Leadville, 2 days after

Lance and Dave heading up Columbine. Photo by www.robodeaphotography.com.

I just remembered that I met my 2nd goal for the race which was to not end up in the oxygen tent afterwards. That felt really good, and it's far less embarassing.

Check out this cool video of the race. It's better than reading what follows.

So the race started at 6:30 and we staged our bikes at 5:45 which was too late. It took KC and me 30+ seconds to get to the start line after the gun went off. The 1st 4 miles is neutral and exciting because of the huge group of riders and all the cheering people along 6th Street. The race offically begins at the dirt road, but for KC and me it stopped because of the "people jam" at the turn. The pace picked up along the flat dirt road to the St. Kevins climb and I passed quite a few riders before beginning the climb. I passed a bunch more guys on the climb and kept near KC and Stuart Edgerly (he's a 10 time Leadville finisher and 24 hours of Moab teammate) for motivation and speed. After topping out on St. Kevin's I exited the single track and hit the pavement just behind KC and quickly found a bunch of speed. My speed toped out at 41.4 mph and it felt sooo good. 40+ is real sweet on fat tires. Once the road pitched upward, KC blew past me and set a target for me to follow. That was a mistake on my part. As we climbed up Sugarloaf I got occasional glimpses of KC so I knew my pace was aggressive, maybe to much so. Since I wasn't to far behind her at the top of Sugarloaf, I thought I might be able to catch her on the descent down the Pipline Trail. Not a chance - she was gone! I never saw her again until she came down from Columbine Mine.

By this time I knew I was pushing past my comfort zone but thought I'd keep it up to see what I was made of. Well, it turns out I'm made of mush.

After the Powerline descent we hit the pavement for a few miles of road work to the Pipeline feed zone. One group of about 6 guys passed me and I was not able to hang on. I knew right then that it was going to be a tough day. I eventually caught a tandem with 4 or 5 other riders and followed them into the Pipeline FZ which I bypassed and headed off to Twin Lakes about 50 minutes away. Shortly after the PL FZ I saw a rider on the ground with a bleeding head being attended to by 4-5 riders. I don't know what the outcome was but I'm sure his day was done. The Pipeline to Twin Lakes leg is pretty bland with nothing exciting or challenging so getting through it is no big deal.

Twin Lakes is real exciting with hundreds of people, a dam that only the riders can cross, and the it's the gateway to the 3,200 foot 10 mile Columbine Mine climb to the 12,600 foot high point of the race. I made a quick stop for water bottles and Blocs and headed out for what turned out to be a better experience than last year. I kept a steady pace up the gravel road and began walking at the cable car tower. I kept up with a chick that was riding so I knew I was doing OK. She crapped out and I walked past her and probably 20 other people! Wow, what a difference a year makes. Last year this was a death march, this year it was a hard effort, but it never brought me to a stop or got the best of me. Well, that's not exactly true. I did start to cramp just after the 3rd hike-a-bike and stopped for a minute or two to take 2 e-lytes and water, and I was back on my way and road to the Columbine FZ without any further issues. I made a quick grab of food and water at the FZ and headed back down in real short order. The objective was to get off the summit as fast as possible and get down to thicker air. Mission accomplished.

I almost forgot to mention Lance and Dave Weins were coming down the Columbine road at breakneck speed at 10:25 am while I was still climbing and probably 1:15 from topping out! Later I found out they stayed on their bikes and climbed the last 1.5 miles to the summit. Most mortals do 2 to 3 long hike-a-bikes going up to 12,600. Amazing!

Back to me. My descent down Columbine was controlled, but fast, and I passed several riders on the way back to the flat road. Here's where the doubt started to creep back in again. Two guys I blew by on the descent passed me and I couldn't hang with them. That was not the case last year - I was passing people at this point. But this time, I had no go juice. Crap! I made it back to Twin Lakes and fueled up and headed out to Pipeline 2. This section starts with a road climb that gets your attention right away, especially if you stopped at the FZ and let your legs cool down. About half way into this leg are two more killer hike-a-bikes, even for Lance and Dave. A guy passed me on the trail just before the 2nd climb and started pushing his bike up the hill. After just a few steps he just sat down in the dirt - he was cooked! I didn't look back to see if he got up cuz I didn't want to know. I finished the leg and stopped at Pipeline 2 for a Red Bull and fuel for the final 2:45 (I hoped) back to the finish line.

This leg begins with a asphalt/gravel road ride into the wind, past the Fish Hatchery, across a shallow creek and on to the vaunted Powerline climb. This is the part I was dreading most, especially since my mojo was not flowing. It went well cuz I walked the steep section and, to my surprise, I cleaned the rest of the climb. I have to admit there were 3 or 4 times I almost got off my bike and pushed, but a little voice in my head said kept saying stay on the bike and salvage some sense of honor. As I topped out on Sugarloaf it began to drizzle. By the time I hit the dirt road it was coming down steadily. I kept pushing on but it got colder when the small hale got mixed in with the rain. By the time I hit the asphalt it was an aggressive downpour that forced me to stop under a tree to begin my fight with a rain bag that was to fit over my torso. The yellow plastic bag (call it the big target, or better yet, the parachute) was all stuck together and I couldn't tell where the holes were or how to put it on. It was actually quite comical and I'm glad nobody was their to witness the mess. The bag was marginally effective, but it did keep my core warm until the last 20 minutes, so it did do it's job.

I pressed on as the pavement headed up and the rain kept coming down. I got passed by quite a few guys who looked real fresh. The bummer with this section is this is where I was blowing by people last year! Damn, that was discouraging. I finally reached the neutral aid station and hooked up with Mike whom I had been changing leads with since 30 minutes before the Pipeline FZ. We got some food from the volunteers and I said to him we weren't going to make it under 10 hours. He said lets just have fun and enjoy the trail. SO, we headed up to St. Kevin's with rain pelting my yellow baggie, muddy water running down the trail dodging large water puddles that did not reveal their depth until it was too late. The going was slow but we kept the pedal down and descended in one piece. Mike was actually way ahead of me at this point so I expected to come in by myself. Two guys caught me on the flat road and wanted to work with me, but I had nothing left so I said go on without me. They did and to my surprise, I caught them at the last rocky climb at the start of the Boulevard, and I saw Mike in the near distance. It took me a few miles but I caught Mike just before the pavement and lead him to the finish line where he sprinted past me. Good for him, he rode strong and deserved the win.

At the finish I was given my finishers medal and headed to the aid tent for soda, brownies, soup and cookies instead of oxygen and doctors like last year. Ellen, Rob, Ryan, Lia, Chris and KC greeted me at the finish putting a nice touch on a challenging day.

In spite of the challenges, I already looking forward to next year and going after the 10 year finishers buckle in 2016.

Next year I'll make my time goal more realistic, I'll ride my pace, I'll drink a lot more water and I'll finish strong - the opposite of this year. This is a great race and an exciting challenge that hits my fun button and I don't want it to stop. I hope I get in again so I can continue to push myself, get faster and solidify my place in the Leadville family.

I'll put some comparison numbers to together in another shorter post.

Leadville #2 Finished

I just got home from the long weekend and will post more later.

Briefly, I finished the race and exorcised the ghost of Columbine Mine, but Saturday was not my day. I struggled from the get-go, never found my mojo and battled the whole day. My bike setup was perfect and I had no mechanical issues at all. I could not have gone any faster and gave it my best shot, but I fell well short of my 9:30 goal at 10:10:48. Overall I was 227th and 28th in my age group. I can do better in the future. The course was fast and packed, the weather was cool, but comfortable, and it began raining at 3:00 until the end.

As a reward for finishing Chris, KC and I enjoyed an excellent burger and fries lunch in Leadville at Rosies before hiting the road and driving 8 hours back to SLC.

Here's a link to a Velo News video of the race. I've got to finish unpacking. More later.

Jackson ICUP and Phillips Canyon

Dave on the Ridge Pass Trail
Teton Village Hostel.
Spacious acccomodations for 7 in the Hostel.
Scott on the race course trail.
KC checking out the map. That's all we had!
Team Mad Dog at the top of Teton Pass. Sorry but when the slow guy is taking the pictures, you don't get many action shots.

I haven't posted in a while cuz I've been riding my butt off preping for the Leadville 100 on Aug 9th. LW has me in a 2-week taper mode now so I'll try and catch up a little.

Mad Dog went to Jackson for the next to the last ICUP race and we had a good result. I won my group (there were only 2 of us) and we had 4 or 5 other winners while the Holley's continued their awesome year with a 1st and 2nd place finish in the pro division. My race went well with only 1 crash and no injuries. We stayed 2 cozy nights in the Hostel, which I understand is being torn down in the near future, so get up there before that part of Teton Village's history is gone. By cozy I mean 7 people in a 10x20, one window box. It was tight!

We rode 9-10 hours total and finished with a semi-epic Sunday. The first ride was up the Old Pass Road to Ridge Pass Trail and down Black Canyon. That was a great ride with long stretches of pavement, buffed single track, beautiful flowers and views of Jackson and a tight, rocky downhill that took us back to the trailhead. We were out about 2 hours.

The second ride was a little more involved, and exciting. We headed back up Old Pass Road past Carter Lake to the parking lot and crossed the new highway to Phillips Canyon Trail. This is where it started to get exciting. As earlier, the flowers and views were magnificant, and the riding was spectacular. All the ingredients for a pleasant ride. We met some trail workers who warned us the trail we were heading to was a work in progress and a bit lumpy. That's an understatement! The uphill was no big deal, but the downhill - yikes! The next 4 miles was white knuckle, rocky, rooty and curvy steep drops that pushed well beyond my comfort level. My tires got swallowed up several times but I was able to keep from going over the bars, barely. KC watched over me after many of the bigger drops and commented how tough the riding was. She got no debating from me.

Here's where the ride got goofy. We finished the descent, with no crashes, other than Tim rolling a deflated tire, and came upon a sign that said "access" and chose to ignore it. Instead of going straight, we went right. Oh boy! It was hot, sunny and we were out of water - and we began to climb again. It got so hot and steep I chose to push my bike for probably 10 minutes. We followed the fire-service road up and up, to where it dead ended, 1,000 feet of climbing above the "access" sign. Chris did a short recon and informed us we were not where we were supposed to be, and that's not good! I started thinking about how much a helicopter rescue was going to be and if we were going to be on the Sunday Night news. And, what we were going to do for water? We had no phone and barely an idea of where we might be. After a short discussion our only option was to go back the way we came up and see what that brings. Well, wouldn't ya know it but that "access" sign was still there and we decided to see where it lead. Within 3 minutes we were on the paved road heading west to Wilson which was 4 miles away. We made it! We stopped at the General Store for water and went back to the trailhead where Keith, Dave and Scott were patiently waiting.

Lessons learned: never go exploring into the unknown with a half full camelback, and "access" means this way out :-)

Park City Perfect Weekend

What a great weekend it was. It began at 3:45 a.m. on Saturday morning and I still have a smile on my face late Sunday evening. The Park City Perfect 10 held at Deer Valley Resort was a most excellent event.

Jane and I got to play host to the legendary Chris and KC Holly, Lynda Wallenfels and Dave Harris. We had a good time swapping war stories Friday night, all bicycle related surprisingly, and helping each other in the tent during Saturday's 10-hour race. It's times like this that make me happy to be part of the mountain biking community and thankful for having such good friends.

Of the many races I have attended over the years, this one had one of the highest showings of top-notch racers that I've been to. For having only 150 entrants, the quality of competition was over the top. There were a bunch of faces in attendance I recognized but don't remember their names, but I do remember the likes of Brad Keyes, Kenny Jones, Dave Byers, Roxanne Tolley, Chucky Gibson, Jen Hanks, and others that put this race over the top. And what was really cool was the Young Riders Club featured a 14-year-old that turned a 30 minute 22 second lap! And the dude was on the 29er. Bob Saffel was there to, but fortunately he wasn't there to torment BK. The race was a lot of fun for me because every time I got passed by somebody I knew, which was quite often, they would always shout out something encouraging and lift my spirits. It's interesting being a middle of the packer and seeing just how fast most of these guys and gals are. Their speed and smoothness in the tight and loose switchbacks is just amazing. And KC and LW, well their both from a different planet. Really. How they get so much power and speed out of those small bodies is baffling. They've got Kenworth engines and Porsche bodies.

I decided to do this race last week after talking to coach LW who suggested this would be a good training ride in preparation for the Leadville 100. I didn't think my fitness would be good enough to climb this much on a high mountain course, but decided to give it a go anyway. My goal was to do 10 laps, ride the full 10 hours and ride the second half faster than the first. I ended up doing 12 laps and rode the second half three minutes faster than the first half. Mission accomplished on all 3 counts. That makes this a good day.

For the most part, over the years I've been relatively mechanical free. This year has been an exception. Flats seem to be hounding me lately and on Saturday they came out in full glory. Near the end of the fourth lap I ripped a side wall on my rear tire but was able to get the Stan's to temporarily take hold. I only had about a quarter mile to go to get back to the staging area and was able to nurse it down the switchbacks just as a tire went completely flat as I hit the finishing shoot. Chris made a quick repair for me and got me back on course in no time and I able to ride 2 more laps before the same tire had a catastrophic failure. I didn't look to see if the side wall had ripped all the way through or what, but I put a whole CO2 cartridge in and it came out as fast as it went in. I ended up pushing and carrying my bike from the barricade down through the switchbacks back to the staging area where Chris took the tire off and put a new heavy-duty 2.1 Continental Explorer Protection on for me. What a difference that made. With the bigger beef on the back I was at the able to go much faster through the loose and rocky Naildriver downhill section and my confidence and comfort levels were significantly higher. I didn't notice the extra weight climbing and my times became much more consistent after the tire change. I think I just converted from being a tire weight weenie and am going to something more substantial, dependable and predictable. Confidence equals speed.

Regarding the race, my strategy was to stay in zone 2 as much as possible during the first 5 hours, assess myself over the next 2 hours to see how I felt, and then finish off the last 3 hours in a blaze of glory, assuming I still had something left. I have to say everything worked out pretty well. Of the 12 laps I rode, 10 were between 46:00 and 49:29. My slowest lap was 51:37 on the lap where my tire failed and I had to hike. My riding time on the bike was 9:34 and I finished somewhere around 10:35 which was good for 14th out of 32 male soloists. I think I only got beat by three solo girls this time. Thankfully KC and LW were riding on duo teams otherwise I would have been chicked five times. I don't know if my odometer was off calibration but the laps were closer to 6.1 miles instead of the advertised 7 so the mileage was around 73 - 74 and climbing was 9900 feet. The temperature ranged from 47° to 88° and it was pleasant all day because much of the course was in the trees. And the flowers were in full bloom on the Flagstaff Loop which made riding the narrow singletrack through the bowl somewhat dangerous because I wanted to look around and take in the beautiful scenery. That's one of the advantages of riding solo, you can do what you want and not worry about disappointing your teammate.

In ending I want to congratulate Chris and KC on their duo win in finishing just ahead of LW and DH. That is an amazing result and I know KC is still smiling. I also want to tip my hat to Brad Keyes who rode a punishing 14 laps on his single speed to take the male solo title. Thank you LW for your well thought out and effective coaching programs without which I don't think I'd be where I am. Thank you Dave and Chris for taking such good care of my bike between laps & LW and KC for your smiles and encouragement. Congratulations to everyone that finished and I look forward to seeing you at the next event.

Park City Perfect 10 Pre-ride

First, the pictures...


The staging/transition area will probably be somewhere around the Sterling Lift.
Typical buff single track with big trees and plenty of shade.
This is one of the bigger switchbacks on Team Big Bear (TBB).
After getting off TBB, you follow the single track that parallels the road and pass under this tower.
Confusion junction near the start of the Flagstar Loop. I don't know which way to go... I think right since I went left and that was wrong.
If you see this sign, I think you screwed up. Sorry.

And if you see this pond, that's not good either.

But this is good. It's right before the short switchbacks that lead to the start/finsh. Note the soft terra notfirma.

Next, the BS.

Well, I rode the Park City Perfect 10 course this evening and got myself completely lost. Call me stupid but the map on the website did nothing but confuse me, and the course was not marked.

It looks like the course starts at the Sterling Lift, heads west for a short distance and turns left on to the mid-mountain trail just beyond the bridge. The mid-mountain trail is nice singletrack with a few loose rocks at the start, but nothing technical. When you come to an obvious junction in the trail, with a sign that says Team Big Bear, go left. This is nice climbing singletrack with many tight corners, some of which are loose, that winds through tall trees, over roots, rocks and small stumps and will provide welcome relief from the sun. When you come to the first fire road cross it onto the singletrack on the other side, do not turn left or right on the fire road. Continue winding up TBB singletrack for a quite some time until you come to another wide gravel road. At this point, turn left immediately. Do not get on the road. The trail parallels the road and heads east and within a few hundred yards you'll pass under a chair lift. From here on is where I got confused so hopefully it will be marked on Saturday. Course I'm not worried, I'll just follow everybody else. Somehow I ended up on the lower loop of the Flagstaff Loop, not the upper loop. The regular signs in here are confusing and again, the map offered no clear suggestions. I was able to get on the Deer Camp Trail but I ended up at the pond and the map shows I should've been south of the pond. I have no idea how I got goofed up in there. I missed the GS Trees section but did find Naildriver which was loose, dusty, rocky and fast. Naildriver takes you back to the start/finish.

I rode my geared bike and stayed in the middle ring the whole time. On the climbs I used the 3 easiest cogs on the back and kept my heart rate below zone three. I think using a lightweight cross country tire will be risky because of all the sharp rocks. I'm going to take an extra set of tires and definitely carry a tire boot with me. Several of the corners on the descents are loose, rutted and rocky. I don’t know how long a lap will take since I didn’t complete a whole one. I rode 6.6 miles in 60 minutes and made at least 6 wrong turns and had to backtrack, and wander. I’m thinking about 50-55 minutes for myself. You fast guys will probably go 40 + or -.

So that's it. Looks like it'll be a fun course with plenty of good views and relief from the sun. Hope this little bit of info helps and see you Saturday. Oh yeah, and thanks for showing me the way :-)