Titcomb 6-hr Coed Duo

For my final mountain bike race of the season (before I fully transition to trying to figure out how to race cyclocross effectively) I coerced Marcy to race the Titcomb Mountain Challenge 6-hr as a coed duo. We also enlisted friends Chris and Aimee to get the field started for this inaugural event. By race day there were 6 couples contending for the class. According to Strava, Marcy and I at least had a good chance in the race as we both had some of the fastest loops around the course (or at least what we thought was the course) leading up to the race. Unfortunately, the Wednesday before the race, Marcy was diagnosed with an ulcer in her cornea which meant that on race day she had to wear her regular glasses with sunglasses on top because bright light caused a searing pain in her right eye. Fun!

Hole shot!

We decided that I would do the first lap to try to get us a gap on the other teams. At the gun, I went full in and nabbed the hole shot award and hit the climb first. I pushed almost xc pace hard through most of the lap and got a pretty good gap on the entire field until I cased a pointy rock and heard air and Orange Seal spewing from my front tire. F!!! I quickly pulled over to assess the situation. I first tried a quick shake of the tire to see if the sealant would fix the hole but, of course, it didn't. Thankfully I had a puncture kit with me and I was able to get a plug in the hole and the tire aired up just as Eric from the leading duo mens team caught me.

Descending at the end of lap 1.

I jumped on my bike and took off for the last 10 minutes of the race loop. Towards the end of the lap I started to feel my front tire getting soft and I started to lose the front end in hard corners. I had to back off the pace a bit to avoid crashing but was successful in finishing my lap, holding onto the overall lead by about 30 seconds and about 2 minutes over the second place coed team.

The always fun transition.

At this point, Marcy took the helm and I went about getting my bike ready for lap two. The whole time she was out, I worried about how her eye would handle racing and how she'd fare with two sets of glasses on. I had been forced to remove my sunglasses mid lap because they were getting fogged up from the very humid conditions in the woods. I could only imagine how fogged two sets of glasses would get...

So much good single track!

Marcy rolled in within a couple of minutes of her expected time despite having a hard time seeing (resulting in a couple of minor wrecks and overshooting a couple of corners) and dropping her chain once. Not bad given the circumstances and her not having raced in several years! Unfortunately, we had lost the lead because of these issues and because one of the teams had their male teammate do the first two laps, but we weren't too far back so I took off on my planned two lap turn.

Before the end of lap one of my turn, I caught and passed both of the coed teams and had an uneventful lap two (thankfully!) and handed Marcy the baton with a narrow lead. Because of my double lap, Marcy headed out with the release of XC race categories and was also now out on course with a mix of men and women in the coed group. Marcy here: I made the mistake of easing up on my roll out to let the start of the sport XC race go by (thinking it was the expert women's category approaching)...oops! Guess I need to remember how to race! I slowly made my way back to a comfortable spot and had a cleaner run despite rolling a tire and burping some air. I also took a chance and removed my sunglasses for that lap; it paid off. A little fogging from the humidity, but no wrecks and I rolled in just after the second place team.

Marcy descending at the end of her lap.

Back to Rick: After the transition, I quickly passed the second place team (Hi Sarah!) and set about finding Nick who was probably only a minute up the trail. I started catching glimpses of him early in the first climb and foolishly thought I'd catch him quickly. But, as it turns out, Nick is pretty friggin fast and I had to dig deep to start reeling him in. It was well into the second half of the lap that I began to think that I wouldn't catch him by the end of the lap which would put us in a real pickle for what would likely be Marcy's (and our team's) last lap. Thankfully, the start of the last real climb of the lap is super steep and it must have done two damage to Nick because all of a sudden I rounded an uphill corner and I was on him. A quick pass and I was off to the races to finish the lap with as much of a gap as possible.

It was at this time that I began to do the math in my head. If I finished this lap at the pace I was going, I could theoretically do one more lap and still get back in time for Marcy to do her final lap but, if Marcy went out instead, she wouldn't get back in time for me to do one more. Of course, Marcy doesn't have the luxury of being in my brain and, as far as I knew she was getting ready to jump on her bike as soon as I came through so I decided to just see what she thought when I rolled in.

As I approached the transition area, Marcy came out and asked me if I could do one more. I wasn't sure if this was because her eye was messing with her or if she was still futzing with the tire she had burped a lap ago or if she had simply done the math as well, but I quickly accepted the offer and headed out for my fifth and final lap.

I had been averaging about a 41 minute lap. We had about 50 minutes before the cut-off so it seemed like I had plenty of time but with over 700' of climbing per lap and fatigue setting in, the possibility of cramps and a death march were definitely on the table...Most of the first half of the lap was uneventful until I heard a ping from the rear of the bike. I wasn't sure what it was but I was guessing I had broken a spoke in my rear wheel. I didn't want to take the time to assess (and I can't fix a broken spoke out in the woods anyway) so I rolled on. Unfortunately, my rear wheel started acting really funny and making odd noises whenever I drove hard through a corner so I had to tip toe a bit for the remainder of the lap.

Me looks angry. I guess I was trying wicked hahd

I rolled into the transition area with about 2-3 minutes to spare on the cut off so the debate began. Marcy wasn't sure she wanted to do another lap and we PROBABLY had a big enough gap that Nate (from the current 2nd place team who was out on course) wouldn't come through before the cut off but, if he did and Marcy hadn't already gone out, the race would likely be lost so Marcy headed out for what she hoped would be a party pace lap.

Two minutes after the cut-off, Nate rolled through. At this point we knew we had the win so Sarah (also from the second place team) offered to find Marcy mid-course and tell her she didn't need to finish (Thank you Sarah!!) but, it turns out, Marcy was enjoying the drier conditions and wanted her third lap so she finished it and rolled across the line victoriously (she doesn't know that you're supposed to raise your arms when you finish).

Sadly, the finish arch had to be taken down because 

of a thunderstorm that had rolled through earlier.

Marcy and I ended up being one of two teams in the entire field to complete 8 laps. The other team were friends Eric and Billy in the mens' duo division. Not bad, I may have to coerce her into doing more of these!

The race promoter put on an excellent event with a really well laid out course, including a great mix of climbing, downhill, and tech. The friendly competition and encouragement between the co-ed duo teams made for a great day on the bike.

Coed podium

Hole shot podium with Hallie

Bond Brook Treadfest Day 1: 6hr solo

Ahh, Bond Brook.  A gem of Maine riding that only continues to get better each year as Central Maine NEMBA  (with Chris Riley leading the charge) tirelessly keeps adding more and more fun, swoopy, technical singletrack.  The riding here is a mix of old school gnar and new school bermy-ness but never too much of either.  I've been to new school place where I initially enjoy the berms but soon find myself looking for a rock or root to ride over.  Have no fear at Bond Brook.  If you enjoyed that last berm, you're about to be rewarded by a rock garden or a tangle of roots 8" high.  In other words, Bond Brook is real mountain biking and it's a place that will test you during a 6 hr race... oh, and did I mention the soil?  It's mostly clay so it packs into a nice trail surface until it gets wet and then things get interesting. 

 

 Pit row

Lucky for us, conditions were pretty much optimal leading up to the race.  We'd had our fair share of rain but the trails were mint.  That is, at least, until 1 hour before race start when we had a 20 minute torrential downpour!  Hmm, this should make things interesting!

This year's elite solo field was a bit smaller than last year's but the quality was high with Derek Treadwell, Andy Scott (umm, how am I almost twice his age???) Andy Gould and a couple of unknown to me out-of-staters toeing the line with the other 200-ish solo and team riders.

At the gun, a few team guys shot off the front while the open solo field quickly settled into a quick but comfortable pace that allowed everybody to test out how the days conditions were going to shape up. The group soon sorted itself out and we found a comfy pace for the conditions with Derek Treadwell, Andy Scott, Andy Gould and myself in the lead group. 

Fast forward a couple of laps and I was starting to get a bit antsy.  Currently, the pace was a bit too comfortable in the single track for my taste but, as usual, Tread (and now Andy Scott as well) would gap me on the long climbs and I would catch back up in the tech.  I started thinking that it was time to ramp it up a bit and put them under pressure in the technical bits so maybe they wouldn't have so much energy to get away on the climbs.  Sometime, on the third lap, I found myself second wheel behind Tread.  He bobbled on a steep, rooty uphill section.  I, somehow, managed to stay on my bike so I figured this was as good a time as any to see what damage I could do. 

 

Two damage!

 

I upped the pace a couple of notches (but still within my endurance zone) and tried to distance myself from the group for the remainder of the lap.  The move sorta worked with me getting clear until the next climb when the group reeled me in (I really need to lose weight so I can climb better!) but this time, they didn't gap me on the climb so we crested as one big happy group. 

Things went swimmingly for the next 10-ish minutes until the heinous ski trail climb.  A climb that Tread can easily put 30 seconds into me and more if he really tried.  and, apparently, after my attack last lap, he decided it was time to try...as he and Andy Scott drilled it up the hill leaving myself and Andy Gould in their dust.  Well, that's that.

 

I look angry, it must be because I realized I was only half-way done...

For the next lap, or two, I would catch glimpses of Tread and Andy ahead but never bridged back up until I saw Tread taking a hot piss on the side of the trail and soon after got within a couple of turns of Andy.  Game back on. 

After his nature break, Tread blasted by me on the next climb but I soon got him in sight again at the end of the lap.  Interestingly, he pulled off course at the start/finish (I later found out that in his haste to catch Andy, he crashed in the woods and banged his knee so pulled out of the race).  That meant it was just me and the two Andy's duking it out for the podium spots.  Andy Scott was again nowhere to be seen and I hadn't seen Andy Gould behind me in some time.  Given that we were over 4 hours into the race at this point and it looked like the finishing positions were pretty much set, I went into complacency mode for a lap or two.  Complacency is a perfect mode to be in if you want to do well in a race right???

 

Andy Gould on my tail.

 

Well, my ride easy until the race is done pace backfired (uh-duh!) and somewhere around the 5 hour mark I saw Andy Gould not all that far behind me.  UGHH!  You know what's super fun in the last hour of a 6 hour race?  Having to drill it to avoid losing a position!  But, sadly, that's what I had to do and managed to hold on to 2nd solo and, just as importantly, managed to not cramp all day so my chances in Sunday's time trial and enduro were good.  (more on that in the next post)

Weeping Willow 2017

Ah, the good ole days.  Do you remember those?  The days when you weren't twice the age as some of your competition?  Or when your legs could ride at plaid speed for, like, ever?  Well, sadly, those days are gone and now I tend to focus not on the young man's version of mtb racing (xc distance) but more on the old fart version (endurance) because old man legs are a thing.  A thing that likes to go long but mebbe not so hard.

Having said that, I do enjoy me some XC suffering and it's a great way to remind my whiny legs that things could be worse.  I could still be focusing on this shit!

Anywhoo, early winter I decided that a good way to prep for my two "A" races was to sneak some XC races into the mix so that I could work on my leg speed and excuse making.  Mostly excuse making (seems like it's working brilliantly so far...).

Willowdale is the first such prep race.  It's historically, one of the favorite races in New England because of it's fast, flowy and dry trails.  Oh, and lack of real hills.  These elements add up to a fun but very painful experience because you can go full gas almost all of the time with very few downhills to coast or tricky areas to pick through.  Brap, BRAPPPPPP!!!!!

Because I'm a sucker for punishment and the fact that I know the only way to get truly fast is to go race against dudes faster than you, I signed up for the elite field and immediately put on a cup because I knew I was gonna get my dick beat in. 

I'm liking how all of my Stio gear matches my bike.  If you look closely, you'll see that I'm still rockin' the dork spoke protector.  nothing yells ELITE! like having that bad boy still on...

Anyway, lets get on with it.  Somewhere around 22-24 (although results only list 19) elites lined up.  I recognized some of the faces as perennial fast guys and a few that I didn't know but they got call-ups and looked to be fit as a fiddle so I knew the hurts were about to begin.  

The start was painful and I do mean painful.  Despite a solid warm-up, I was struggling immediately in the first open section.  Can you say "cotton mouth"???

Tell me this doesn't look like a motivated, hard charging bunch!
Photo by Gary Waldeck

That's me in the middle of the pic, black Stio shorts and red/black Bikeman jersey.

Thankfully, we soon hit some trails and I was able to grab back on somewhere around mid-pack.  Sadly, that was short lived as we soon found ourselves on another dirt road-ish section and the speed just got faster.  At one point, I looked down and we were doing 26 mph on a flat section, on MOUNTAIN BIKES!  This, coincidentally, is when I decided I probably wasn't going to win today.

Photo by Gary Waldeck

I eventually found myself in a small group that were all going the same speed and seemed to be about the same skill level so there was some nice racing and trying not to crash into trees at 20mph going on.  Somehow, as I always seem to do, I found myself all by my lonesome by the end of lap one (of three).  I hadn't seen the guy in front of me (I had already caught all of my carrots) and had one guy maybe 30 seconds back.

 All by my say-eelf (hint, you have to sing it)
Photo by Gary Waldeck

This is when the sads hit.  I was in no-mans-land.  My legs hurt, my ears hurt and I was seeing blury from the effort of the first lap.  I willed myself to keep pushing though and soon started to catch glimpses of the next guy up the trail.  I tried digging deeper to catch the guy ahead but I just couldn't seem to do it.  Even worse, I noticed two guys catching me from behind. 

Run boi, RUN!
Photo by Jim Paiva

Inevitably, I was caught at the very beginning of the last lap.  Sportingly, they let me pull through all of the fast opening sections and then one of them (who turned out to be Greg Jancaitus) blazed past me at a speed that I can only describe as excitedly stupid.  Lucky for me, I do excitedly stupid pretty well because excitedly stupid is way more fun than mopey sad...so I was able to dig deep and stay with Greg all the while wondering when excitedly stupid would turn into ouchy crashy.  Turns out, I didn't have to wait long.

I clung to Greg's wheel for about 10 minutes until he took an alternate line that I hadn't tried.  Not wanting to get gapped, I followed him and immediately went down (Hi there pointy rocks!) and tore the crap out of my right butt cheek.  This, coincidentally was when I realized my days as a butt model were over.  I hoped back up quick-ishly and with a bit of effort was able to grab the rear wheel of the other dude in our trio.  Sadly though, Greg had gotten away.

Me and dude who's name I don't know scampered along merrily and eventually caught back up to Greg who had very kindly caught the guy who I had been fruitlessly chasing a while back.  Now we were four with a couple of miles to race and the distinct possibility of a 4-up sprint finish.  The potential for ouchy's was extremely high.

Things went swimmingly for the next couple of miles with me barely holding 4th wheel when we came into the field leading to the finish.  This is when things blew the f' up!  No name dude went first from third wheel.  I think he got around Greg and the other no name just as we caught an expert female who was finishing her race.  Unfortunately, the guy in front of me clipped her bars and she went down.  After a bit of brow beating from me, no name went back to check on her as I rolled across 3rd in the 4-up.

I circled back to check on the woman but she was already gone.  I heard that she finished the race.  I sure hope she was ok.

Checking the results, I ended up in 13th about 8 minutes down on the winner.  Not exactly my greatest performance.  Comparing my lap times to the top experts (and adjusting for my extra lap) I would been at or near the top of the expert field so I guess middling in the elite field is where I belong.

I must say, the Kona Hei Hei DL performed flawlessly and I continue to be impressed by this bike.  Comfortable and flippin' fast.  oh and stupid fun.  so fun that I counted at least 5 (4-DL's and one Supreme) Hei Hei's in the Elite start corral.   Want one?  I hear Bikeman would love to sell you one.

2017 Austin Rattler

For this year's Austin Rattler, my main goal was to improve on last year's surprisingly good finish (it's tough for Mainah's coming out of winter to compete against guys who are in mid-season form...) and my best bet for doing that was to get a much better starting position, even if it meant getting to the start line 1 hour before the start.  I burned WAY too many matches last year trying to get past the hordes of dudes in front of me so I was hell bent on being at the front this year.

Race morning, I arrived at the venue with my bike 100% ready to race so I very quickly dropped my cooler with bottles on course and then took my bike over to the start corral and leaned it against the fence right near the front.

 

Race morning was cool enough to necessitate the need for the Stio coat.  Man that thing is versatile. 

Back to the car for final prep and over to the bike 10 minutes later to see that they had put the starting tape up right on top of my bike so I had an almost front row position (the pros were starting in the very front).  40 minutes of additional waiting and we were ready to go.

When the shotgun went off, the 30-ish dudes in front of me and the 600 behind were off in a dusty conga line.  I was immediately amazed at how much more comfortable the pace was this year because I wasn't frantically trying to get past 100+ riders before we entered the wood.

 

After the initial shuffling, I found myself around 20th riding the opening dirt roads at a pace that I felt was sustainable for a 4+ hour race.  Unfortunately, that didn't last long.  On the first quick rocky uphill, two or three guys fell immediately in front of me (on a friggin dirt road!) which let a 100' gap open between the top 10-12 guys and us.  100' isn't a big deal in single track but it sucks when you're in a paceline at 25mph!  Myself and a couple of others tried to bridge the gap but after a few minutes it was clear that, although we were catching them, I was going way into the red and was going to pay for it later so I decided to learn from last year and dialed it back.  Hopefully I'd see some of those guys later.

I found myself in a bit of no-mans-land for a bit but soon was joined by a guy riding at the same pace as me.  It was nice to have the company and it was definitely helpful to have a drafting partner on the fast sections.  About 1/2 way through the 1st (of 3) laps, we were joined by a couple of fun loving Texans who were eager to up the pace.  I was happy to let them pull (because they were oh-so eager!) through the last fast sections with me helping with the effort but in a conservative manner.

 

Our happy foursome, me dutifully sucking wheel

 

When we hit the later sections of singletrack, I found myself at the front of the group.  I got into a nice singletrack trance and soon found myself alone having gapped the other guys.  It wasn't intentional and it was way too early to ride solo so I decided to change up my pre-race fueling plan.  Initially, I had planned to stop for my fresh bottles after the second lap but, with my gap, I decided to stop after the first lap to allow our group to get back together.

 

sucking more Texan wheel

 

My plan worked perfectly with all four of us back in our bromance shortly into the second lap.  Somewhere along the mid-point of lap two, we lost one of our riding partners.  I'm not sure what happened, he just sort of drifted off the back.  Lucky for me, I still had my two happy Texans chatting away and doing their fair share of pulling.  We were also steadily picking up people being dropped from the front group so things were looking good!

 

 Lapping through and loving my Hei Hei DL

When we got to the last half of the lap where all of the single track is located, I found myself at the front again and, once again, I got all single tracky and soon had a big gap.  This time I decided to see if I could make it stick.  25 miles solo with about 8 miles of fast dirt road was going to be tough to hold those guys off but I knew that I'd need to make a move at some point so I went for it!

 

Solo suffering

 

At the beginning of the third lap, my legs started to cramp a bit (hello last year!) so I took a Hot Shot! and within a few minutes the cramps subsided but I knew the cure was only temporary so I tried my darndest to keep the pace high without going into redline.

I succeeded in getting through the opening miles of road without the happy Texans from catching up.  I knew at this point my chances were good as long as I didn't cramp up or crash.  There are a few sections on course where the trail doubles back so you can get a good sense of how close people are behind you.  Through the first few, I saw no competitors approaching but I was catching a lot of riders.  I was lapping some but also picking up the ever more shredded lead group.  Some blew up so completely that, when I'd catch them, they didn't even try to grab my wheel.  I'm pretty certain I would have been in the same boat if I hadn't dialed it back on lap one.

 

A hard charging Texan 

 

On the very last out and back section of trail with a few miles of singletrack to go, I finally saw one of the happy Texans closing in on my wheel.  Frick!  We waved, exchanged pleasantries and then I ran for my friggin life.  Up to that point I was being relatively conservative with my pace but I now knew I had to drill it if I wanted to stay away.  Thankfully, it was mostly single track from that point on and I knew from the couple of laps that I was at least on par with Nevada (turns out that was his name as I peruse the results).

 

Yay for finishing with no-one on my wheel!

About 10 minutes later, I crossed the line in what turned out to be 10th place, about a minute and a half behind Lance Armstrong with Nevada coming in merely 20 seconds later.  Damn, that was close! 

 

Go Team Bikeman

 I figured if Lance got to see my wenis before the race, the least he could do is take a pic with me after...

2017 Austin Rattler - the preamble

Last year was my first try at the Austin Rattler 100k Leadville qualifier race in Austin Texas.  It was fun and hard and a good early season test of the racing legs.  You can go here to read about my wicked good decisions and a bit of course info. 

This year, I decided to be a bit more smartah' and try to improve over last year's performance.  That meant some more focused winter training and a few fat bike races to remind the legs how to work hard.  The winter prep started out all grand like with me finally podiuming at Moose Brook and then having a solid finish at Sugarloaf despite suffering two flats early in the race.  Sadly, that's when things started to go south.  I was hit with "issues" during the Titcomb fat bike race and then spent a month not feeling quite right.  I began to wonder if I was overtrained, although that didn't seem likely, but I sure as hell wasn't feeling good on the bike. 

About a week and a half before heading to Austin, the mystery was solved when a painful rash showed up on my right arm.  It turns out that all of my symptoms were the early signs of shingles!  As pissed as I was to have shingles, it sure was nice to finally know what had been going on with my body....So, the doc put me on a super high dose of anti-viral meds and told me I'd likely be ok for the trip.  I finished my meds 1 1/2 days before departure and, thankfully, the rash was still there (still is right now actually) but under control and no longer painful. 

 Lotsa Hei Hei's on the trip...

Once in Texas, I built up my new Kona Hei Hei DL which I'd barely been able to ride because of the abundance of snow back in Maine.  I guess this trip would be my chance to dial it in.  Afterall, there's not better way to get to know a bike than to do a 100k race on it!  Ride day one included 4 hours of mixed single track.  Some fast flowing, some gnarly, rocky goodness and some boulder field scrambling.  Basically just a good solid day of riding and getting to know my bike and all of it's capabilities (of which there are many!).  I probably dug a bit too deep on these rides but it was hard to not be super stoked on riding outside, on dirt, in 70+ degree weather so I figured it was worth it.

Reimer's Ranch

The day before the race we did a pre-ride of the course.  It turned out to be almost identical to last year's course (with just a few minor tweaks) and I was smart for this one and kept the effort low so I'd be fresh for the next days suffering. 

That's all the time I have for now.  Part 2 tomorrow (or whenever I get to it...)

2017 Sugarloaf Fat Tire Race

Well, that didn't go as planned.  I've been looking forward to the Sugarloaf fat bike race for a while now and felt that I was in reasonably good shape leading up to the race.  The weather had thrown us all a curve ball with lots of recent snow so outdoor riding had been in short supply but I supplemented what I could get with some quality trainer time.  Trainer time ≠ ride time but it would have to suffice.

As race day approached, the venue got a bunch of fresh snow so they frantically packed and re-packed the single track.  thankfully, the vast majority of the race would be on groomed xc ski trails so hopefully non-prime single track would be ok. 

Race day.  I got to the venue two hours early so that I could pick up my stuff and get a loop in on the course only to find that they weren't allowing pre-riding.  Not even on the xc ski trails!  I get that they were trying to save the single track for the race but they should definitely open a section of the groomers so riders can warm up without risking riding on the area roads in the winter.  hopefully that will change for next season.

It was cold, with temps just about zero at the start, so I opted to rock my new Stio gear for the race instead of my standard 12 year old Castelli fleece jersey.  Warm and dapper!

 

Starting to line up.  Looking stylie in my Stio Second Light Alpha

 

Race start, I got a good start from the front row, nabbing the hole shot but quickly relinquishing it to my buddy Warren for second on the first short climb.  No sense burning too many matches this early. 
race start video

 

Grabbing the hole shot now down to my Stio Eddie Check Shirt

We made our way through the first single track section and it seemed to hold up pretty well but showed signs of softness in some of the corners.  Back out onto the xc stuff and we were joined by Brian and Brett.  The four of us rode together until the first long climb when Brian and Brett put a bit of a gap on us.  Warren went ahead of me on the next s.t. section and we quickly brought Brian and Brett back so we were four again.  Unfortunately, I started to notice some softness in my rear tubeless tire.  Sure enough, I look down and I'm now almost flat but the bead was still holding.  I was carrying two CO2's so I decided to gamble and air the tire back up and see if the Stans would fix whatever the issue was.  So I stopped, futzed around with my inflater (nothing goes as quick in the winter...) dumped a whole 40g canister into it and jumped back on my bike losing somewhere around 2 minutes on the leaders. 

 

Shortly after the flat.  the chase begins!

 

I frantically chased for the rest of the first lap and the first half of lap two, working back up to 4th place when I noticed my tire going flat again.  frig!  It was tube time and end of all hope time.  But, but, but, this shit builds character right?  I figured it would be good practice for this summer's 100k races when a flat isn't necessarily the end of your race so I got about changing it. 

 

No mans land.

 

The good news is that I still had one CO2 canister, the bad news is that only half filled my 4.8" tire so it took me an ass ton of frantic hand pumping to get the tire to a manageable pressure wasting around 10 more minutes as I watched half of the long course racers pass me by. 

 

Gasping for air

With the fix finally done, I hopped back on the bike and chased and chased and chased.  I made decent time but only managed to claw my way back to 7th.  A disappointing finish but pretty good given the circumstances. 

Smoked

 There's still two more races in the Maine winter series so I have a couple more chances to represent my Bikeman.com team and Kona Wo well. 

Moosebrook 2017

The Moosebrook Fat Bike Race is the (as far as I know) original single track fat bike race in New England.  They do a superb job each year packing out 5-ish miles of ripping single track for our bike racing pleasure.  As is always the case with winter riding, conditions can be fickle.  Over the previous years we've seen brutal cold (below 0), cold with blistering winds and maybe one year when things were relatively comfy but there was never a year when ma nature threw a precip curve ball at them by dumping snow or rain or whatever leading up to the race which meant that conditions were always pretty close to primo.  That was then, this is now.

This year, conditions were not cooperating.  They had a good base and some well packed trails until a little over a week before race day and then things went to shit.  First, a bunch of warm weather and rain and then, a few days before the race they got several inches of fresh powder.  A course re-design was in order.  some quick regiggering and they had a course that seemed like it would hold up.  Fingers crossed...

Race day. I got there uber early so that I could hopefully do a full loop to see what conditions would be like and to set tire pressures.  Unfortunately, because of the course change, I couldn't figure out where to go or what direction so, instead, I rode as much course as I could in the direction I thought we would be going.  I was happy to see that, while the conditions were tricky, it seemed like almost everything was rideable but there would definitely be some running involved.

Race start.  For once, I was ready and snagged a front row start position so I wouldn't see the leaders disappear in the distance like years past.  When the gun went off, it was a full on sprint up the lead out snowmobile trail and I ducked into the woods in 4th, behind Mike Rowell, Garth Schwallenbach and Brian Oickle my best ever start here.  Most of the single track in the first half of the course was pretty good (even though I road ALL OF IT the wrong was in my pre-ride).  I had my buddy Brian riding just in front of me in 3rd and teammate Ryan just behind me in 5th.

Somewhere in the opening few miles, Brian bobbled in the single track and I was able to slip by.  That was shortly followed by a long-ish snowmo trail climb.  Sadly, of the three of us, I'm the worst climber so Ryan slipped by me and entered the second half of the single track in 3rd.  The second half of the course had some seriously dicey downhill S.T. but finished with some super firm track in an evergreen forest that put a smile on your face.

When we entered lap 2, we hit a section of S.T. that was skipped in the first lap so that the field could spread out.  Thank god we did.  With temps in the mid-30's this section was already tough to ride even before 100 fat bikes had been over it.  This would become the section with the most running.

Up until this point, I was following Ryan rather comfortably but found that I could run faster than him so, just before we hit the snowmo climb again, I put in a dig, passed him and drilled it through the next section of trail.  and, by god, it worked!  I gapped him nicely but, like I said, he's a better climber so he just rolled on past me towards the top of the climb.  Hmm, how was I going to get away from him?

The rest of lap two and three saw us jokey back and forth between 3rd and 4th.  considering how hard the conditions were getting (slushy ice ruts and literal single tire width wide tracks to ride in many areas) we were somehow having fun.  Unfortunately, we hadn't seen 1st or 2nd in a while so we knew we were fighting for the last podium position.

Last lap.  Ryan was leading me but I took over 3rd in one of the running sections.  At this point, remounting your bike was a gamble unless you knew that you could stay on for more than a couple of minutes so I made a strategic decision to run ALMOST EVERYTHING until we got to the firmer sections.  No gambles, just head down suffering.  The strategery worked and by the time I got to the snowmo climb, Ryan was nowhere in sight so, after another 15-ish minutes of  single leg butt pucker downhills, I rolled across the line in 3rd.  Mike Rowell took the win with Gareth in second.  Finally a Moosebrook podium.

Many thanks to Bikeman.com and Kona Bikes for the
awesome gear and support.