Race Report - Single Speed USA 2012 - Stowe, VT

Well, after the Black Fly last year, I said that I wasn't really into racing. I should really take these lessons to heart instead of immediately forgetting about them and signing myself up for ever more ridiculous challenges. SSUSA was hard. Really, really hard. On the very first climb, my goals changed from "mid-pack finish with lots of drinking" to "just finish the race".  Some of these people in this race seemed to be genetic freaks. I'm in pretty good shape, but I might as well have spent the last 4 months laying on the couch. Compared to the top guys, I was basically standing still. Anyway, here's the report:

Breakfast of Champions at the Stowe Motel:

 I rode 3.5 miles on the amazing Stowe Bike Path to get to the start:

We started out at the Stowe Polo fields.

There were some "interesting" costumes:

After the pre-race talk, George from Bike29 said "go" and everyone just started going.

Here was my view for a little while:

I started out in the group, but as the road turned (straight) uphill, I started losing people.

If I had put in any more effort, I think my heart would have exploded, so I decided to just let the fast people be fast and settle back into my own pace. Soon, I came up on the first rest station (Sponsored by the Alchemist Brewery). I already told you that their Heady Topper is my favorite beer, so I had to have one on the way past.

After a lot more climbing, we finally got into the singletrack:

It was beautiful. Not too technical, just nice, rolling riding with plenty of nice Vermont trees and rooty goodness. I did have to push up a couple of climbs that I normally could ride, though (I think I was still tired from the first brutal climb):

After we busted out of the single track, there was a long, washboard-y downhill, which came out on the same road we climbed up on.  There was a big group of people waiting at the edge of the road, not sure if they were going the right way. Eventually, we determined that we were, so we took off down the hill we came up earlier.  The good news about this is that we got to hit the rest station for another Alchemist beer. Mmmm . . . 

Then we headed down the pavement back towards town. Hitting about 40 mph on the single speed was fun...

Man, Vermont is beautiful. Anyway, at the bottom of the hill, we got to the second rest station:

This rest stop was sponsored by drunkcyclist.com. Whiskey, Rum, Beer, and water if you asked. I got a shot of chilled tequila and a PBR. There was a forty left, and if I wanted to try the "chug a forty, finish, and win a $40 bar tab" challenge, I could have. I decided against it, though. This nutcase chugged 2:

Then, he finished an hour ahead of me. Like I said, some people are freaks. I actually felt really good after I started again, and I was able to crank pretty good up the hill out of town:

I reached a cool chairlift bench in the middle of the woods with a view of Stowe (that you can't see because I sweated all over the lens to my GoPro. 

Then there was some nice singletrack with some cool skinnies to ride:

We started climbing again, and all the energy I had seemed to go away pretty quickly. I started hiking it:

And then I took a sitting break at the top and had some Sport Beans (which is my new favorite calorie source on long days).

A couple of people passed, but I was not concerned at all about "racing" at this point. I just wanted to finish, and keep riding these awesome trails.

After a nice downhill, we busted out by the High School:

And turned up some doubletrack turned singletrack near the Trapp Family Lodge. 

It was another horribly brutal climb, but at least I was able to ride most of this one. I thought I was out of the woods, but then we got on the road and kept heading up:

And then back to doubletrack for more climbing:

Then more singletrack:

The final downhill was the best descent I've ever ridden (I think it's called Kimmer's).  It reminded me of the big long downhill at Pittsfiled State Forest in Mass., but longer and better.  Unfortunately, the batteries in my GoPro picked just that moment to die, so this is the only picture I have of the downhill:

You're going to have to trust me, though.  It was awesome. When I finally made it to the finish line, everyone was drinking keg beer and partaking in shenanigans to choose the location of the next SSUSA. Here's a couple of pics of the Maple Syrup Chugging Contest:

Totally ridiculous/awesome. There was some controversy as to who won, but I was too tired/drunk/faded to even care (it was Minnesota). It took me almost 5 hours to finish the course (which seems kind of ridiculous, but I did take a bunch of breaks at the rest areas, and there was that 15 minutes we spent discussing which way to go).  The top guys finished in about 3 hours (which is freaking incredible on this course). The hills were crazy. If you don't believe me, here's the course profile from this guy's Strava.

I'll definitely be back to ride around here at a more civilized pace (probably with a geared bike). If I wasn't having heart attacks on every hill, I think I'd be even more stoked on the sweetness of the riding around here. I'd say it rivals Kingdom Trails for trail quality, but I think Kingdom and Millstone still have them on pure mileage.  No matter. Stowe is a phenomenal place to ride, and this was a great event. More reports here and here and here.

UPDATE: Here's a picture at the finish. I look pretty glassy eyed at this point . . .

Black Fly Challenge 2011 - Race Report

I've never done a race report before because I don't race. Halfway through the 40-mile Black Fly Challenge, my legs tired, my face covered in mud, and sandy soil grinding at my nether regions, I remembered why. Racing is hard. Especially when you show up to race, and a drenching downpour is pounding at people's clothes, bikes, and psyches - reaffirming to the racers that this hard race would be downright brutal today.

Anyway, here are the pictures:

Nervous smiles at the start.  Are we really doing this?

The start was crowded.  And once we got onto the street, it was still crowded.  The course started with a pretty long downhill cruise through the town of Indian Lake.  It was hard to cruise at the speed that I wanted to go.  At one point, I had to hop up on the sidewalk to get around a few slower people (good thing I was on the full suspension 29er).  That was the last time I saw Ace (more to come on that later).  For the first half hour of riding (mostly roads), I averaged 17 miles per hour - pretty good for a mountain bike.  I probably could have gone faster, but I've got my bike set up as a 2x9 with a bashguard.  Anyway, the asphalt soon turned to this:

This is the only picture I took while riding for a couple of reasons.  One, this dirt road was no picnic.  Those tire marks are really just deep, water filled mud holes.  Riding through them, you don't know if the surface is firm and nice, soft and loose, or slippery and (nearly) unrideable.  I never knew if I would have enough traction to whip out the camera.  Two, sand was everywhere.  I was dirty, the water I was drinking was dirty, and the food I was eating was dirty.  It was not a good time to take out any electronics.  

Once we hit dirt (about 9 miles in), the race became a grind.  We wouldn't be back on asphalt for another 25 miles, so this was the situation that we had.  It wasn't particularly pretty, it was wet, and it was dirty.  The sand did a number on my drivetrain.  I had 3 instances of chainsuck, when I had to get off the bike and yank my chain back into the proper position.  Eventually, I started using water bottles from the aid stations to just wash my chainrings and cogs.  My strategy was to bomb the downhills (my strength), and just survive the uphills (my weakness).  This worked pretty well.  I had to walk a couple of the really hard hills, and I almost slid out on a downhill going around a flooded culvert, but I made a miraculous recovery to stay on my bike.

Eventually, I got back to the paved road, and into the town of Inlet.  The last couple of hills were brutal on my tired legs, but I was able to pass a couple of people on the final stretch of doubletrack (another one of my strengths).

It was a relief to finally see the finish line.

When I finally took my camera out, it was covered in sand and soaking wet.  I tried to clear it out the best I could, but some of the pictures I got after the race are pretty blurry.  Here's me after finishing:

And here's Ace coming across the line:

We had both wanted to finish in under 3 hours, but the conditions made that really difficult.  Maybe on a normal day when the dirt roads had not turned into a sandy, soupy mess it would have been possible, but not yesterday.  She was still pretty happy  at the end, though (or maniacal - couldn't tell):

We had wanted to stay pretty close together (I was actually carrying her spare tube and pump in case she got a flat), but the course didn't line up with our riding styles.  She's a monster on the climbs, and I made all my time on the downhills.  Even if we were in the same general area, we would've yo-yoed the whole course.  I felt kind of bad about leaving her, but I figured she'd be able to fend for herself - and she did, getting over a few chainsuck problems of her own, and dominating the other women in her area. 

I finished in a time of 3:19:57, good enough for 5th in my division (30-39 beginneer), 107th overall (out of 344 finishers) and 55th out of the guys on mountain bikes.

Ace crossed the line in 3:39:11, finishing 1st in her division (20-29 beginner), 145th overall, and 3rd out of all girls on Mountain Bikes (including the expert and sport classifications above her). Pretty fantastic for her first race.

Complete Results Here.

After a couple of beers, they did the awards, and Ace won a bike saddle:

We were able to score a ride on the shuttle bus back to Indian Lake (which was much less complicated than the car exchanging thing we had planned), and we made it back to our car around 5:30 or so.

It's tough to describe racing.  It feels like crap when you're doing it (the sand is everywhere).  And after it's over, the feeling is more of relief than accomplishment.  But I can see how it can be addicting.  I was only 3 minutes off of 3rd in my division (I would've gotten a prize), and if I applied myself, I know I could move up the ranks.  Ace is already at the top of the heap, and if she wanted to, she could actually do mountain bike races every weekend and start winning some money (the Expert division got checks - if Ace had been in that division, she would've gotten a second place check!).

But then you ask yourself if it's worth it.  Mountain bike trips are a lot of fun, and if we started doing them as "training rides" instead of adventures and sessions, I feel like they'd lose a lot of their appeal.  I can see doing races a couple of times a year, just as an experience (although we've decided that we want to choose races with more singletrack and less dirt road grinding).  But I don't like the idea of going to a different race every weekend, seeing the same people, doing the same courses year after year, and slogging through 3 hours of rainy suffering just to have some feeble accomplishment that nobody really cares about anyway.

I'd rather just ride for fun.  That way, when I'm hungry, tired, and covered in sand, I don't have to feel bad about quitting and having a beer.

UPDATE: After Surgery to my GPS unit, I can upload the route. Here it is: