SVT Epic '26: Get over yourself, dork.

 Wave 7?!

Last year I started wave 3.  Why are 148 people starting before me when I finished 48th last year? 

Why do you care?  You're 60 years old and riding a singlespeed.

These are good points I remind myself.

This year we are staying at Bill's house; only 7 minutes from the venue.  The weather forecast has been flipping back and forth between perfect to apocalyptic.  Hourly we are checking to see what The Weather Channel's latest thoughts on the weekend are.  I guess Canada's on fire as well?

Saturday we wake to a barely wet back deck.  It has sprinkled but not much.  The long grass is damp enough to pre-moisten your shoes. I say my hellos to racer friends and pick up my number.  One benefit to wave 7 is there's no rush.  The volunteers are calling earlier waves to the side for emergency quick check in to keep the event moving on time.

When it finally is time for wave 7 to go off, there is a very nonchalant count down and an impression of a whistle sending us off. One guy is drilling it off the front.  Who am I to argue so I make chase; I mean it's only 45 miles?

He's making a pretty good gap.  I say to the guy chasing with me "he's definitely not wave 7".  We are riding well together.  The climbing is getting a little steeper and we are pulling back "off the front guy".  I'm gaining a little gap on my riding partner closing the gap...

CHING!!!

I drop my chain!  I start running until my guy catches me then pull to the side to let him by.  Its all bench cut singletrack so there is no place to be out of the way to put it back on.  When I finally find a spot, and line up the chain, chainring and cog to force the chain back on 1/3 of the wave have passed me.

With the chain back on I make haste and pull back a few of the riders who got past me.  Mile 2.5  

CA-CHING!!!

Oh, I'm not doing this for another 40+ miles.

I find a good spot whip out my hex keys and adjust the EBB to ludicrous tightness.  The rest of the wave passes me and I'm seeing the leaders of wave 8 coming up the trail.  If this doesn't work, I'm done.  

I restart my quest behind the leaders of group 8, and quickly caught and passed by the first chasers, one of which is non other than Rich Pirro!  We exchange encouragement and Rich begins to pull away.  I feel great on the climbs but can't wait for the descents to end.  Why aren't sketchy gravel tires better on wide switchbacks littered with gravel?  I don't want to complain about the conditions, but am kinda wishing a little moisture hade made it's way through the canopy.  The descents and my lack of ability on them is demotivating.

One of the features of the first half of the course is a roller at the bottom of Burnham Down.  It's really not a big deal, but you come into it blind, and if you haven't stopped at the edge and looked down, can be menacing.  The promoters know this, send emails and videos about it, as well as offering a B line with a 2 minute time penalty.  The B line is actually faster so they have to have volunteers there to check who rolls it and who rides the B line.

Rich Pirro ain't riding no B line! But the helpful volunteers have stymied his attempt and he is realigning himself for his turn.  He follows me over and we begin the climb back up. He lets me lead on the climb, even so much as letting me go back to the front after a curfuffle in a corner.  He even lets me stay on the front for the descent back down to the midway aid station where we see the largest Red Tailed Hawk I've ever seen patrolling the trees.

At the aid station I am in no hurry.  Christine is filling my bottles, and feeding me Oreos.  Rich isn't rushing either but gets back at it before I'm done stuffing my face and schmooping.  I'm not motivated, but I know once I commit, I'll be okay.

Being Vermont, now that we've descended we are going up.  I like that.  I'm also liking the terrain of the second half. It seems a little chunkier, maybe a little more of the tech I like and the descents aren't as wide open. I tell myself "remind yourself this next year; you are rewarded with the second half if you get through the first".  

When you get back to the start/finish they send you out to do the first climb and descent in reverse.  This is cruel, but knowing that I still have 4 more miles to go in advance makes it much easier than last year.  Other than my feet hurting from being in stiff XC racing shoes for almost 5 hours I feel pretty good. Finally crossing the finish line I'm 13th in the 50+, 55th overall, beating the rain that would later turn the climbs and descents to rivers.

Dorking out

In my head my time last year was 5:05.  This year was 4:58. Last year I ran a rigid fork and a 34x20 gear.  This year, a suspension fork and 34x21, a gear I hadn't used in 15 years.  Huzzah! Lower gear and suspension fork were faster even with the chain dropping and laissez-faire pit stop!  Do you remember the part about me being 60?  Last years time was 4:55.

But

moving time was 2 minutes faster this year or .4%.  It was also much cooler, in a good way this year; last year was a scorcher!  Using the magic of Straver segments I was faster on all but one of them that I had got a gold star on last year. Those were all uphill ones, I'm not getting any gold stars going downhill, just ask Pirro!  Also starting in the 7th wave seemed to leave less people to pass.  That didn't really make sense to me, and both years everyone was very gracious about passing and being passed, but it's a thing.

What does all this tell us?

All in all fork and gear choice really didn't matter (although my arms and shoulders are less wrecked this year).

Enjoy the ride, what ever that means to you.  You want to dork out on prep and numbers; have at it.  Stop at every rest stop and chat with the volunteers; go for it (one year I will do the VT50 and stop at all the rest stops and have a culinary tour of Vermont).  Some combination of both; why not?

Enjoy the ride 

Bike Racing? Carolina Hills Marathon

 

On Mother's Day we rode Carolina Hillls with Kim Aa.  She was all excited about the race Rhino Racing (Jeff Wilson) was putting on there the end of June.  Christine informed me she'd probably be going to NH for a friend's birthday that weekend and I'd be a bachelor eating hot dogs over the sink so why not spend 3.5 hours driving to ride my bike fast for 3 hours?

The weekend prior to the race I planned to do a 3 hour ride.  A customer who was stoked about bikes and singlespeeds and a guy I knew from the Root 66 days were planning on doing a couple hours at Tantasqua and invited me to join in.  Great, I'll learn some new trails and work on my social skills!

I only got 10 minutes practicing the art of conversation before I picked up a stick and dropped my chain.  They were gone.  We're all adults though and I had planned on being out longer than they did.  I did cross path with them a couple of times heading the opposite direction where they informed me I was going the wrong direction, which explained why the climbs sucked so bad.

For the record, I didn't eat hot dogs over the sink; it was a burrito.

Race day comes and I have to get up when?!  I used to do this every other weekend? No wonder I've whittled down my "racing" to more special events; things that are longer and weirder.  Carolina Hills is a little more traditional.

Seven geezers signed up for the marathon, and yes LITERALLY geezers, 60+, but I only saw 6 on the line. We joke and reminisce and wait our turn to take to the course.  Our one minute to go turns to fout but Jeff finally makes some noise with his bullhorn and we are off.

Holeshot!

Until the other guys realize they can shift gears and I fall back to third wheel behind local Master's racing fixture Tyler Munroe. 

The guy in second decides to be more prudent, it is 30 miles ya know, and is riding a more sensible pace.  Sense and sensibility have no place in amatuer master's mountain bike racing so I squeeze by and make chase for Tyler.

Tyler is one of the most experienced riders both on and off road in New England and he's stretching the elastic.  It's the first miles of the first lap of 30 miles I try to remind myself.

I hear a rider on my wheel and ignore myself.

He's right on my wheel but isn't asking to pass.  I ask him if he wants to get by.  He's of the opinion that we've got a long way to go and we're doing fine.  He's Dave!  Dave and I used to race the Root 66 series together.  He also is riding a singlespeed.

At some point in the first lap Dave get's around me.  I can't remember exactly how or when because this is 60+ Master's racing.  He's maintaining a consistent pace that I can match.

We get to a loose, rocky double track climb and I get back around as we cut back into the singletraxk.

We are starting to catch the 45+ riders and the first wave of the xc race is merging with the marathon course.

Ahead, through the trees we are getting glimpses of Tyler.  This is somewhat of a surprise to me and we actually seem to be making up ground.  Is he being prudent about the upcoming 20+ miles?

We reel him in and pass him like gentlemen.

Now we are 3 strong making our way through backmarkers.  The course is mostly tight, twisty singletrack, but most people are quite generous about letting us pass.

Until Bob.

I don't know what exact happened.  I get passed Bob cleanly, and then I hear a noise; some sort of ruckus, a brushup.  Looking back I see Bob and Dave untangling themselves from one another.  Tyler is around them and is in pursuit.

Going through the start finish, I try and count back to when I hear cheers for Tyler to descreetly check the gap; maybe 10 seconds?

The course is so windy, you always see your competitors going the other dircetion through the trees, so we have pretty regular gap checks. Now here's something new for me: about halfway through the lap, after one of the longer descents, beginning the switchback climb, I look down the climb.  I see Tyler and think he's gaining on me and say "Go Tyler".  I'm cheering on someone catching me?

Maybe that's the difference from 10-15 years ago?  The experience is the reward, not the result.

Crossing the line for the last lap I catch a younger rider.  He's on full suspension so I enchourage him to go into the singletrack descent first.  

Mistake.

He's very tenantive, and Tyler is tenacious.  Explaing we'd both be faster with me at the front, I pass him back.  

Maybe he just had to get his groove on, because now he's right on my wheel and very vocal.  In a good way.  Positive chatter.  Offering him the lead, he declines.  Streams of encouragement continue.  This continues for about 1/3 of the last lap, until he decides to back off.

All of a sudden a squealing, grindy sound starts. Did I tighten my calipers?  Did a rotor get bent?  Did a rotor spontaneously take on a new form?  

Maybe it will go away?

Nope.

Man can takes so much, and I takes as much as I cane takes.

I pull over to investigate. There is a stick caught in my front caliper.  Easy-peasy, I'll just pull it out. It breaks off in the caliper so the noisy part is still stuck.  It doesn't seem to be causing that much resistance, there's only 3 or 4 miles left to go, and Tyler never gives up, so I start riding again.

Such a horrible noise.  I think people are letting me pass just so they don't have to listen anymore.  After I apply the brakes, it goes away briefly but comes back with auditory vigor; like Lou Reed Metal Machine Music.

Turn after turn after turn.  The metallic symphony is making this course seem endless. 

Finally, popping out of the woods the finish line is in sight.

I won.

Dave was the second to cross the line but he DQ'd himself because after his collision he ended up in the intermingling XC course, so rode around for 3 hours not knowing if he had gained any advantage by his misdirection.  

Tyler, after what he described as having an "incident" came in second and George Lester rounded out the podium.

Even though my spirit on racing has change since the glory days of Root 66, Rhino Racing had a podium worthy of those glory days.  Medals, hats, ridiculously large trophies, and envelopes. Envelopes of cash. Those envelopes were how I would justify racing to my family; they weren't interested in racing, or going to the races, but if I won pizza money maybe it was ok?