Black Mountain Race Report: Not So Fast

Racers and Chasers.com

Black Mountain XC

Sunday, April 25

No, that's not my little sister. Put your hands together for Rachelle, who turned in an impressive 1:07 lap time at the Black Mountain XC race on Sunday. On a single speed. She demolished the entire field, men and women, in the beginner category. Oh, wait, she was the only entrant on a single speed bicycle in that category.

I raced with the Sport men; we slogged two ten mile laps. Robert Herber, the race director, created a category for women's single speed, so Rachelle and I shared the podium to receive our blue ribbons. She promised to upgrade to Sport. And then there were two...

I confess that, not having any women to compete against, I play possum on mass starts. I'm usually lined up with thirty or forty guys, all of whom insist on being the first one to the single track. I'd rather let them all go on ahead than mix it up in the rolling scrum. However. The race was only half an hour north of where I live, so all the guys from my bike shop showed up to spectate the start. One of them took a picture of us crowding onto the baseball field at Black Mountain Open Space Park.

We sprinted across the wet grass, took a sharp downhill left through the Lusardi Loop Trail gate, and tore down the fire road to the entrance to the single track.

I made it into the first half of the pack, and got to enjoy bombing down a rocky trail. Due to the long line of bikers in front of me, I couldn't really see where I was going. I could definitely hear the gentlemen breathing hard right behind me, though. Do I get bonus points for not nudging Jeanne's wheel?

After the brief downhill party, we were treated to riding up and down power line access roads. A couple of them were so long, I almost had time to finish writing the novel that's been rattling around in my head for the last decade.

Aware that my bike shop friends, as well as title sponsor, would be milling around at the start, I pushed hard to finish that first ten miles. For which I was rewarded with a debilitating case of vertigo. My brain doesn't like it when all the blood goes to my legs, and pulls rank by turning off my vision. The only way to get the lights back on is to put my head down around my knees. Which wasn't too hard, because I was already pushing the bike.

More than one person commented on how miserable I looked when I lapped through. There are even pictures, which you couldn't pay me enough to post here. The second time around, I hopped off the bike well before I started to hyperventilate. Oddly enough, dismounting earlier left enough oxygen upstairs for me to actually run up a couple hills. Counterintuitive note to self.

I actually finished miles eleven through twenty in less time than it took me to complete the first ten. And, I was only a minute or so off the back of the Sport men.

I paid a $40 entry fee for those two hours of suffering, about $2 per mile. At the finish, I certainly felt I'd gotten my money's worth.

Thanks to Racers and Chasers for putting on another quality local event, and for all my friends and family who came to cheer me on.

Windy Windy Windy: Santa Ynez Race Report

It’s a myth that you don’t have gears on a single speed. And I’m not talking about the well-trodden joke about the choices being pedaling, standing, or pushing. You can have as many gears as you can afford. You can have a stack of cogs piled high on the shelves in your garage. But once you leave the starting line of a race, your options close out.

So, the the day before I drove north for the Santa Ynez Classic, I indulged in the usual the neurotic perseveration about what to install on my back end.

I pored over the course profile, tried to remember what it was like last year on a geared bike, polled friends. Friday night found me back at the bike shop, wheedling the owner into putting a 22 tooth cog on the back. He raised his eyebrows.

Yeah, well.

I left San Diego early Saturday morning, committed to my wimpy gear. For the first time, I traveled with a pit crew, my 10-year-old son, Evan. We pulled into Charlotte’s Meadow and set up the tent. It was a spectacular afternoon; recent rains scrubbed the sky and the afternoon light lit up the spring-ish green hillsides.

I left Evan at the pump track and headed up to check out the course. After, ah, pushing my bike up the first two hills, I actually felt worse about the easy gear. If I’m hiking the hills anyway, shouldn’t I have a harder gear to go faster on the flats?

When my race went off the next day around noon, mechanical questions were the last thing on my mind. The weather had turned in the night, and the day dawned cloudy and cold. I warmed up for half an hour in a thick jacket, and I was still chilly. Should I wear it in the race? Or would I get too hot?

The starting line looked the dressing rooms on a Nordstrom’s sale day, with people piling on layers, stripping off arm warmers, handing over or receiving jackets from the spectators lined up on the rails.

But then we were off, everyone locked into their choice of gearing and apparel.

Two laps of a nine mile course; the first half would find the beginners on course with the us Cat 2s. The men in the single speed category were strong enough to get past the initial switchbacks without being caught by the fifty people who started behind us.

Me, not so lucky or strong. A lot of the time, I was off the trail, pushing my bike in the soft hillside, having yielded to the granny gear people who could actually still pedal. And despite the spitting sky, I was getting rather roasty toasty.

At the top of the first hill, I peeled off my jacket and tied it to a fence post. Which was a good move, because as soon as I remounted the bike, the sun broke through. But also not so auspicious, because I had left my glasses in the jacket pocket, and wasn’t wearing sun screen.

The first lap was a blur of bikes going past, bumpy bumpy trail, and wind that threatened to blow me off course. I am not exaggerating. My front shock isn’t incredibly plush, so my wheel bounced around unpleasantly. Every time the tire broke free of earth, it would come back down several inches to the left. Or right.

Is it meteorologically possible to have a head wind and a side wind at the same time? The sun went away after about fifteen minutes, and the weather turned nasty again. I spent a fair amount of that race in an unfocused delirium, with the wind blowing my hair into my eyes, and the bumps rattling my head so badly I had a hard time focusing my eyeballs.

Despite the pony-tail-in-the-face effect, I actually thought the wind was pretty fun. I’ve never ridden in that kind of gale, so entertained myself by seeing how far I could lean into it and still stay upright. It was like lounging against a wall. Or, sometimes, like riding in place on a stationary trainer. Kept my mind off the general slogging feeling.

With the 22, I could actually ride the back three hills and rolled through the starting chicane feeling pretty good. The beginners had finished their one lap, so I set off on my second and final round in relative peace. With the wind chill, I didn’t need my extra bottle of water, which is good, because Evan was still doing laps on the kiddie jumps. Hi, Mom!

That course was really, really hard without gears. But no whining here; I still love the simplicity of making a decision and then living with it.

I came in last in my category, as usual, but also know that there were very few sections where I could have worked harder. I generally like to have a narrower gap between my time and the rest of the guys, but Santa Ynez is known for being a power course. And I confess I don’t spend enough time running hills.

Because I loathe running. That’s why I compulsively race bicycles, instead of perpetually entering 5Ks. But maybe I should make peace with my tennies, so that I can get out of the infamous pushing gear a little more.

Meh.

Party Party Party: Santa Ynez Race Preview

It's not really a race. It's more like a timed bike ride wrapped in a barbecue hidden in a vineyard underneath a festival.

The cross country and downhill races provide an opportunity to qualify for Nationals, so you can still expect people to take their time on wheels pretty seriously, despite the distraction of vendors and bonfires.

I have a reservation at a motel in Buellton, but I think I'm going to camp at the venue. Wedged in between the grape vines and the Chamberlain Ranch, the meadow next to the course will be colorfully filled with several hundred tents.

Blessedly, it might be too early in the season for the traditional earwig infestation. Last year, some guys loaned me their pickup truck bed cover for added protection under my sleeping bag. Then there was that time some other guys zip-tied my rim brake cantilever together the morning of the race. Or when friendly mountain biking firefighters explained how AV and SV nodes work so I could control my heart rate better. In 2008, a professional trainer whose name I'll never know took it upon himself to help me recover from heat exhuastion.

If I were to give the full Oscar list speech of everyone who's looked after me during this strange stay-at-home-mom turned bike racer trip, the stage light would start blinking and you'd all wish you were at the after party.

Did I tell you about the first time I raced Santa Ynez? Five years ago, my third ever race. My craigslist bicycle ripped off the roof rack an hour after I left San Diego. While I was doing 85 miles an hour on I-5. The officer who ran the traffic break didn't have the heart to ticket me. He recovered the carcass from the middle lane and I tearfully drove home.

When I got there, my husband transferred my saddle and pedals to his own bike. He took the front wheel off so bike could fit inside the car, and I started off again. After preriding the course, I absentmindedly left that front wheel leaning against a tree somewhere. Half an hour before the starting gun, and I still couldn't find it. The parking attendant loaned me his. It had a hybrid tire, the kind with a bald road tread down the middle. So I raced on an unfamiliar grip shifter bike with a tractionless front wheel and brakes that only sometimes worked. Ha ha! No wonder I ended up covered in blood and dirt. In the Beginner women old lady age group.

But I finished. After the race, the Red Bull girls handed me a sample, and I sat under Bachelor Andrew's giant outdoor deck thing, alternating sips of energy drink and free Firestone beer. An announcement came over the loudspeakers that someone had found a lost wheel.

New to the sport, I sat by myself and watched people mill around, discussing every last singletrack switchback climb. They leaned on bikes worth half a year of my mortgage payments. They populated a parallel universe of athleticism, kindness and intimacy with Earth's terrain. Could these be my people, someday?

I've never raced well at Santa Ynez. Since it is early in the schedule, I'm usually struggling at the back of a newly upgraded category. Beginner, Sport, Expert, I pretty much roll in late. Sometimes very literally when the cows come home. I lost precious time once in a stare down with a giant horned bull.

This year is my first full season on a single speed, though, and I've never been readier to throw down. Except I'm the only woman in a field of guys, and will probably maintain my consistent losing streak on those golden hills.

But after I finish, and I will finish, I'll tip back the glass of inspiration this venue never fails to deliver.

Marshmallow Chicky

My five-year-old's very first word this morning: "Easter!"

Can we fast forward to the chocolate bunny part? I'm struggling with the other celebration traditions.

A very good friend came over last night, and we ate grilled asparagus and lamb and artisan cheese. When they weren't playing hide and seek in our dark back yard, her two boys joined my three children in an intense Pokemon swap-a-thon. The grownups opened a second bottle of very good wine.

"He's not answering his phone," my friend wondered about her husband, who had left in a huff upon their arrival at our house. "When do I call the police?"

Wait, what? When Doug and I argue, which of course never happens, and one of us goes for a long walk to cool off, the other's first impulse isn't to dial emergency services. Speaking of skipping ahead.

"Maybe his cell battery is dead."

My friend gathered her sons and headed home to see if he had called their house. He hadn't.

But the ER had.

Her husband had been beaten up and was in intensive care. And guess what? This isn't the first time she's taken that call.

He has terminal brain cancer, and the tumor is slowly destroying his judgment. He doesn't understand why the owners of antique cars get upset when he tries out the front seat. He likes to visit the house he used to live in; the woman who now owns it pressed charges.

This morning, my friend's children were unhappy that mom didn't have a chance to hide the eggs like she promised.

Cue slow speed train wreck. While my friend deals with the news that there is more bleeding on her husband's brain, wrestles with whether to authorize surgery again, I'm ironing button down shirts and hunting for dress socks.

Irreverent, I know, but I am so not in the mood for resurrection-new-life-hallelujah anything.

I really just want to ride my bike. When is my next race, again?

Mountain bike racing is pretty silly, isn't it? What I spend on electrolyte powder would feed a Haitian family for a month. What is the point of sausaging oneself into Spandex and riding in circles?

Because it IS a closed loop. The course is marked. There are no forks in the road to contemplate, no chance of being lost or confused. Marshals keep dangerous traffic off the trail, and obstacles are clearly marked. Racing a single speed bike simplifies life even further. Pedal, don't pedal, can't pedal.

Best of all? There is always a finish line. And I always, always know how far away it is. Stop here, you're done suffering. Applause.

The lure of racing is precisely that arbitrary stop of the clock. When I'm concentrating on not falling on my head, or chasing someone up a hill, nothing else matters. That endorphin fortress is impenetrable. I invite you to try it.

Willow Koerber posted on her FB page this quote: "Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional."

My own quote: "Brave never feels like it at the time."

I wish my courageous friend could get off this crazy thing, but she won't be done for quite some time.

My next race, by the way, is in a week, in Santa Ynez. A pretty big deal event, a US Cup race offering both Kenda qualifying and California State points.

I wasn't going to go; too far, too costly.

However.

In a week where my friend gets the worst possible news, I get some of the best. After five years of paying race fees out of the milk money, I've been picked up by a sponsor, 3dyn, llc, who is going to help with some of my costs.

Road trip!

3dyn makes stuff. I don't quite understand what, but it has to do with carbon composite products that go in airplanes and submarines. Perfect match for a single speed racer: strong, light, and unyielding.

Please celebrate with me, and while you're at it, lift a glass for my friend.