Well, there is no place called Beer, but the others on this list happen to be fun places to go mountain biking.
Three more in the books.
Late July and early August
saw another trifecta of racing action. 3
weekends, 3 races, all fun. It started
with a day trip to Winter Park to experience one of their local Epic
Singletrack Series races. This series
gets a lot of rep and respect. It’s no
wonder why. Winter Park has some great
singletrack, along with one of the best downhill bike parks in the
country. The week after was the last
race of the Rocky Mountain Endurance series, the PV Cycle Derby, out in Elbert
(everybody knows Elbert, right?) Colorado.
My 3-week spree ended with an adventure to Telluride for the last race
on the Mountain States Cup calendar, the Full Tilt in Telluride. This was also the State Championship event.
Winter Park
Excitement was buzzing on
this Saturday in late July at the Winter Park ski area. The Colorado Freeride festival was going on
in addition to the Colorado Epic XC event.
This meant waves and waves of full-face-helmet-clad gravity fiends were
on hand to get their fix. The XC race
was a point-to-point race from outside of Fraser, a town a few miles north of
Winter Park, back into Winter Park. It
was a 25-mile race with a lot of climbing, all over 8k feet. I went into the race with a positive attitude
to just have a good time on some sweet mountain singletrack. After the Breckinridge race I was coasting
down my first season of racing in Colorado.
The race was a fun
back-and-forth battle between me, Bradley Berger, and Mitch Westall. At the start I was pushing hard, knowing that
the biggest climb of the day was at the beginning. It turned out that Bradley had the gas to
stay with me. Not that he had as much flatulence
as I am capable of spewing, but he seemed to have the energy. In fact, he passed me at some point during
the first climb, but I just latched onto his wheel and stayed there for a mile
or two. At the point where the climb got
really brutal, steep and loose and rocky,
I passed and put a pretty good gap on him. It wasn’t until the end of about 5 miles of
downhill that he caught up with me. He
then had a mechanical problem; I passed and went on my way. At some point, maybe ¾ the way through, Mitch
passed me, seemingly out of nowhere. He
must’ve been saving some energy early on, and I know I wasn’t pushing as hard
as I could. With about 2 or 3 miles to
go, I approached a struggling Mitch, who was having mechanical issues of his
own. So here I am, back in the lead,
with the end of the race in sight. And
wouldn’t you know it, here comes a steaming Bradley Berger on my tail,
subsequently passing me with less than a mile to go. So it goes.
It was a fun day of back-and-forth racing action.
The singletrack during this
race wasn’t as “Epic” as the race promotion may claim, or as my 2ndPlace beer mug says.
It was good fun,
and made you work, but not as good as the stuff in Breck. In any case, next year I look forward to
doing more of this series, as time and money permits. It attracts some really good competition, and
Winter Park’s singletrack trails are still better than anything on the Front
Range.
PV Cycle Derby
The last race on the Rocky
Mountain Endurance Series calendar.
Again, after Breck I wasn’t planning on doing much racing. I wasn’t planning on doing this event, and
had barely even touched my bike after the Breckinridge 68, besides the foray
into Winter Park the week before. My
schedule had changed drastically from preparing myself in a healthy manner with
training, nutrition, focus, and abstinence from alcohol (take abstinence
lightly, I work in a brewery for Buddha’s sake), to beer, leisure, and
bird-watching. Bird-watching was mostly
done from the window of my bedroom, or a lawn chair with a beer in my hand, so
can hardly be described as an activity.
Although, multitasking is not easy.
Have you tried to watch birds, while resting, while slugging down Dale’s Ales? At any rate, I headed down to
Elbert, Colorado, to show my support for the Rocky Mountain Endurance Series in
their finale. They have run an
exceptional racing series, and I was glad to be a part of it.
Elbert is nowhere near the
mountains. The Peaceful Valley ranch
that we were racing at was an interesting mix of rolling cow pasture, forest
singletrack, rocky outcroppings and techy sections, a few dark river valleys,
and wide open doubletrack. Before the
race I got the chance to warm up a little with 24-hour National Champion, and
this year’s Single Speed National Champion, Cameron Chambers. This dude is a beast. 2nd overall in the Breck100, on a
single speed? That doesn’t happen. Anyways, I was glad that I upped my gear
ratio right before the race after seeing that he was pushing a 38X20. That is a huge gear for single speed
riding.
The race was fun. It consisted of 3 22-mile loops, and about
6,600 feet of climbing. I felt better physically than I had all year, even with
my lack of training going into it. I was
in 3rd place most of the day, behind Cameron and Charlie Hayes. Coming into the start/finish after lap 1 the
race announcer said I was only a minute or two behind Charlie. Feeling good and fresh still, I decided that
I was going to attack with everything and see if I could catch him. I made a good push for the first 15 or so
miles, and knew I was making time on him.
After the race he commented that he kept seeing me coming around bends
chasing him. Unfortunately, in my focus
and rage, I neglected the aid stations, subsequently neglecting all my bodily
needs for hydration and nutrition.
Coming into the start/finish after the 2nd lap I hadn’t had
any liquid for 45 or so minutes, any gels for about 2 hours, and was parched
and maxed out on energy. After taking
about 3 or 4 minutes to suck down water and eat, I finally got back on it for
the last lap. At this point I just
wanted to finish strong, realizing that I had probably lost any gain I made on
Charlie. I finished 3rd on
the day, about 3 minutes back of Charlie Hayes, and some multiple of 10 back
from Cameron. Actually, I think I
finished in 2nd Place in the SS Open Mortal class, with Cameron
taking the top spot in the Super Human class.
After the race it was another
impressive display of malnutrition and exhaustion-induced beer drinking,
spurred on by the infamous Oskar Blues tent.
My body was telling me NO, but my mind was saying NO. Being the non-conventionalist that I am, I
had to look for a way out of this negative mental and physical bubble, and turn
to deviance. That being the deviance of
one Deviant Dales Ale, followed by one regular Dales Ale, followed by another,
followed by an acceptance that my mind and body were no longer friends. This ended with my mind back on the good
side, and my body left out like the fat girl on the cheer-leading squad. At least I felt sorry. It was an awesome way to end the RME season,
with good folks, good race promoters, and good beer.
Full Tilt in Telluride
I was seriously trying to get
out of this event. Glad I didn’t. I had been planning on going to Telluride for
months, but as the race approached I was having second thoughts. First, I was tired of spending so much time
and money on the Mountain States Cup events, and getting nothing in
return. I mean how many 1st
Place bottle opener key-chains does one need?
My alcohol consumption does not need any reinforcement. In defense of MSC, they go to some really cool places, and have a huge
following with the gravity crowd. But I
figured that if I was going to go mountain biking in Telluride, I was going to
do it with 70 more dollars in my pocket.
You know how many beers and boxes of Cracker Jacks I could buy with
that! It turned out that this was
actually the State Championship event, and there was a custom singlespeed frame
being raffled off to one lucky single speeder.
Both of these things were enough impetus to make me sit in a car for 7
hours.
The morning of the race was
perfect. Telluride is an incredible
place. It is surrounded on 3 sides by
huge mountains. I don’t know why this
gives me comfort, considering the possibility of a zombie invasion, but it
does. I was able to camp out about 2 blocks from the main strip. This could prove to be dangerous in the
nights to come, but I was on good behavior for now. I have found that being comfortable going
into a race makes a huge difference. I
have felt my very best during races in which I was able to leave from my house
the morning of, or at least a comfortable hotel. The feeling isn’t the same when you wake up
20 miles down a gravel road in national forest land, surrounded by human-eating
skunks; and I’m not afraid of bears, but if they eat all my race sustenance
then I’m screwed.
We all lined up at the bottom
of the ski lift, with a mountain before us.
There was only one way to go, and it wasn’t down. So I shook off my drool encrusted face, aired
out my unwashed chamois, and got ready to race.
The race consisted of 2 12.5 mile loops.
Each loop basically climbed for 1650 ft, from 9500 to 11, 138 ft
elevation, and then descended the rest.
The singlespeed field started directly after the pros, but about 20 feet
back of the Cat1 guys. Shortly after the
start I was able to work my way up and past all but two of the Cat1 guys, being
flanked closely by another singlespeeder.
At some point midway through the first climb I passed the 2nd
Place Cat1 guy, and was still being held on to by my dear singlespeed friend
behind me. The climbing was tough, but
incredible at the same time. It traversed
and worked its way up the mountain on amazing flowing alpine singletrack. So although my heart was about to explode, I
was having fun. It wasn’t until we hit
the downhill that I was able to put a little gap on my riding buddy. I’m not the best at going down, but the
combination of his pressure, the amazingly fun flowing trails we were on, and
me simply feeling in tune that day made me go fast. As we got through the start/finish and started
another lap he was able to close down the gap, and was now about 20-40 yards
back. I knew he had to be giving it
everything to do this. I also knew that
I was going to give it everything I had to not lose my spot. Something happened during this race that I
had been looking for all season. It felt
like everything came together; fun, high spirits, tenacity, physical prowess and
mental awareness. I was able to push my
heart to red-line, and stay there for the entire climb and much of the descent when
it mattered. There are some races where
I am simply not able to push myself this hard.
But today felt like my day. I
came through in 1st Place SS Open, and also first of all Cat1 times
on the day. The singlespeeder who had
been chasing me was a mere 30-some seconds back. Good thing I didn’t let up.
Now I’m able to call myself a
state champion. I was hoping they would
adorn me with a WWF style gold belt, but instead I get a sweet state champion
jersey along with some other schwag. It
was an incredible way to wrap up my season.
I spent the next two days in Telluride, soaking up the wonderful
oxygen-less high mountain air, hanging in coffee shops, stumbling back to my
camp from the local bars, taking advantage of the free lifts, and doing a
little more mountain biking. What an
unexpected vacation. Oh, and that raffle….
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