a great job on this event. Well organized and supported. Damn Canadians are nice people! They can also ride some sick lines. I'm not worthy but I'm going to try to be. See you next time!

Flying Wheels

Decisions, decisions, decisions. Flying Wheels or the RAMROD training ride? Both a good ride. RAMROD training was 75 miles with 4200 ft of climbing. Flying Wheels is a century with 3400 ft of climbing. Do I want to climb or get distance? Well, the decision was made when I was invited to ride Flying Wheels with a bunch of fast guys. My secret goal...do a sub 5 hour century. I arrive at Marymoor at the scheduled time and find out that the main group was leaving at 8, not meeting at 8 so the person who invited me, another member of his team and I head out at 8:15. We do a pretty good pace, working well together, skipping the first few rest stops. We finally catch the group at mile 55 at the Monroe rest stop. We averaged 20.4 mph during this leg. Now the fun begins. We are in a large group of 30+ riders and sitting in and rolling at 25 mph feels like nothing. Well that is until you take your turn at the front. But you have plenty of time to recover in such a large group. The pace goes up a bit and the hills begin and the group weeds down to about 8 by the top is the big climb. We roll along to the last rest stop and spend a bit too much time there. When we roll out I feel like lead has been put in my legs, saddle pack, frame and wheels. After a few miles they warm up again and we hit the lake road and roll in a small group back to the park. 4:41 for 98 miles. 20.9 mph avg pace. Goal achieved...Mostly. 2 darn miles short of the century. So being the uber nerd I extrapolate our average pace for the last 2 miles we should have gotten and come up with 4:47 for a century. My previous fastest century was flying wheels 2 years ago. It was a 5:10. That was Flying Wheels also. I'm super happy to pull 19 minutes off my previous Flying Wheels. At this rate by the time I'm 60 I'll be fast enough to go pro! :-)

DARWIN 2009

Well, no DARWIN award for me....I survived the DARrington to WINthrop ride. This is an annual ride put together by Jeff Scott. He brings together a small group of 20 or so riders to make the trek over Highway 20 each June. This year we were graced by mild and dry weather, unlike many of the past DARWINs. We rolled out of the Squire Creek Park around 9:15am and as a group did a nice pace line to Marblemount and stopped for our first food/water stop at 31 miles. We averaged 21.8 mph for this leg. After this we broke into two speed groups and pace lined to Newhalem which is 15 miles down the road with an average of 20.6 mph. This leg has a very mild upward grade. At Newhalem we all got rid of jackets, arm warmers, knee warmers and long finger gloves. It was time to climb! While DARWIN isn't a race, there is a tradition of "racing" to the viewpoint at the top of Diablo Lake. A few people started rolling out so I jumped on my bike and cranked it up. I quickly caught and passed a few of the people but had to stop and press the button to warn cars that bikes were in the tunnel. I cranked back up but Jeff Scott caught me. We battled a bit on the flat and then there is a descent. Well, I weigh 132 lbs so I don't go down hill that fast. Jeff is much taller than me but very slender but that does equal more weight so he flew past me. I jumped in his slip stream and got sucked right up to his wheel and enjoyed the coast but then we crossed the bridge at the base and headed up. Jeff jumped behind me and held on. I went as hard as I could but couldn't shake him. I swear he was holding onto my seatpost! I started to put in a gap but then we'd come around a corner and get nailed with massive winds and I'd have to drop a gear and he'd get back on. This happened over and over so in the end we cruised into the Diablo overlook side by side and did a nice fist bump celebrating a 11.1 mile climb with 1680 feet of ascent in 41:29 minutes. We refilled out bellies and water and headed out on the LONG climb to rainy pass. I connected with Dan Byrne, of the Bryne Invent Cycling Team, and his significant other Laura and had a solid ride to Rainy Pass. This climb is a bit over 26 miles long with 3675 ft of climbing. We did it in 1:49. At this point I drank a water bottle full of Zip Fizz and headed out on my own to see what I could do on the climb to Washington Pass. I hit the descent off rainy and about the start of the climb the shakes hit from the caffene in that drink at I floated up Washington Pass. This run from Rainy to Washington is only 4.75 miles long with 3.3 miles of climbing and a gain of 915 ft. I did the 4.75 miles in 24:12. I waited at the top for Dan and Laura, we put on jackets for the long descent into Eastern Washington. We cruised down 14 miles of the main descent and then formed up to ride towards Winthrop. We made a pit stop in Mazama for water and a fruit bar and then rolled the last 15 miles into Winthrop. We held a great pace and averaged 25.2 mph for the 33 mile ride from Washington Pass to Winthrop. At this point we split with me heading to the farm house we rented and Dan and Laura heading to see some friend in town. I arrived at the farm house and no one was there. Darn! I'm hungry! I wait for about 20 minutes and no one arrives so I ride back into town and wait at the main intersection to cheer arriving riders and see if I can bum some money....mine was in the sag wagon which hasn't arrived yet. After another 20 minutes I don't see anyone so I decide to look for Dan and Laura and borrow some money to get lunch. I happen to find their bikes parked outside a local restaurant and join them with my plead. They were generous and bought me lunch. After some great conversation and much needed calories we cruised back to the farm house to find most of the folks had arrived. Whew, I could use a shower. I get cleaned up and have a second dinner and a beer! We all tell the stories of our adventure and then a group of us head into town for another beer and to watch the locals in their natural environment. After the show we work our way back and I get to crawl into a very comfortable bed for a restful nights sleep. Not everyone reserved a bed so many slept on the floor. I also brought my travel kit which includes an eye mask and ear plugs. I think I slept better than just about anyone. The light came in early and woke everyone up...except me. We had our usual amazing breakfast and then cheered the few who do the WINDAR which is riding from Winthrop to the top of Washington Pass. After they leave we head into town to get some water and snacks. I get a double scoop of Ice Cream! Then we roll in the vans up toward the pass. We see our riders and pull over to cheer and take some pictures. We leapfrog and then wait at the summit. The weather goes from mid 70's to 55 degrees in about 10 minutes while we wait and then the rain comes which turns to hail. Oh those poor riders. They eventually make it up to us and we get them changed into dry clothes quickly and then hit the road again. One more stop for snacks in Newhalem and then we arrive back at our cars in Darrington. Hugs and handshakes all around and we go our own ways. Another year with a great ride with super people that I generally see only once a year. Too bad as they are all great people. Hopefully I can get some of them out for the Thrilla as many of them have mountain bikes.

Full stat's for this year are as follows;
Average speed 19.0 mph
Distance 120.5 miles
6:22:04 rolling time
6880 ft of climbing
147 average heart rate
83 average cadence

I'm very happy with my performance this year. Looking back at 2006 my average was 16.9 mph and in 2007 it was 16.5, but with really bad weather. Increasing my average to 19 mph was beyond my expectations. Especially since I truly did a large share of the pulling on most sections.

To add to the perspective, I hurt my knees last year at the 24 hour race in May 2008. I was off the bike for a long time and just got my fitness back for cyclocross. Cross is intense but short. I've been scared to do long rides along with the weather not really allowing it but I finally did a century ride last weekend. Before this my longest ride was 76 miles which was about a month ago. I was worried about the intensity and distance on my knees. My right knee did hurt a bit on this ride but in a different place than my injury. I think it was either fatigue or I pulled something a bit. Feels pretty good now.

That's enough rambling for now. Time for a bit more rest. Until next time!

24 hours of Spokane

I've been thinking about this race for exactly 1 year. One year ago I did this race solo. I had a good race but I had some knee pain for the last half of the race. Thinking it was just the time on the bike I ignored it and paid the price. Once I sat down after the race I was done. Took 6 weeks before I could touch a bike. I've been rebuilding my fitness slowly over the year while working on protecting my knees. After both raising my saddle and adjusting my cleats I am able to ride 99% pain free and if there is a bit of pain it clears quickly. But my injury is permanent and has a medical name of Chrondomalacia. So I got back in shape in time for Cyclocross season which is intense but short races. We had a crappy winter so I mostly did mountain bike rides and had a decent Budu early season series. But, I'm way behind on long distance rides. Combine that and my fear of re-injury and I opted to do a team relay this year. I wanted to have a PedalMasher team but their wasn't enough interest so I bailed on the race this year. Then I got an email from one of my PedalMasher teammates who was putting together a team with his wife. I joined in as the 5th. Then two bailed on us and the search began to fill in the slots. I was teased a few times with being told that we might have a pro join our ranks. But that failed to materialize. I asked a few of our super fast open racers and didn't get any bites. As people heard about me looking for people I got a hit from Rich from Second Ascent racing. He wanted to race and it worked out well since his wife was racing on another team. I then spent a week asking a lot of people to join. No luck. Then on the ferry ride back from the last race I got talking with Jason from Veloce Velo cycling and he was very excited but needed to check with his wife. She wanted to go since she knew some people that were going to be there. Woo Hoo, we finally have a full squad. I spent a lot of time organizing the stuff we'd need to bring and getting everything loaded into my wife's truck and horse trailer. You say...Horse Trailer....Yeah, but this thing is 32 feet of awesomeness! 1/3 is where the horses can live and it's perfect for putting all the crap we needed. The front 2/3 is living quarters and I mean a full bathroom with toilet and shower. A kitchen area with microwave and gas stove. It has a queen size bed with a flatscreen TV. Very nice....oh, and did I mention the air conditioner. It was needed as the temps were in the 80s. NICE! Since I've done this race like 7 times I decided not to pre-ride on Friday, but Molly and a bunch of others went out for a look. I spent time getting the camp setup which included pulling out the awning, setting up the two team tents, chairs, table, bike repair stand, tools, carpet. We all chilled that night and awaited the madness that the next 24 hours would bring. Dan wanted to go first as he's a rock star runner and the race starts with a 600 yard le-mans trail run. He did awesome and was in the lead group to get back to the bike. Once I got done watching his start I headed back to camp to change. I was second in the line-up. Dan did a really fast loop and we had a great handoff and out I went. 15.something miles and 900 ft of climbing. I was pushing it hard and had a decent 58 minute loop. I did the handoff to Kari and she was gone like lightening. Normally getting "chicked" bothers me but I know Kari is an amazing rider and was happy knowing that she'd probably have the fastest laps of us all. Good stuff. The handoff's continued and we were doing well with no mechanicals and all of our times were fairly close together. Now comes my first night lap. Normally I can do about the same speed in the day or night but tonight was different. First I was hurting. The heat must have done me in, but the second thing was the dust. All that dust with our lights hitting it blinded you to the trail. Disapponted I finished and proceeded to make sure the next lap would be good by getting some good food and lots of drinks in me. 1 1/2 sleep and I was up and waiting to go again. Better time! Nice. A check of the board shows us in 3rd place but only by a bit. The whole team hammers hard and we pass 2nd and gain to 17 minutes. They rally and pull the time to 8 minutes. We hammer again and pull ahead to the point where we are going to be able to get one more lap than 3rd. Success! 2nd place! We're all happy but it's almost hard to tell. We are all spent! during the last bit of the race Molly has finally crawled in bed after being up for more than 24 hours as our manager making sure we had everything we needed and were up and about for our laps. As awards are about to start Molly wanders in and gets some pictures of us on the podium and I run back to load everything up. Molly is a trooper and drives the 6 hours home while I nap and or annoy her with lack of sleep based conversation.
I'm starting to think that doing the relay with those super fast laps and then a few hours to get stiff may be harder than the solo I did last year. I really hope that my knees get to the point where I can check my theory out.
Now it's time to think about next year and what crazyness I'll get myself into this time!

Indie Race #2 @ South Seatac Park

The weather had been showing another dreary day for the 2nd race in the Indie Series.  The newly named 'Tucker Classic'.  Just so you know...Tucker was Wicks dog.  Wick is the promoter for this race and also a huge part of the Seattle cycling scene.  Tucker was a golden lab who just loved everyone and spent a lot of time hanging out with Wick at South Seatac.  Tucker passed this last winter and he will be missed.  So I'm glad we are able to commemorate this great friend and companion with a super race.  Well, I put all my gear together on Saturday night with just about every option for any weather conditions but had heavily leaned towards cold and wet.  I woke up fairly early on Sunday even though my race wasn't till 3pm and went straight to my office and cruised around on the Internet when Molly woke and said...have you looked outside....It's beautiful!...WHAT!  I look outside thinking she's messing with me and have to quickly pull out short finger gloves to add to the collection.  We head out of the house around 9:30 so we can get to the race to pre-ride and support the mens sport racers on our team.  I walk around in the warm sun and B.S. with my friends, then take pictures of the mens sport race.  I watch some of the women's race then get suited up and jump on the course, making sure I don't get in the way of any of the ladies who are racing.  I do eventually catch a few of the women and cruise along behind them until the course is wide enough that I can shoot by and not let them draft.  Wow, the course is really cool in it's layout and almost completely dry...buff actually.  The loop is 4 3/4 miles long.  When we gather for the start we find out that we'll be doing 6 1/2 laps.  Oh crap, that's 31 miles.  This will be the longest XC race I've ever done.  This is going to hurt as the course is super fast and there isn't any place to rest.  Gonna be full on for over 2 hours.  The race starts on the road and after about 100 yards it turns into singletrack.  Everything grinds to a halt as we filter 1 by 1 into the narrow trail.  Once we are in there we crank it up.  I hang in to the pack for the first couple laps but the pace is just too high.  I need to start racing my own race.  I get passed by a few people but as the race goes on I start catching people who are blowing up and cramping.  I'm on the verge myself but I control it.  Things are going well and I'm feeling good with how I'm rolling thru the twisty course.  As I start lap 6 I notice a bit of control loss and I look down and realize my front tire is really low.  Damn these specialized tubeless tires!  I've had nothing but trouble with them.  I've done everything correctly with the prep and use of Specialized own sealant but they just leak and leak.  Sometimes I can get it to stop by spending hours shaking the tires and slowly spinning them while on their side but AGAIN they are failing at the wrong time.  They are super low weight but they blow air through the sidewalls like crazy.  It seems to be the Sauserwinds only and in talking to others they have experienced the same thing.  Back to tubes on these tires and time to start looking for tires from someone else that are fairly light but will hold air and work in our multiple conditions ranging from water, mud, paste, buff to powder dry.  Well, back to the race.  I'm now trying to decide whether I want to stop and pump air into the tire or just keep going and hope I don't have an issue with it rolling. off the rim.  I choose the latter and go very slowly around every corner and turn but hammer on the straight aways.  I finish up the last lap and no one has caught me so I'm only irritated instead of pissed.  The PBR offered to me post race makes me forget the problems and I get cleaned up and put everything away.  Chat again with some folks and then just as we get in the car it starts to drizzle.  Perfect timing.  As we drive home, we drive into a clearing and unloading the bikes and gear yields not a single drop of rain.  Great Day!  I'm finding out quickly that the expert racers in the indie series are much more capable than those who race in Budu.  I had a great race and felt good but still got my butt kicked.  Good times!

2009 Sea Otter Classic

I've known about the Sea Otter Classic for years. It's a multi-disipline cycling event held in Monterey, California at the Laguna Seca Raceway. Since Molly has been racing mountain bike for a couple years we decided to make this our spring biking trip. With a week of riding we decided to drive and not fly so we could take everything we needed. We headed out the Wednesday before the event and did 11 hours on the road and stayed in Red Bluff, CA. We did this so the next day would only be 5 hours of driving and we could arrive early enough to get a pre-ride in since our race was on Friday. When we got to the event we were directed to a paved lot right next to the track. From there we were blown away by the size of the event. Not only were there thousands of cars but looking around the raceway infield we saw a giant event with hundreds of tents and thousands of people. Up on one hill we could see the downhill start tent. On another we could see the dual slalom course. On the raceway the roadies were going round the track in a race. We walked into the registration tent and found a very organized setup that got us our numbers and timing chips expeditiously. We went back to the car and started getting ready for our pre-ride when we noticed a problem with Molly's bike. The bottom bracket was siezed! Luckily I had brought another one and after a some instructional help I was able to get it swapped out pretty quickly and we were off for the loop with a couple of other guys who were parked next to us. We got a bit lost finding the start of the loop but one we got going...oh my. The course starts with a couple climbs on a fire road and then a super fast descent on a wide clay and rock fire road. It is criss-crossed with huge water cut ruts and is very rough due to them. In fact my water bottle bounced out. From there we do some other tough climbs and then cut into the first singletrack. It's fun but every once in a while you come across some deep sand that tosses you around. Finally we hit some more climbs, some super steep and then we hit the first sand shoot. It's a couple hundred yards long and the sand is DEEP all the way down. I struggle to figure out how to ride it but I do stay upright but I don't go as fast as I'd like. The course continues to be hard but fun and we eventually hit a fire road with a series of climbs but the wind is also in our face at 40mph so I make sure not to blow myself up and just take it easy. The pre-ride takes me 2:21. We get changed and then head out to get fueled up.

We get to sleep in on Friday since our race isn't until 1:30. We get a good breakfast and prep our bikes. I do absolutely ZERO warm up since the temp is about 75 with bright sun that makes it seem much warmer. It's my first ride with just shorts and short sleeves and no baselayer in a long time. I get to the line early and wait for the front line to fill up. I then look at the front row and position myself behind who I think is the strongest rider in the group. I do this since our race actually starts on the Laguna Seca Raceway which is buff smooth asphault that takes us UP the corkscrew. With the wind and speed that I know we'll have at the start I want to sit in and get a nice pull. Nerves kick in and I've got to pee but I'm not leaving my spot and hope for reabsorbtion with the heat. We're at 30 seconds to start and I wish everyone a good and safe race and then the whistle goes and we're off. The start is fast and a few people really jump hard and I grab their wheel. I see the guy I lined up behind jump to another wheel and I follow. I'm locked onto his wheel and he's tactically working well as each wheel we sit on eventually blows up and we've already gotten down to a smaller group off the front. But I've not had to pull at all. Perfect! On the road climb the guy in front of me stands and his gears slip and I bump his rear wheel with my front. Luckily it was a dead center hit and I don't go down and I shoot around him and grab the next wheel. We now jump off the paved road and I'm sitting 5th. We head up the first climb and I'm now 3rd. The big descent from the first day is now familiar and I hit it with no brakes but I'm side by side with 2nd. but at the bottom we climb again and I get ahead of 2nd and hold that place myself. The guy in first...is the guy I lined up behind at the start of the race. I was right, he is fast. Let's hope he blows. I finish the climb and hit the first singletrack and I'm already passing races from the earlier age groups and I'm yelling "old guy in 2nd place on your left" over and over as I try to stay with 1st place, a guy on a Stevens mountain bike in a full Steven's kit. I keep going from 6" off his wheel to being 50 yards behind. It all depends on how we pass other racers. We finally get to the first big sand descent and there are riders everywhere going slow and falling down. I pedal like a mad man and safely surf around these guys but the Steven's dude is gone. I chase hard and eventually catch him again on the next climb. But now we are in some steep and narrow stuff and it's harder to pass when a couple of guys mess up and I'm caught doing a cyclocross dismount and run around them. But now I can't see Steven's. Dang...off to chase again. We are finally to the long fireroad but he's way off the front and he still looks strong and as I look he seems to be pulling away. I have no idea where 3rd place is so I'm going as hard as I can. I'm on the verge of a cramp but hold it off and power into the finish, dragging my leg over the sensor to make sure it gets my time. There at the finish is Steven's and I tell him how hard he made me ride and how fast he was and he responds with good english but a distinctive German accent. He's cramping now and I give him some of my food and salt tablets and he tells me how hard I made him ride. We chat for quite a while and I find out he used to be a pro racer in Europe 10 years ago. I'm feeling better about getting dropped on the last section hearing that. He ended up beating me by 1:23 but it isn't till later that I find out I was 5 minutes ahead of 3rd place. If I'd only known I could have freewheeled it back in and not killed myself. But I'm super happy to have made the podium at such a huge race. The race ended up being just a bit over 20 miles with 2600 ft of climbing.

Molly's race started about 40 minutes after mine and they were doing a 13 mile loop so I was hoping that I'd see her on course as the two courses merge on the long fire road but I don't. But I also don't pass ANY women so I have to assume they are either done or behind....duh. I hang out and after about 20 minutes I see Molly coming in hard to the finish. I run over and she tells me that she was pretty sure we had gotten 3rd. Awesome! We gather our bike and head down to the wall of shame and wait for the results to get posted. My results come up quickly and it confirms my second place finish, but it takes a long time for Molly's to come. Yep, 3rd place! But then they come and take down her results and announce there is a protest. Uh oh. What's going on. No one tells us what the protest is about. We eventually find out that when the ladies signed up for the event, there was a 40-49 age category but at the start of the race they had split the category in two 40-44 and 45-49 and one of the 40-44 women lined up with the 45-49 group and as such got a 5 minute delayed start. The good news is that since we were wearing timing chips they were able to use her time and place her correctly and the results were finalized and Molly held her place in 3rd. We each got our turn on the Podium which was awesome! Time to get changed and get some food and drink!

So on Saturday Molly and I went on the mountain bike "tour" I had signed us up for. It turned out to be the same course we just raced. At least Molly will get a chance to see the "upper" section I raced on. Our legs are tired and we do this at a very leasurely pace and get a chance to talk to one of the organizers, Justin, from Mountain Bike Magazine. He's cool and we enjoy doing our 3rd loop as it is a great course and the weather is even warmer in the 80s. After the ride we run into Cosmic and Rox and setup a dinner. We call Dan and Kari to join us. Now we head up to the short track and watch the pro men race. Wow, what a tough short track. Christoph Sauser flats out but his teammate wins the race! I get to meet Alison Dunlap and take a cute picture of her. He is sick and isn't racing but is still kitted out and cruising around on her bike. Time to get out of the heat, we get cleaned up and we meet up for a nice dinner at Bubba Gumps but we call it a night early so we can get up early.

It's now Sunday and we get up at 6am and hustle to get to the race course early. Today Dan and Kari are racing and their starts are around 7:30am. We load up bottles of water and sport drink and our Cameras, jump on our bikes and meet up with them before the race starts. Dan is calm but Kari seems a bit nervous and she spends a lot of time warming up. We stay and take picture of their starts and then we head up the race course in reverse. We head to the top of one of the nasty fireroad climbs and hang out with a lot of other spectators. I take pictures and chat with others as racers come around. Then Kari comes thru and gets a bottle from Molly and I pour water down her neck and back. She's going fast but I don't know where she sits in her group. Off she goes....now we hang and here comes Dan. Dan has to do two loops so we give him a bottle and soak him with water. After he passes we head down to the finish line but we can't find Kari. We also wait and wait and never see Dan come thru. I'm taking pictures but getting worried about Dan since he hasn't shown up. Eventually Dan walks up behind me and I'm wondering what the heck...How could I have missed him coming thru but he tells me he crashed hard on lap two and bailed out. But he's not hurt so it's all good and he tells me Kari took 2nd. Awesome. It was a tough womens field and Kari put it all out there. I'm extra excited for her as she had a set of Crank Brothers Cobalt wheels sent to her to race on and if she made the podium she gets to keep them for free. Well, guess who owns a nice set of wheels now! It is 96 degrees out and we are trashed so we bail on watching the pro race. We head into town and get lunch and chill at the hotel, getting things organized for the long drive home.

I split up the return trip to be exactly 8 hours of driving each day. So on Monday we kinda sleep in and head out around 9:30. On the drive, I get bored as we are getting close to Yreka and pull out my mobile phone and check status updates on Facebook. There is a note from Molly's brother who is driving from Seattle to Shasta to climb and ski and is stopping for the night in Yreka. We pull off and meet up for an early dinner or late lunch (Linner). It was pure luck that I looked at the phone just 6 miles from where he was but it was a nice break and distraction. We get to the hotel and chill. We do get up early cause I want to do Mikes hill climbing ride at 5:30. We make good time and get home around 3. Unload and change. Man I'm stiff...hope this isn't a mistake.

We had a great time at Sea Otter. What a crazy mash-up of different types of cyclists. I'd love to do it again. Apparently it was a fluke that the weather was nice. Normally it's cold, wet and windy. We only had the latter. Now it's time to clean the bikes! Until next time......

Budu Race #6 @ South Seatac Park

Today we are back to the old familiar South Seatac Park. We on the west side do a LOT of races here and it's also a fun place to race, as long as you don't do it too often. The course today was the exact opposite of of what we did earlier in the season. We did 16 miles of fast rolling singletrack. The rain held off and the trails were pretty dry so it turned out to be a great race for most. There was one very unfortunate event that I hope we hear a follow-up. A sport racer was warming up and playing on the jumps and he cased the landing and went in hard. 911 was called and they boarded him and took him to harborview. I really hope he's OK and hopefully we'll hear something.

So the Budu series is over for this year. It turned out to be a good series and hopefully good prep for Indie and the rest of the season.

Today I got my first podium place for the season. 3rd place in the race and 2nd place in Expert for the series. So no matter what happens for the rest of the season I'm happy.

Next week is Sea Otter so we'll see how this early season series has prepared me.

Budu Race #5 @ Fort Ebey

I love riding at Ft. Ebey in the winter. It sits in the middle of Whidbey Island and is smack dab in the middle of a rain shadow so it generally gets about 10% of the rain we get in the rest of western Washington. It is also very sandy so it drains well. This combined with the warmest day of spring led to high expectations for the day. But Marshall is known for putting together a tough race so I knew a challenge was ahead. So early to Ebey I go. I decide to drive around as it take the same amount of time as the ferry and is cheaper since my bike setup is "overhight". I get there and do some warm up but I'm sore and tired from a hard day on the bike the previous day so I hope for the best. The race starts and I get a crappy start but I enjoy the technical descent but then the climbing starts. Oh..It's steep and a lot of it. I'm doing everything I can but I just don't have it today so I settle in for a long day. I cook'n as fast as I can and I eventually overtake a few others. Some have cramped and some have bonked. I've given away all my food to those in need and continue along my "merry" way. It's getting hard to make the hills now as they are STEEP but I keep going as hard as I can with cramps just kept at bay. The race is long at 22 miles and lots of climbing with 3500 ft of short punchy ascents. I find out that I'm 6th which was a suprise since I'd ridden so much of the race alone. It was an awefully nice day to race and was wrapped up with some good brews and food at the Diamond Knot. I'll do this race again next year!

Soaring Eagle, The Sequel

I looked at the weather report last night and it showed a nice dry day with a low of 40 for the time I'd be arriving at the race and about 45 during my race. Since I've been lied to by those "weathermen" before I brought a good selection of clothing to the race....Glad I did. As I started heading up toward Sammamish there were cars coming down covered in snow! And as I got up top there was snow everywhere. WTF...It's just about April! It was also 34 degrees which was a far cry from 40. Thank goodness the race was exactly the same as before so I didn't have to pre-ride and possibly get wet and cold. Instead I rode up and down the road for a while and then lined up for the race. I was soo cold as the start was late that I still had my jacket and warm up pants on and Rory called the lineup so quickly I barely got my clothing situated for the start. The there were only two things different in this race than the previous one....First, the parks department had put gravel on part of the fire road so everyone was fighting for that thin line but it ran out and then we found the second thing that had changed. Our race wasn't on dirt but was MUD. I don't mean the 90% water 10% dirt mud puddle stuff, but the creamiest peanutbutter you've every seen. And as the race went on it started to dry up a bit and it was HARD to go forward. I'm a small guy. 132lbs and this course required POWER. I don't have that and it showed as I hurt something fierce just to try to be competitive. But then it seemed my power was waining as forward motion was getting harder and harder but then I noticed something...my rear was going everywhere and I finally stopped and found that I had maybe 5lbs of pressure in my rear tire. I stopped and struggled to get my CO2 gun loaded and cranked up the pressure. Wow, I can roll again! So in I came in 8th out of 14 which was disappointing as I was hoping the technical nature of this course would play to my strengths. Not! So now I'm in 3rd place in the series for Expert Men 40+ and another guys is only 3 points behind me. Man this is dissapointing. Hopefully this will be my drop. So now I'm home and putting stuff away and cleaning my bike. Dirtiest my bike has EVERY been and that is saying something as I've ridden in some terrible stuff. It took me 90 minutes to clean all my stuff. Good news is I got some nice pictures of the sport racers!

Budu Race #3 @ Lake Sawyer in Black Diamond

Let's start this post with this; I had no plans to do this race. I was suppose to race the Tour de Dung. But this weather....f'n cold and snowy made me rethink a road race and pushed me to do this race. I've ridden Lake Sawyer a number of times and it's a super place to trail ride and work on your technical skills but for some reason the race course there is on the worst trails they can find. I'm sure it's due to who owns what portions of land and will let the race occur. This race is virtually flat with one short hill that due to the snow was a run up today. But most of the rest of the course is winding singletrack that is nothing but baby heads. Strange name that defines a trail that is just solidly full of round rocks the size of a baby's head. There were only a few sections of doubletrack that would allow passing so the race was very much a processionnal with a start section that itself was mostly skinny and didn't allow for much passing. So on we went, me sitting on Dan B's wheel until we got to the first doubletrack and he attempted to make a pass, hit the rider next to him and went down in a tumble. With the snow sticking to him he looked like a snowman. I yelled and he said we was OK so on I went. I passed the other racer and ended up riding alone for a long time. I eventually caught and passed another rider in the younger age group and he jumped on my wheel. He was really good in the technical stuff and I could pull away in the straights. But then he'd be back. Like a Lampre he just hung on and multiple requests to let him pass were declined. Next thing I know Bob from the team is behind the other guy and talking to me. Bob was just warming up and decided to pay me back for all the times I've sat on his wheel and annoyed him. Though it wasn't really that annoying today as it was nice to have someone to talk to. As we were getting close to the last lap I saw Sean ahead and turned it on as any "rabbit" will make me push. I didn't catch him but I did get within a few seconds of him. The race ended up being 15 1/2 miles and took 1:34 to finish. I felt like a slug going thru the baby heads and figured I was about last but it turned out I was 5th and that was enough to push me up to 2nd place overall in the series for Expert 40+ men. I'm sure it won't last but it's nice to be doing so well in Expert. Even though the course wasn't the best and the weather sucked, I did have a good time struggling thru the course. But due to the weather I didn't take any photos today which is a bummer and I'm sure I'll get some emails from people asking about it. Enough with the snow...let's get spring going!

Budu Race #2 @ Soaring Eagle Park in Sammamish

My alarm woke me at 5:45am this Sunday morning and what I heard outside was the POUNDING of rain. Seriously tempted to turn off the alarm and just sleep away the day I decided that I'd look at the radar to see how bad it really was going to be for the day. Darn...not that bad. So up for a quick shower and breakfast. I loaded my gear...including every type of clothing option imaginable and headed to the race course. I got there at 7:42am. My race was at 9:30 but there is VERY little parking at Soaring Eagle and I wanted a front row parking spot to make the logistics easier. I got one!!!! I got registered and B.S'd with some of my friends and then took photos for a bit of the beginners race. My race was next so I got geared up and rode up and down the street to get warmed up. I had pre-rode the course yesterday so I didn't need to get wet and dirty before my race this time. I got a second row start position on a VERY muddy fire road. We all wanted the hole shot as the rest of the 3 1/2 mile loop had literally zero passing opportunity unless the person in front was willing to pull over and let you by. Nice thing is mountain bikers are all pretty cool and will do that for you. We started and the craziness to get the whole shot began with everyone sliding all over the place on the muddy fire road. I ended up rolling into the singletrack in the 5th position for my group. The first two guys blew off the front but a group of 3 of us were stuck behind a slower guy in the singletrack. It wasn't until 3/4 of the way through the first lap that he slid out on a climb and we were able to get by him. At that point Larry Parfitt put the hammer down and I chased hard. Looking down I saw my heart rate at 176 out of a max of 183. I eventually dropped of his wheel which let a super fast single speeder get by me. At this point I started racing my own race. We completed the first lap and I got around another guy. At this point I was by myself but racing strong. I eventually caught Dan on the start of the third loop and sat on his wheel. He was going a bit slow and he said he wanted to chill on this lap and hammer out the last one. Since I didn't see anyone behind us I cruised along with him for this lap. Dan had 3 crashes up to this point and I got to see two more. The last one twisted his bars a bit so when we got back to the fire road he had to stop and straighten them. I decided to not hang around and put the hammer down...the best I can. I ended up catching the single speed guy from earlier and he was getting pretty tired. He let me by and I pulled him through the head wind sections and encouraged him on the 4 climbs. Once we got up top and he had a chance to recover I could tell his superior bike handling skill were allowing him to sit my wheel and I was slowing him down so I offered him the lane and got out of his way. He was stunned that I offered it to him as we only 1/5th of a lap to go to the finish. I just felt for this guy racing a singlespeed in the open expert class and felt he deserved the shot and if I could have hung with him we could have duked out a sprint finish. But that didn't happen....he took off like a shot and beat me by 11 seconds. Wow! He deserved 3rd place over me.
I hadn't ridden at Soaring Eagle in like 5 years and when I pre-rode on Saturday I was like....man I should ride here more often. It's close to my house and the trails were very dry. But I was very worried about racing here. The course is sooooooo narrow. But you know....I still had a great time today. Maybe it's not all about the racing but the challenging yourself, hanging out with cool people and enjoying some outside time.
So now my race is done and it's time for my "other" job. I change and grab my camera and head up the trail reverse of the direction the racers are going. I take over 500 photos of which 499 turned out well. But I also ended up running the entire course to take those pictures. I ran 3 1/2 miles in jeans and hiking boots with a huge camera setup.
The really really cool thing about today though was my wife won her race. It's her first win at Sport class. She did really well and I got to see it while running the course and taking pictures. She looked super and had a HUGE gap over 2nd place (3 minutes). You see, this is only Molly's 2nd year racing. Last year she did really well at Beginner but her technical skills are...well....sub-par and so this year I've been taking her to Lake Sawyer and Tolt and that has helped a LOT. She rocked today and I'm so proud of her for working so hard at this. It's also great that we have something like this is common so we can hang together...other than my bike budget being split in half since she wants the same stuff I want so everything gets ordered in pairs!
We'll, sitting here writing this entry has allowed my body to completely stiffen up so I'll sign off for now and head to the showers!
Congratulations to everyone who came out today and a special thanks to the Budu folks for a great race!
Pictures can be seen at http://picasaweb.google.com/joemartincyclocross/2009BuduRace2SoaringEaglePark#

Race report for the BuDu Race #1 at South Seatac Park

Today was the first mountain bike race of the season. The BuDu series opener. It was held at South Seatac Park. I decided to race my geared bike since the weather was looking to be OK. As such I did expert. The morning started out with me taking photo's of the beginners race and not paying attention to the time. I asked someone the time and found out it was 10 minutes till my race start. Panic run to the car to get ready and zip over to the start line. As such I was neither warmed up nor did I have my tire pressure setup correctly and I forgot to start my polar. My early morning pre-ride showed 4.1 miles for the loop so the 4 laps we were going to do would make for a decent 16.4 mile race. But the pre-ride at a mellow pace took 25 minutes and the whole race was advertised to be an hour long. Hmmmm. So off we went. I had a good start and was in the lead group of 5 riders for the first part of lap one but then I felt my rear getting really loose in the corners. Too low a pressure in the tire. This was my first race on tubeless tires and I burped it. So I pulled off and got some air in and it held fine for the rest of the race but I was now passed by EVERYONE. So I decided to ride really hard and see how many racers I could pass. I turned myself inside out and began to catch and pass many racers. I felt like I wanted to die! It was a tough little course which each loop seeming much longer than 4.1 miles. I finally got close to Cosmic, a great rider, and then proceeded to be held off for the last two laps by 5 seconds. Couldn't catch his wheel. It was killing me! So finishing the race I quickly changed and went back to filming and picture taking until Molly was finished. I then went and looked at the results page and it showed that I beat Cosmic. Cosmic and I talked to the race organizers and they were stumped. So instead of moving Cosmic up in front of me, they moved me down behind him. They had no clue. There were many other errors seen such as my wife being in the men's category and a 30-39 women being in the 40+ category. Since I'm not doing the entire BuDu series due to conflicts I'm not overly concerned about this but it is a bummer and since I forgot to start my watch I couldn't argue either way. I hope they figure out a better way to score rather than the manual paper method they use. So I either had an hour 20 or and hour 24 depending on which time is correct. Lost a minute or two fixing the tire so if I did have a 1:20 time without the flat I would have ended up around 3rd to 5th. It was a fun time though due to the fact that the morning rain left and we had 63 degree dry weather. A teaser for spring!
UPDATE: Deanna from BuDu called me to let me know that she found out the issue with the results and they have now been corrected. I'm very impressed how tenaciously she worked to find a correct the error. Good news was the hour 20 was the correct time.