Watershed: Spring Thaw XC May 15, 2010

I think there's a relationship between how far I have to drive for a race, and how long it takes me to write it up.

A couple weekends ago, I drove over 1600 miles, round trip, to race twenty some miles in Ashland, Oregon. The siren song that wooed me north: the legendary Spring Thaw cross country mountain bike race.

Ok, I admit, it wasn't just that race that inspired me to spend twenty-seven hours in a car by myself. I lived in southern Oregon for two years; Cycle Analysis in Jacksonville was the first shop to invite me onto their team.

They host a local short track series that I raced in the spring of 2006, during which I famously attached my toddler's portable high chair to the leg of the registration table. With him in it.

I checked on him every lap. He was happy watching all the wheels go by, I swear.

I did win the series, but it wasn't that much of a feat, as there were precious few women racing in the B's. Still, at awards, I stood around while Richard Hogan tossed prizes from the back of his truck. Heather, who swept the elite category, got the new handlebar computer she needed. "Someday, I'll catch her," I vowed admiringly.

Right about then, Richard sailed a team jersey in my direction. It was what I very wanted. For the next two years, I rode up the same mountain every Wednesday night with Cycle A, returning at dusk to a home cooked meal that the shop owner set out.

I did catch Heather, eventually, but only because she took some time off to lead Brownie troops and help her husband organize pocket bike races. Last year, they watched my children for five days so I could race at Nationals. Friends are the family members you get to pick out for yourself. If you're really lucky, they'll adopt you in return.

My husband didn't think our old van should make the trip, so I indulgently rented a car. The fine gentlemen at Hertz in Pacific Beach upgraded me to a Mazda 6. The engine sounds the most smooth at 90 mph. Not that I would know. But it really does.

It took me so long to get through Los Angeles that, even with occasional illegal pedal pushing, that after twelve straight hours, I had only reached Redding, and it was after one in the morning. I rented a room at the Motel 6 and took a very expensive nap.

Sometimes, changes in plan lead to unexpected delights.

Saturday morning, race day, I left Redding in the dark, and reached Mt. Shasta just as the sun came up. The mountains glowed in the morning light as I wound my way up and out of California. State of Jefferson, metal cow, dragon.

I crested the pass and dropped down the foothills of Mt. Ashland into the Rogue Valley. The weather was perfect, but a rainbow still welcomed me. Hooooooome, the engine purred.

I usually feel queasy before races, better-bring-a-bucket sick.

Not this morning.

I greeted the batch of single speeders. Twenty guys, and me. One of them was Joe Davis, director of the Cycle Analysis team. Trip after trip up John's Peak, I used to make fun of the way he paper routed his single speed up the hill. "I think I'll need my knees when I'm old," I said from my perch on a geared bike.

Two years later, there he was, still smiling, twenty pounds lighter and in a monster gear, ready to exact some friendly revenge. All those guys must have been part Sasquatch, because no one had a gear anywhere near as easy as my 32/20.

The original Sasquatch sighting is only about fifteen miles from Mt. Ashland, did you know that? I've been there. I didn't see anything.

At the start, I also chatted with Jeremy Whose Last Name I Don't Know But See Him At Race After Race In San Diego. He was up north on vacation with his family, and decided to try out the Thaw. He was confused by the lack of leg markings, category signs, perceptible starting gun.

Ready, go, and all the categories left at once in a mass start. There was plenty of road to sort ourselves out, though. Miles of it, in fact. Miles, I tell you.

Just when you think you can't stand another foot of fire road, you reach the Horn Gap singletrack. And ride up that, too. Those deceptively pretty pine trees drop lots of needles. Vertical duff is as soul sucking as cyclocross sand pits.

But at the top, there's an aid station, and a left hand turn onto the rim road that circles the Ashland watershed.

Twelve miles of fire road that slope slightly downhill.

Next year, I'll bring a bigger gear. A bouquet of big gears. If I let my leg hair grow out, maybe I can run a 36 on the front like the locals. And don't doubt me that I'm driving up again. The 2011 race will be the 20th annual, not to be missed.

In any case, around the back, I spun tiny circles for an eternity and a half. The trees all looked alike, with no view of the valley, and it started to feel like I was on a stationary trainer with video footage sliding past. Everyone I passed on the way up caught me and then left me in the dust. Even the guy with white tennis shoes. Dang. I am not judging your footwear, sir, but I do feel that I should be able to keep up with you since my clipless pedals theoretically grant advantage.

Oh, just shoot me. I spent well over an hour pedaling in an aerodynamic crouch, trying to eke every last bit of momentum out of the bike.

Much of the day and change that I spent driving to the race I daydreamed about the endlessly long downhill, the payoff for all that climbing. Catwalk, Alice, Toothpick, BTI, I'll be there soon. Sooooooon. Oops, speeding again.

By the time I got to Four Corners, though, my back hurt so badly that it was all I could do to navigate safely down. I cruised down the pavement toward the finish with my right thigh on the seat, bent over so I could rest my upper body on my leg. I wasn't trying to blaze across the line; I just couldn't sit up any longer.

Two hours and forty-one minutes put me 18th out of 21. Meh. I did catch Toe Clip Guy on the way down, but still never achieved the sensation of flight that keeps me paying entry fees race after race.

As much as the race itself was mildly disappointing, just being there at all felt like a miracle. Awards were held at the Lithia Park bandshell, and I shared a blanket with Joe's wife and sweet babies, the second of which I hadn't met before.

Beautiful day, beautiful mountains. beautiful people. Who's in for next year?

Idyllwild Spring Challenge: Mountain Mama

My five-year-old likes to boast to his siblings that he can be President. Of the United States.

Technically, he can, while my two older children cannot, because they do not have actual birth certificates. After the recent election, I doubt that their Certificates of Birth Abroad would qualify them.

But really, can my ambitious boy lead the nation someday? Who knows. At the moment, he thinks he can.

I never thought I could ride a mountain bike down the face of a five foot boulder. But at Saturday's Idyllwild Spring Challenge, I did. And jumped over creeks, rocketed down gullies, bunny hopped logs and splashed through creeks.

After months of sedate urban lap races, I was finally back in the mountains.

I've never been to Idyllwild before, and drove nervously up the hill Friday night. My maiden voyage on the course promised a welcome infusion of technical single track, though, bought and paid for with nearly 4000 feet of climbing over nineteen beautiful view miles.

The tireless race organizer, Katie Hedrick, helpfully posted topos and trail descriptions on the Idyllwild Cycling site. The morning before the race, I got a big cup of really bad coffee from a little diner, and pored over the contour lines. Up. Down. Right. Left. Up. Up. More up.

I am not a pure climber. I have a lousy strength to weight ratio. In a sport where hill ability is measured in mere grams, elite female racers underweigh me by fifty pounds just getting out of bed in the morning. In terms of wind resistance, my long legs do provide an edge on long flat stretches; I have effectively neutralized that advantage by riding a low geared bike.

And then there's that training thing with three kids and a job, real estate issues that necessitate both parents working, health issues, and pretty soon, I've talked myself out of public office.

Enter something called "ability belief." If you think you can't, you won't. Ever.

Superstitiously chanting engine songs may not guarantee a first place medal, but it doesn't hurt. I may not have preridden the course, but my husband did teach me to read a back country map. That, I can do.

So I mosey my front tire up to the duct tape starting line with a pretty big crowd of women, including two (two!) other single speed women. Abundant sunshine, cool temperatures, and the intoxicating scents of pine and sage wafting over the Spandex. Can we go yet?

We made the right hand turn out of Hurkey Creek Campground, down along a creek bed. When the track started popping Sagebrush style moguls, I knew it was going to be a good day.

I took off, doing my best Sue Fish moto impression. I was well ahead of the pack. For about three minutes. Then we started winding toward the summit.

Dorothy Wong, pro cyclocross racer, passed me going uphill. She was legitimately running with her bike slung over her back, not employing my patented slow speed twinkle toes jog.

Bye bye, Dot. A dedicated advocate of women's cycling, she has doubled the amount of female cyclocross racers in the last year, and has set her sights on getting more women out on mountain bikes. Watch out, world.

The other single speed woman passed me next, riding her bike up a hill that I had to hike.

Great. Oh, and looky here, there go a batch of geared women.

Course strategy caffeined int0 my brain, I repeated my think-I-can lyrics.

Patience, patience, patience.

Lesson learned from last week, I got off and pushed the bike well before I tipped over from exertion. The first long single track climb finally ended, we cruised along Johnson Meadow, and then the fun began.

I was not disappointed. With names like Tunnel of Love and Exfoliator and Rage Thru the Sage, those trails demanded every ounce of skill and courage I possesed, and then some more after that. Rocks, turns, drops, stumps of death, and ruts that could swallow my van. When the going wasn't tough, it was don't-try-this-at-home fast. Fast, I tell you.

Honestly, ask anyone who rode with me in 2005 how frightened and clumsy I was. There's a ledge drop by my house that I used to sit at the top of for long minutes, trying to make myself ride down it. I took a girlfriend there once and she cleaned it on the first try, on her first bike ride, ever. It was another year before I could make myself roll over the lip.

The magic thing about racing, the intangible something that keeps me coming back, is the way it transforms that fear. Am I going to give in to it and waste the entry fee, or am I going to let go of the brakes?

In his discussion of ability belief, author Gavin de Becker says this, "no single influence is more powerful than social proof, seeing someone else succeed at the thing you might have initially believed you could not do."

I have followed so many people down hills I could not would not never have ridden in real life. In a race, if someone sails over a Jaws style rock garden, I don't have time to think about whether I should follow. Over the years, I have come to love double arrow signs.

Take me home, country roads.

I eventually passed most of the people who dusted me at the start, came in second to Dorothy, and ahead of most of the women of any age on any bike riding that same course. As far as the business end of the Idyllwild Spring Challenge, I pretty much rode like a rock star. If I do say so myself. Just this once, I promise. Because no one was there to see it.

On a loop that long, you often end up riding by yourself. You, yourself and you... and your memories of every hero who ever rode in front of you.