|   The Woodstock of Mountain Biking | mr_spin
May 29, 2003 7:40 AM | | The Woodstock of Mountain Biking
Friday, May 16, 2003. Team Simpering Fidelis assembles at Laguna Seca Raceway, outside Monterey, California. Team Captain Ann is already there. Doug and Erik roll in next. John arrives. Mark is coming later. (All names changed to protect the innocent.) Today's mission: establish camp and ride the course.
Okay, before we get too far, I'm sure you are wondering about our team name, Simpering Fidelis. Well, we're not really sure what it means, either. I found the phrase somewhere, and it sounded a little strange, and a little cute, because of its similarity to the Marine Corps motto "Semper Fidelis." We screwed up in the registration, so our official name is "Rock On Simpering Fidelis," which makes even less sense. It was always funny to hear them stumble through it over the PA system. The truth is, nobody cares. There were certainly stranger names than ours!
Anyway, camp is centered on a rented RV, which turns out to be smaller, older, and dirtier than any of us expected, but it's still better than a tent. We quickly fill all available space with stuff and head out for a ride. My conclusion at the end of the ride is that the beginning is going to be fun, and the end is going to be hard. The whole thing is a lot harder than I expected. I can't imagine doing this course solo for 24 hours like a lot of riders will.
We poke around the start/finish/expo area, which I decide to call the "village." The village consists of the start/finish line, a transition area, sponsor booths, and a store. Surrounding this section on two sides is camping space for hundreds of competitors. Each "campsite" is just a 10 x 10 foot space, so if you are here, you better like being around people, because they are everywhere. There's music playing over a sound system all day. At night they show movies. This is why they call it "The Woodstock of Mountain Biking."
Our camp is on a hill that overlooks the village. We live a five-minute walk away, out in the suburbs. We have space to spread out. We have nice bathroom instead of porta-potties. We also have showers. This is luxury!
Ann, one of the wisest people I know, goes home to sleep. John, also showing great wisdom, stays at a friend's house nearby. Doug, Mark, and I are having a BBQ and sleeping in the RV. Around 2:30 am, seeking solitude (ahem!), I am forced to retreat to my car. It's freezing outside. I won't get much sleep tonight. Perfect.
Saturday. Race day is finally here. Excitement is in the air. The start of a 24-hour mountain bike race is modeled after one of the biggest events in auto racing, the 24-hour race held at Le Mans in France. In that race, instead of assigning start positions to cars, the drivers line up a few hundred yards away and run to their cars. Whoever gets to their car and gets it on the track first gets to lead the race. The 24-hour races in mountain biking adopted this tradition as a means of thinning the herd before the trail begins.
Doug is starting, so he gets to do the "LeMans" start. We all go down to watch, and he does fairly well. The riders have to run roughly a quarter mile course that goes up the hill towards our camp, then back to the village, where they ride a short lap around the campground, then they get on the course and do the first lap. When Doug got back, Mark would go, then Ann, and finally, me. I've never raced mountain bikes before, so I was little nervous. There wasn't much to do except sit around and wait, so I was dressed and ready to go before the race even started. That left me roughly three hours to wander around looking for something else to do.
When my time came near, I rode down the hill to the transition area and checked in. Eventually, Ann came in, handed off the baton, and finally, I was on my way. All the training we did, all those rides in the rain, all the night rides, all the planning. It's all led up to this moment. I tried to remain cool, at least leaving the village and climbing up the stairs. I rode down the stairs on the far side, and the moment kicked in. I saw some slower riders up ahead, and I felt I had to pass them quickly so they wouldn't be in my way when we hit the trail. Naturally, once I passed them, more appeared, and I had to pass them, too!
This became a recurring pattern, and I ended up going much harder than I wanted to. Sprint. Sprint. Sprint. I was almost at my threshold, but I was absolutely flying, and it felt good to be passing so many people. When I hit the downhill portion of the singletrack, I was literally rocking and rolling and having a grand time, until I ran into more riders. Deeper into the singletrack, there weren't as many opportunities to pass, so I was forced to sit behind them and wait. After getting held up five or six times, I was getting really frustrated. I wanted to scream "Get the #$@! out of my way!" but that would have been very, very uncool. I said nothing, but silently fumed.
Stuck behind yet another rider, I realized that my heart wasn't beating out of control anymore and I could actually breathe! I was no longer riding at threshold, and my body was recovering. My mood changed considerably when I began to view these situations as recovery periods. In fact, I got to hoping to run into another rider at certain points! That's probably what saved me from riding myself into the ground on that first lap. Perhaps if I had raced before, I would know better how to race....
Once I got out of the red zone and could think clearly, I remembered that I was doing this for fun! We were all doing this for fun. We took this race seriously and prepared well, but our only real team goal was to not come in last. We also hoped for 24 laps, and had the comical goal of not getting beat by our friend Louise Kobin, who won the solo female event last year with something like 21 laps. Our team was not going to be beaten by any solo rider! (This year Lou won the solo female National Championship a big deal!)
Having pre-ridden the course the day before, I knew that once I reached the top of Hurl Hill, the singletrack ended and the course opened up. Hurl Hill was one of the feared obstacles on the course, moderately steep and really rutted. As climbs go, I didn't think it was all that bad, and barely memorable, but it did take some effort to get up. But, I love to climb and we climb a lot on our rides, so that's just me. A lot of riders really struggled here. Soloists probably really hated it.
Hurl hill and the following descent would really stretch out the field, so I wouldn't run into as many riders as often anymore. The descent off of Hurl Hill was very fast. On every lap I was over 40 mph, even at night! Because it lasted for a mile or two, it was a nice section to relax a bit and spin out the lactic acid that had been collecting in my legs. The fire road ended at another section of singletrack, which was bumpy and loose, but on this lap, it was no big deal. Later in the race, this section of trail would practically turn to dust and sand, and it was a lot harder to ride.
The singletrack led up a steep, serpentine descent that was for me, the scariest and most dangerous part of the course. The trail was tight, with many turns, and every turn was loose and off camber. There was no really good line to take, so it was a lot of work to stay moving and upright. Doing this with riders right on your wheel adds pressure and leads to mistakes, which luckily for me, never cost me anything. Doing this at night was a really fun experience. Not!
Finally, after flying through more bumpy and sandy singletrack much faster than I should have, I got to the fire road known as "The Grind." This section is a long road out, into howling winds, which also turns into a reasonable climb. A lot of the riders I saw were slowly dying here. I passed dozens of people, and thanked God that I am also a roadie! You could really tell who the roadies were by how well they were pedaling here.
At the end of The Grind comes The Wall, a steep section I attempted to ride up, but had to bail and walk. This would become another pattern throughout the race. I wasn't alone. The wall is deceptively steep, and only a small percentage of riders actually rode it. It took too much effort, and there was no real gain, since I could run it faster and easier. It was a no-brainer for me. Over the top the village came in sight, and all that was left was a sweeping, rocky descent, a trip back over the stairs, and a lap around the village.
I did my first lap in 50 minutes, and I was pretty happy with that. I survived! John followed me, then Ann went again, and once again, it was my turn. I vowed not repeat my mistakes on the second lap, but once I got on the trail, I saw more slow riders I had to pass and, well, there I was riding at my limit again. I did take more opportunities to recover on this lap, and once I got clear of other riders, I chose a more reasonable pace that kept me out of trouble.
The wind was even worse on The Grind, but this time I ran into a guy going roughly my speed. I offered to work with him, and he said yes, but he wanted to pull for a while. That was fine with me! He went for about a half mile, then he pulled off and it was my turn to take the wind. This was hard work, and I wished I had never made this arrangement! When the road started to rise upward, I kept pulling, but when I turned around, the guy wasn't there. I'm not sure when he dropped off, but I wasn't going to wait. I eased up a bit and continued. The guy caught up to me on the wall, said thanks for the help, but he had five more laps to ride and had to drop off. I smiled and rode back to the finish, where I recorded a 51-minute lap.
My third lap came around 10:30 pm. Night, obviously. People always ask me if they light up the course at night. No, they don't. All you have is the moon and the stars and the lights on your bike. Anyway, the RV was not the best place to be because the guys were trying to sleep/snore, so I had to get out. It was freezing outside, so I bundled up tight, took my camera, and went down to the village. I checked in, and seeing what time Ann went out, I figured I had 40 minutes to waste. They were showing the Jim Carrey movie "Liar Liar" and they had a campfire going, so that was my first stop. That got old, so I took a few more pictures around the village, and still had 20 minutes to go. There was a booth that had trainers set up (devices you can mount your rear wheel in so you can ride in place), so I mounted my bike, and sat watching the movie while finally generating some heat. With five minutes to go, I went back into the transition tent and waited for Ann.
I was hanging out, talking to one of the unicyclists. Yes, I said unicyclists! There are two teams of unicyclists doing the race, which shows how this is more of an event than a race. The guy said they had estimated 1:30 laps, but they were actually doing 1:17!!! There were riders on real bikes who did laps slower than that! Anyway, Ann came in, and I had to laugh when she handed me the baton, then started describing her lap to me. "It was so hard." I interrupted her and said, "I'd love to hear about it, but I have to go now." This got a smile from her and a chuckle from the unicyclist, and I was off. In retrospect, I wish I had stuck around to hear her story.
I love night riding, and we had done a lot of it, including lots of technical riding that was harder than this course. This was going to be easy. Except it wasn't. I had no problem with the course--my problems were mental. I was suffering and I hated it. I seriously wanted to quit. For some unknown reason, I was really miserable. All I could do is focus on two things. First, how could I quit without incurring the wrath of my teammates and having to change my name and move to a foreign country? Second, if I can only make it to Hurl Hill, I can finish this lap. The first thing turned out to be impossible, but in thinking about it, I suddenly found myself at Hurl Hill and it became moot! At the top, my mood had changed for the better. I can do this. Fireroad. Singletrack. Grind. Done.
My lap time: 57 minutes. I went back to our RV, got into clean, dry clothes, and went out to my car to try to sleep (the RV was still too noisy!). I could not fall asleep, and when I finally did, it was maybe for an hour. Friday night I shared the RV with two snorers and got almost no sleep, so this wasn't good! Ann told me later that the wind had shifted, and that's why the earlier part of the course was harder on this lap. I had no idea at the time.
My fourth lap was also a night lap. I never thought I would be setting out for a ride at 3:30 am, but here I was. Unlike the previous lap, I enjoyed this one. By now I had the effort thing figured out, and I knew where I could go hard, and where I could recover. I was riding as fast as I dared on the course, but it had gotten a lot more treacherous in places. Bottles and other stuff had fallen off bikes and became new obstacles. I was alone for long periods, as there only seemed to be a handful of riders out. One very cool view was looking at the hills ahead and seeing lights revealing the trail ahead. We never see that on our night rides. Another good thing was that the wind had died down a bit on The Grind. Lap time: 56 minutes. Again, back to dry clothes and the car, hoping for sleep. Didn't even try the RV. Again, maybe an hour's worth. Rest, but not sleep.
My last lap was around 8:45 am. Because I knew it was my last lap, I was going to give everything I had. By now, I had checked the results, and to my amazement, we were in 5th place out of 32 teams! That was way beyond our expectations. The sixth place team had the same number of laps, but we were faster by only 20 minutes. We came for fun, but now we had a challenge! I wanted to keep 5th place, so I was going to get us a bigger lead. I felt good, despite lack of sleep. I hit the course hard, even though my muscles were screaming.
Anyway, back to my final lap. I flew threw the singletrack. I hurled myself up Hurl Hill. I powered up The Grind. I wound it up on the asphalt loop around the village. I was totally going for broke. Lap time: 51 minutes!
I went back to camp, showered up, did some packing, and then went down the finish to watch the end of the race. Doug and Mark had done their laps, and now John was out on our final lap. We were still tied on laps with the 6th place team, but we were now 24 minutes ahead. I figured it was a done deal, and only bad luck could hurt us now. It was impossible to lose 24 minutes on a single lap, unless John had some kind of serious mechanical problem.
In the end, we held. In fact, the 6th place team we were battling fell down to 7th place! All in all, it was a great event. We all had a great time, and clearly we weren't alone. At times it was miserable because of lack of sleep or the freezing cold at night, but that's the kind of miserable you don't remember after a while. Only the fun remains. We got lucky in that no one got hurt in any way and no one had any mechanicals. Our transitions were seamless. We were well trained and well prepared. Everyone on the team did five laps. We had a good time. All goals achieved and exceeded.
I'll definitely be back next year. |
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