Sunday, March 22, 2009

Lost Valley Luau


Thanks to Mesa Cycles for hosting the first official mountain bike race of the year. And a special thanks to Gorc and it's volunteers for all the hard work that went into the new trail section that now bypasses the defunct bridge and washed out hill. It took two work days and a ton of man hours to make it happen. We pre-rode the new section before the race and I raised my eyebrows with concern. It was very soft in places, rough in others and the bench cutting in some places was not "cut in" yet. At speed it turned out to be just fine and I looked forward to it(get me off those gravel roads!). It was funny, as we encountered traffic-riders in other classes and some lapped riders, I heard a lot of moaning and cussing especially in the long "soft" section. All I could do was smile, chuckle to myself and motor on. Here is a shot of Nico rounding the switchback near the old bridge.



The Marathon class races until 3 hours passes by and then you finish what ever lap you are on. Last year this class was the bastard class. Today it was THE class. Not to take away from Cameron Chambers, Mike Best or Chris Ploch which in this order, put the other Experts to shame, but we had 31 in the Marathon class today! What's cool about this is that a lot of these people just wanted to try it for the first time and see what they could do. Compare the times of the top three Marathoners and they aren't far off from the experts and we still had two to three laps to do. Yes, I had the pleasure of ending my day in this top three. Dwayne won, Dave Breslin took a convincing second and I pulled off third.


The race started at a pace that I could handle, which was surprising. I was way behind a few, but still with the bulk of the riders. I passed several riders on the first climb which again, surprised me. Dwayne looked like he was shot out of a cannon, gone. We formed small groups for the next gravel road section but I knew I wanted to be ahead of these groups before we got to the first single track. Near the end of the gravel I stood up and attacked. Dwayne, Dave and Brad were out of sight by now. I entered the new trail GORC built and just tried to "flow" through it. It wasn't long and I caught Brad and then I was following him into the older single track, which I am very in touch with. I requested a pass on the left from Brad and he obliged. Swoopy descent over, I found myself on Dave's wheel. He bobbled and I was in front of him. Knowing that we had a moderate climb ahead I suggested that he go around me, so he did. I kept him in sight and was able to bridge back up to him on the next descent. We rode the double track together and stayed close until the creek crossing near the end of loop one.


Dave put a small gap on me before starting lap two. He kept that gap until the new single track again where I caught him again. Then right where it ends, he flatted. Sounded like a cut sidewall to me, but it turned out that the bead popped off and after remounting it, a blast of CO2 got him going again. Lucky! I had no idea, so I pressed on. I finished lap two in second, by myself and rode all of lap three alone. I didn't look back but Dave and Brad were closing in on me at the start of lap four and caught me after the first climb. I first saw Dave and asked him if he knew where Brad was and he said,"he's right there!". I turned to see Brad only a bike length behind me. I could tell Dave was on a mission so he was gone, never to be seen again. Brad passed me but I didn't let him get too far. I caught him on the new single track and we rode together for nearly half a lap. I could tell he had worked really hard to ride with Dave and I had backed off and felt a second wind approaching. I led into the last bit of single track. Another racer crashed right in front of me at the "waterfall" creek crossing but I managed to hobble past him and keep going. I guess Brad ended up crashing also.


I cruised the downhill and began the push up to the end of the lap to start lap five. Brad was only seconds behind me. I knew this was it, the last time up the "prick-of-a-hill" gravel climb so I gave it what I had. When I got to the top I locked out my fork, put my head down and "mashed". I blew by a group of five in a pace line and I think I startled them. When I got to the end of the gravel I looked back and could not see Brad, it worked! I rode carefully the rest of the lap for it was raining a little and I didn't want to crash. We were riding through tons of other riders now, which slows you down a bit. I crossed the creek at the waterfall climbed up the other side of the valley and looked across the valley and no Brad. At this point I was pretty sure I had it. Nice easy pace back to the finish for third. Third to Dwayne and Breslin, I'll take it! Nice job everyone. Greg did awesome also taking 6th and a few duckies too!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Secret playground


Yesterday was a ball buster. Greg Ott and I poached a group ride made of real men. Mike Best, Nate Means, Doug Davis and Jason ?, don't know him. They came down from Columbia to camp and ride in the Mark Twain National Forest. Where else can you go out and ride all day and only scratch the surface of what is possible. The Ozark Trail is an expansive system of trails mostly open to mountain bikes and is managed by the Forest Service but mainly by the Ozark Trail Association of which I am a lifetime member. While I can't get down very often to help, I figure I'll at least support it with my membership.

*Edit*The handsome group of guys and gals that volunteer for GORC have a hand in this trail system's sweetness. That hand went to work on Sunday and re-routed a section of North Trace that had become the path for the nearby creek. Looks like I now have an excuse to venture down again to see the fruits of their labors. Thanks GORC!

This group then became "manlier" when joined by Dwayne Goscinski and Chris Ploch. We planned a banner ride consisting of a teasing of the Berryman, a chunk of the Courtois section of the OT and the entire North Trace section of the OT. While only about 26.5 miles one way, it's a tough ride with tons of climbing and lots of creek crossings. The trail surface was stellar for most of it. One section in the middle of the Courtois section has been "horsed up", holes poked in the soft earth that then collect water and never dry out. In all fairness the trail design in these sections contributes to this problem with a less than ideal choice of routing the user through lowlands. The equestrians still could make better decisions to stay off of trails when wet. Other than that, the trail was nearly perfect. Only a small number of trees down. When you cover this much ground and see the miles of dense forest of primarily deciduous trees, to have half a dozen trees down is not a problem.

Of course this was not enough, so we continued down past hwy DD on the South Trace section and rode the Telleck connector over to the Council Bluff loop and stopped there. Then it hits you. Over 28 miles from where you started, no place to get water or food and you're more than tired. Only thing to do is reset the Garmin and go. I thought it would be cool to get an out and back, recorded separately so I could compare all the data. This ride is definately harder on the out than the back which can be seen in the elevation profiles. Greg and I thought about cutting out many times but opted to finish it and I'm glad we did.

I was happy that I didn't walk ANY part of the ride except for the large trees and I had the exact average heart rate, out and back. This tells me that I accomplished my goal to stay smooth and meter my efforts even though the group full of testosterone was dropping us at the beginning. I've never had to worry about having enough daylight to finish a ride when said ride started at 10 am, holy crap! I finished my last bit of food with about 6 miles to go and ran out of water with about 3 miles to go, no big deal. Greg and I had no tubes left between us, I used one of mine and Greg's only tube, and my second tube had a bad valve stem. It just became more and more epic as each minute passed. I can't wait to do it again, but next time we stash food and water and do a loop at Council Bluff!

To add insult to injury, Super Dwayne thought the planned route sounded a little "weak" so he took it upon himself to show up in the morning while it was still dark and do a warm up ride. What would that warm up consist of but a loop around Berryman! I cannot even imagine! Freak! So my 8 hours and 46 minutes pales in comparison, whatever hurt I thought I had going on......