Well, another one in the books.
Sort of one of those mixed result days. Ended up winning the sport class by 17 minutes, but didn’t get as many miles in as I was hoping for. A win is a win, but for the series it is accumulated miles. I will be hitting it hard at the 12 Hours of Humboldt.
On to the start. It was 42 degrees and spitting. With my issues resulting from Tuesday’s ride I made a deal with myself that I was only going to stop if the bike had a mechanical or I ran out of time. Had to quickly change the nutrition mix when the first Clif Blok I tried to chew caused crunching noises and pain in my jaw. Looks like a gel, banana and PNB/bread kind of day.
Here is the last time we were clean and relatively dry all day…

At least we weren’t at too much risk of hitting 97 degrees like last year.
And they’re off - as soon as we hit the first dirt section you could tell it was going to be a long day. The red clay mud was slicker than snot. You could tell who had good bike handling skills and who didn’t. There was a steep, slimey down not too far from the start/finish area and there were a few people walking down.
Walking down? Are you kidding me? Don’t you people realize that you have 3 miles and 1,300 feet of climbing coming up? Oh well. I rode down. Wasn’t about to start walking until I had to.
Let the climbing begin. Must say the road seemed much nicer as it was more packed down and the big gravel was gone. Started a pattern that lasted most of the laps of being able to ride most of the hill until the steepest last half mile. I was ready to walk a bit by then anyway. 32:19 was a good choice for gearing. Time-wise to the top I was a bit ahead of my first lap time from last year. Woo hoo - I may be wet but good start to the day.
Legs recovered a bit on the traverse and then I started to head down. Holy crap! The double track downhill section that you could fly down last year was a greasy, slimey mess. Picking good lines was not really and option - your lines picked you as you slid down the hills. Then into the trees. Wow. It was even slick and goopy in the trees. Still feeling pretty good as I figured I was in the front third when I hit the singletrack. Passed a quite few people having trouble descending through the slime. As usual, everyone was pretty cool and supportive of each other and pulled off when they could.
Got on the old flume trails and checked my time - WHAT! How could I possibly be going that slow? Being in better shape than last year (even with my chewing difficulties) I was expecting about 1:05-1:10 laps. My time was showing that I was going to be barely under 1:30. How could I lose 20 minutes PER LAP?
Came in after the first lap - transition went great. Grabbed a gel and a fresh bottle of Accelerade and I was off. Back up the hill to do it all over again. Vic once again had a volunteer stationed at the top of the climb and I started grabbing an Orange Hammer gel each lap. Chocolate Accel Gel in the pits, Orange Hammer gel at the top and a bottle of Orange Accelerade each lap was my nutrition for the day. Decided to try pushing the pace a bit more to pick up some time. Seemed like it was raining harder this lap than last.
Down the slip-n-slide double track, just point and shoot. I have to say I was quite impressed with how well the Nanoraptor front/Small-Block Eight rear combo worked in the goo. I had one guy (which I was passing) tell me I brought the wrong tires. I just smiled.
Back into the pits - crap! 1:27. There is no way I am getting eight laps in today. OK, shoot for seven. Chatted with a couple people supporting pro and expert riders and found the fastest lap they turned in was about 1:10. Whew! That makes me feel a bit better. Also goes to show how SLOW the course was. They were turning in 45-47 minute laps a year ago.
Off for lap three. Ahh, that wonderful feeling of grinding mud into your rear as you climb the hill. Lap went about the same as last one. 1:31 - at least my times were pretty consistent.
Chocolate gel and some vitamin i for the face bones and I’m off again for lap four. Not feeling too bad, but the conditions are starting to go in the wrong direction. Towards the top of the climb I can see Chuck up ahead. He must have experienced his mid-race energy decline. Almost caught him before he took off on the descent. Ended up getting passed on the flume trails by Sloane. Towards the bottom I ended up making a great pass and stayed on the gas to build the gap. Whoa! Ended up overcooking a corner right into a dead manzanita bush. At least I didn’t end up hitting the already injured side of my face. I even got up and back on the bike before the person I had passed caught up. People started asking me if I was OK. Yes, I am. Did you know you are bleeding? Nope - hope it’s nothing major.
Pulled into the pits and there was Chuck. We decided to head up the climb together. He had to switch to his singlespeed as his GT was having mechanical issues. Up, up, up. At the top it seemed to be raining the hardest it had all day.
Onto the double track descent and my brakes started acting funny. Stopped really quick to adjust the pads out a bit then off again. The singletrack was really getting saturated and even slicker than it had been all day. About half-way down noticed that the back brake was sticking on occasionally. No big, I can deal with that. Then on the last series of descents before the creek crossing the front brake decided to stick in the on position, making for some exciting times. Heading in to the pits, I decided that without consistently functioning brakes I was done for the day. I had stuck by my deal with myself to stick it out until I ran out of time or had a mechanical failure. I was OK with telling Vic that I wasn’t going out for another lap. In fact, it looked like a bunch of people were calling it a day as the course was getting pretty scary in spots.
I had not looked at the results all day, so I took off my glasses and walked over to check. No way! First in Sport Class by 17 minutes. All the thoughts started running through my head - can I fix my brakes? Can I just disconnect the front and ride with the rear brake? Should I tell them I am heading out again and just go to stay ahead? Crap - how can I stop when I am in first? Shouldn’t I keep going?
As I was pondering all of these serious and life altering questions, my wife decided it made a great photo opportunity.

I personally like the blood drizzling down to my chin. Nice touch.
Ended up making the decision that it was probably not smart to head out without brakes and that it would probably take me more than 17 minutes to fix my brakes and decided to call it a day. Headed off to the bike wash to hose most of the goo off the bike.
As luck would have it, the rest of the people in my class (for whatever reason) had decided they were done as well. I came back from showering the grime off to have my wife tell me that all the people behind me were pulling off their numbers and packing it in. Woo hoo! It was going from being bummed about not getting in enough miles AND losing the race when I was in the lead to just being bummed about not getting in enough miles. Getting the W was a nice way to wrap up the day.
Ended up with 60.72 miles on the day with 8,140 of vertical.
Forgot to post up weekly numbers last week, so for the last two weeks I have gotten in 259.47 miles. That gets me to 2,334.75 for the year.
Later…