Epic Racing around the World

How do I sort this out and turn daily 4+ hour stages into a few words on a computer screen? Typically I take photos then write a story around them. Words often don’t do things justice and photos can be equally challenged to convey a situation and an experience.

The BC Bike Race has been a battle. Not the type of battle you imagine in usual mountain bike race….a battle that begins with a starter’s gun and a violent explosion from the starting blocks. In a typical XC mountain bike race we’ve stored up so much energy at the start that we’re squeezing our breaks and pushing on the pedals while on the start line…ready to go. The violent effort of the race causes the gaps and creates an instant gratification or sense of loss.

Here…things just fall apart. Bikes. Bodies. Course markings. A general sense of fatigue and the slow death of dehydration or hunger pains.

To feel and look like this…well, sums it up quite well sometimes.

Today’s stage rolled through a small port community and out into the wilderness. A gentle single track climb became a steep fire road/power line track and a selection was made at the front that consisted of the main contenders. No one attacked, “it” just became the front of the race…and likewise, people just slowly disappeared from the front, also.

Flats are the #1 problem. From there its feed zone chaos…and today in particular, a giant La Ruta-esque swollen river crossing with an insane cliff hike-a-bike afterward that was so steep that to emerge without assistance was impossible.

Last night Bart and I held onto the leader’s jersey by one second. A single second after 9 hours of racing and all the circus that went into those miles and hours.

Barry Wicks from Kona crashed before the river crossing, then there was a split coming out of the river, another at the following feed zone, flats, misadventures, enough to put most of the contenders out of the picture for awhile…until they caught back up with 30k remaining. Fresh blood from Seamus McGrath and Chris Sheppard split our group on a fire road false flat and caught Bart and I out before an hour of the roughest and rawest single track we’ve seen yet in the race. Bridges, stunts, logs hollowed out a ridden as rails, a few missed turns, you name it. The last our of today was pure BC…and somehow Matt Ohran can still take photos of himself while riding one handed.

Bart and I lost a bit of time but rode in with Tinker and Mitchell after regrouping each other (and ourselves) to hold onto 3rd overall…but we have a real bike race on our hands now. Matt and Sue continue to grow stronger and hold their own against many of the strongest male teams and still sit solidly in second place.

We’ve seen huge chunks of time come and go in these three days. I can only imagine what the next 4 will have in store for us.

Well…I know those days will involve several ferries…and the sitting around that goes with them.

Cheers.

80 miles. 78 of them on dirt logging roads.

Dusty. Dull. Hills and wind towards the finish. Flat tire on Bart’s bike at the crux of the action and I doubt there could have been worse moment for it to have happened. The writing was instantly on the wall - the 4 best teams at the front after a stiff climb, us making a pit stop to fix Bart’s tire….its road racing 101: 8 guys do their best team time trial while Bart and I dug deep into our bag of courage and kept them at 10 seconds for fourty painfully frustrating minutes.

I’m not sure if we lost the lead to the Kona boys….but I think we likely did. Now we have a new race on our hands - two teams tied for 2nd (us and Kona) and two more teams lurking only 2 minutes behind.

Today’s chase was expensive and I’ll be feeling it in the morning.

Tinker and Mitchell rolled in somewhere ahead of us after getting a bit lost in the few K’s of single track just before the finish, while Sue and Matt held strongly onto their 2nd place, but seeded a couple of minutes to the leaders of their category.

Photo dump:

Tent City. The infrastructure of the race is amazing. I give everything an A+ except for course marking, which ranks only ahead of La Ruta for going budget on the marking tape. We even became lost with Andreas Hestler and his partner Max Plaxton…and they live here!

Sue and Matt. Dust and sunscreen equals…mud mask!

There’s nothing like a bike race to make you miss a bunch of scenery. Luckily cameras help you catch what we all were missing.

Nat Ross and I loving every inch of today’s dirt roads.

Even with the leader’s jersey, you gotta sit around in the staging area just like everyone else.

Stage 1 awards - Co-Ed category, Sue and Matt in 2nd.

Pro Men.

The leader’s jerseys for the different categories.

Like I said, with the exception of a few vaguely marked turns, the BC Bike Race is one of the most professional events I’ve attended. The daily press keeps us busy before and after each stage, helicopters are filming various parts of the event each day, and the facilities and communities are stellar. Here Tinker and Mitchell ham it up for the mic.

Hurriedly, I’ll be updating today from a roadside pub in Lake Cowichan on Victoria Island…

What can I say? If two family guys are going to head up to Canada for a week of bike racing (vacation) and not bring their families…they better make it count, no?

So we did. Despite (or because of) the pure chaos of the day, Bart and I managed to pull off both a stage win and the lead in the first stage of the BC Bike Race. 1 down, 6 to go, eh?

Today was a day of challenges, setbacks, and accomplishment for everyone, especially the MonavieCannondale.com riders. The race began with two start loops around a private school’s campus befitting a Harry Potter scene…however, with one caveat - a freshly mowed field was used in the start loop…and within a hundred feet, every bike’s drive train was fully clogged with mowed hay. chains, cassettes, pulleys, pedals - anything that rotated was clogged with the dessicated and mowed grass. Some riders lost their derailleur hangers, other like us, simply had to stop and meticulously remove what we could while the riders behind the lead group charged past. Soon…we found ourselves hundreds of riders deep and at a walking pace in the single track….all less than fifteen minutes into the race.

Feeling like all was lost, Bart and I moved through traffic, having lost Tinker and Mitchell to the grass fiasco…and somehow found ourselves catching up to the lead group of Kona and Rocky Mountain guys.

A team race is a unique scenario in mountain biking. You’re only as fast as the slowest guy, and each rider on a team has his or her strengths…and weaknesses. I noticed early on that the guys in our group weren’t running granny gears. Our Cannondales are 2×9 setups also, but with a 29×34 vs most other rider’s 32×34 - instant advantage as we had lower gears than the others guys and I knew, despite fatigue and an unknown 800 meter high climb ahead of us, that if Bart and I could take advantage of our equipment, today could be our stage to win. Rest on the shallow areas of the climb and push hardest where its the steepest…and somehow pulled our gap to the finish.

Evaluating each rider - those of your competitors as well as within your own team - was key to our success today. We’re riding the best equipment, thought carefully about our situation and didn’t panic, and as they say…they’re only taking your finishing position AT the finish.

Brilliant, eh? Something to think about next time you’ve flatted, become caught in traffic, or filled your drive train up with a freshly mowed hay field.

Photo blog:

Post race. Support is key…don’t they say it takes a village to win a race? Bart’s on the table with Jamen, getting ready for the next stage with a little body work.

Mitchell and Tinker post stage 1. 4 flat tires and a lot of struggling with the hay situation. Live to fight another day, eh?

Shattered, battered, and scattered. Just after crossing the finish line, Bart gets the scoop from Tinker and Mitchell.

Word on the trail was that Sue was dragging Matt around by his nostrils during last hour. Judging by how fresh she looks…and how tattered he looked, that sounds about right, but worth it as they sit second overall going into stage 2.

Bart and I have a The Bling-Off 2008 with our new shoes. I won, hands down.

Breakfast.

And time for dinner. An army fights on its stomachs, and a racing team is no different.

I usually keep the photo to word ratio a LOT closer, so for those types here you go:

Pro men:

1st Gilliespie/Sager in 4:14:00

2nd Wicks/Sneedon @-10:00

Tinker/Mitchell pretty far back.

Co-ed teams:

1st Wendy Simms and Mr. Simms

2nd Sue Butler and Matt Ohran @-18min.

Its a bit of a late check in, but Blake Harlan has been busy touring Europe with his MonavieCannondale.com scalpel. I say with his bike, but not by bike. He does have a rental car.

Last weekend he stopped by Lugano, Italy to support and cheer for the riders at the World Championships.

Cycling is just a big circus and it never fails to crack me up how, no matter what country, what environment, or what time of year it is…when it comes to bike racing, you’re going to run into the same folks…friends you’d never see otherwise, and certainly rarely at home (because we’re always on the road!).

Its like Rincon, Puerto Rico all over again…well, except I’m not there. But Blake is.

As is Todd Wells.

And Mary.

And while Mitch wasn’t in Puerto Rico, he’s holding it down for us in Itatly…and obviously not too banged up from crashing in his U23 race.

I’m not sure who’s bike we’re looking at here, but there’s certainly some top notch tuning going on…Lefty tuning, tubular wheels…and a pair of old fashioned bar ends in homage to 1998.

Our fabulous wheel sponsor Reynolds makes an insanely light and durable set of  carbon tubular Lefty compatible wheels…but the tire selection has been what’s held me back, personally, from going after that setup. Maybe when we’re international movers and shakers they’ll be worth the investment in gluing a few sets up. In the meantime, I don’t think its our 450 gram Kendas holding us back.

Matt, Ryan, and Jamin are en route to British Columbia at the moment…Tinker, myself, and the rest of the crew are set to land Thursday evening with a stop over at Sugoi to check out the factory and pick up our new clothing for the BC Bike Race.

Stay tuned.

Sue Butler checks in from the dry side of Oregon where see the effects of too many bike races on the same weekend within too small of a radius.

Pickett’s Charge…yet another race in Oregon that I had never done. I still can’t really say that I ‘raced’ it, because really, how much of a race is it when you are competing against yourself, and only yourself?

I started with the experts and after the first left hand turn, I really didn’t see them again. Not even when I stopped to help my husband with his flat (these poor helpless men). It was a great course, pure fun and twisty single track and with no one around, the dust was kept to a minimum.

With this HUGE win, I clinched the Oregon XC Classic Series title for 2008. That’s right, the sound of one hand clapping…where have all the women mountain bike racers gone?

I hope they return some day.

I was lonely.

-Sue

Next week marks the next big event for the team - The British Columbia Bike Race - seven days of mountain bike racing in a team format (two riders per team) on some of the premier single track trails the planet has to offer.

The MonavieCannondale.com team is fielding THREE teams if you (or we) can believe that. The format of the events is that a team is made of two riders who must ride/race together for the duration of the event. The race propaganda, and I quote, states “one epic journey… two dedicated athletes working together and creating a bond that will last forever.”

That’s a little bit of a “too much information” situation for me. What happens in the back woods of the Canadian wilderness stays in the back woods, as far as I’m concerned, but…regardless, we’ll be racing on for a week in a location where a single day would be an epic adventure on its own. Multiply that by seven days?!

In the pro/open category, for our first team we’ve partnered together the veteran with the rookie - Tinker Juarez and Mitchell Peterson. Tinker has yet to lose an endurance event in 2008, and Mitchell will be returningfrom the World Championship with fresh legs and a hunger to perform. Just stay out of their way on the downhill…wide berth would be the key phrase.

Team Dos - the family of fatherhood team comprised of Bart Gilliespie and Jason Sager. Both have newborns at home so when they’re not drooling on themselves (like their babies), or goo-goo/ga-ga’ing over the scenery, poopy diapers, sleep schedules, and Graeco strollers will melt the hours and kilometers with fabulous conversational topics.

Next up for BC Bike Race is the co-ed team of Sue Butler and Matt Ohran. I have a feeling that Sue will be pulling Matt around by his nostrils for 600 kilometers. They’re both gadget people, so there won’t be a lack of equipment or gear between the two of them, and I personally and curious to see the chemistry that develops between the six of us around day 4 when we’re all tired, bruised, beaten, and up in each other’s grille in cramped living conditions.

So what paths have we taken to prepare for this event? They’ve each been different, no doubt.

Sue is fresh from returning from the Nature Valley Grand Prix road stage race in Minnesota….

While Matt and Bart have been criss-crossing the Wasatch Range in Utah….

And sewing up casualties in the process.

They say the key is to practice on a piece of uncooked chicken. I don’t know, uncooked chicken gives me the willies. Here’s Bart’s account of the epic event, including sewing up Alex Grant.

Mitchell will be returning from Italy and the U23 World Championships this week, putting head to pillow at home, then shortly afterwards climbing back into the aluminum tube bound for Vancouver. Hopefully he’s not too banged up from his crash yesterday. His account of the flight to Italy is classic….

Tinker’s been riding his bike back and forth to the grocery store…keeping it green, or pink, as it may be.

I’ve been….well, let’s hope experience with stage races counts for something because the racing miles have been pretty low lately. Sometimes, a bit too low.

On the multisport front, Rachel Cieslewicz has been tearing it up on the Xterra circuit…and when I say tearing it up, I mean winning the overall at the local duathlon…men and women’s categories included!

Stay tuned as we get a post-World’s check in from Mitchell and, then starting Friday, daily updates and the insider’s view from Victoria Island for Day Zero of the BC Bike Race.

Blake checks in from his European Vacation:

A lot has happened since my last update. I believe last time I checked in I was about to head to Zurich. While Germany and the Czech Republic were a blast to visit, nothing seems to compare to what we’ve experienced in Switzerland or Italy. In Zurich, host city to this years EuroFest 2008, the European football championships, we managed to watch the games on the big screens that floated on the water, pretty neat.

We also managed to hook up with Christian, a friend of a friend who owns a unique bike shop in central Zurich, this place was packed with both modern and antique bikes of all kinds.

From Zurich we headed south to the beautiful town of Spiez, Switzerland. The riding here was beautiful. Ride ten minutes one way and you can do a five hour ride around the two surrounding lakes,

or ride ten minutes the other direction and you can ride on what seems like your own personalized road up through the mountains weaving in and out of the clouds. On my ride into the mountains I think I saw a total of 4 cars. This ride definitely made my top 5 best rides to date, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

From Spiez we again headed south to the city of Locarno, Switzerland. Locarno is a bigger city than Spiez but it still had the feel of a smaller city. The rain was pretty relentless in Locarno.

Opting to not allow mother nature keep me confined to the covered shopping mall or my hotel room I went out for a ride.

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed on this trip it’s that when you go for a ride in a new place the time seems to fly. I headed out in a light rain and ended up coming back 4 hours later, soaked. Scott hadn’t rode that day and so I joined him again…in the rain. I logged in 6 hours of rainy mountainous riding on yet more awesome roads. I think I’ll leave the rainy riding up Jason from now on though, at least while on the rode…wet riding clothes are stinky.

After two days in Locarno we continued on our way south to Lugano, Switzerland. Switzerland is truly amazing. The country is not even that big, yet Zurich, Spiez, Locarno and Lugano are all very different. Zurich is in the German part of Switzerland, Spiez is in the French portion of Switzerland and Locarno and Lugano are in the Italian part. So that’s four cities, three different regions, three different dialects and three different cultures. I feel like I’ve been to more than four countries. So Lugano. Lugano was another beautiful city surrounded by both a lake on one side and huge mountains on the other. I talked with one of the owners of the hotel. He liked bikes and used to do some riding of his own. He showed me a few maps and within a few hours I was heading out on what turned out to be an amazing and epic day on the bike. I headed north and within an hour I was at the site of the 2003 World Mountain Bike Championships course.

I did a lap of the course as best I could. It was full of twisty sections through the trees, short steep climbs and nerve grabbing drops followed immediately by funnels into bridges. The site was located at the base of Mt. Tamaro, reaching heights just shy of 2000m. After climbing for an extended period of time, once again on my own personalized path up the mountain. At the top I was able to see for miles.

From there I could see what looked like amazing single track winding around the mountain. Without hesitating, or consulting my map I was bombing down the hill to reach the trail.

Once on the trail I couldn’t get the grin off my face, that was until I realized I had taken the worst possible rout I could. Dead ending into an alpine pasture I did what I should have done before, looked at my map. At this point in time I was nearly out of water and food and was left with two options, hike up the way I came from or hike up and connect to the trail I was supposed to take. Not wanting to be mocked by the people that looked at me like I was crazy before I opted for the latter. An hour of hiking and pushing my bike up the slopes later I was at the real top of Mt Tamaro. We all know that feeling when you say to yourself or friends, “I would pay anything for that”. Well I was at that point and there happened to be a little sherpa-esk hut at the top serving cokes, and cakes. I paid 13 Euro for a piece of cake and an 8oz coke, I would have paid more.

Refueled I headed down the right trail. Finally I found the DH trailhead.

The trail was both scary and super fun at the same time. One slip up here would spell disaster for sure. The decent was amazing, first was jagged rocks in and our of the clouds, followed by fast rolling alpine meadows, finishing with ripping single-track through 4 inches of leaves in the forest.

As I rode home I realized that the Tour de Suisse was coming through. I once again headed up to watch the mountain top sprint point. It was really cool to see those guys in person.

First over the top was Frank Schleck, everyone went crazy, unfortunately he crashed on the decent. When I finally got back to the hotel 9 hrs later I ate and watched some football, not a bad day.

Now we’re at Val Di Sole, Italy, home to the 2008 World Mountain Bike Championships.

Being at a big race and not racing is both fun and strange at the same time. Yesterday I took on the roll of team USA super fan, this required me to cheer, in a team USA skinsuit and run around the course routing for teammate Mitch Peterson and other fellow USA team members until my voice was nearly gone.

Team USA suffered some bad luck. Crashing, and mechanicals were the theme of the day and it looks like the Elite men and women will be the last ones to set the bar high. Today my legs are tired and I’m looking forward to doing just about nothing.

The laps seemed so long. But I guess I was consistent enough. It definitely put pressure on me when I realized that after so many laps, there were 4 of us within minutes apart. And then in the morning Ernesto caught me at the pit. I saw him in the pit and I know this is the most brilliant thing I could think of at the time but the best I could do was utter…”Are you in my race?” Maybe, “Oh, Good Morning! Glad to see you are doing so well!” would have been better, but I was beat!!

It was so close. There was no time to spend in the pit. There was no putting a gap on them.

Read the rest of the story here on Tinker’s site

Getting Lost In All the Right Places

Well it’s been about a week since I made the trip across the pond. Things have been going smoothly thus far and I am easily adapting to the local ways of life. The trip started in Munich where Scott and I caught our breaths before we started our 5 week tour. From Munich we headed to Prague, Czech Republic. While everything else was completely foreign to me, mountain biking is universal thing that doesn’t change no matter where you are, not taking into account the terrain of course. this being the case I took off in search of trails I had seen on the previous days ride located just outside of town. Now, while getting lost would usually be a bad thing, here in Prague I’m pretty open to the idea.

After some wandering I managed to find a small cluster of trails that were a blast to ride.

Having just rained, the trails were tacky and the temps were perfect.

From Prague, We headed across the Autobahn at 200km/hr to Wurzburg, Germany. Staying with friends who spoke English was a treat. Within hours of being in town we were out on our first ride through the countryside. Once again the temperatures were perfect for riding and the sun was out.

I’m not sure it gets much better than this. Yesterday I once again welcomed the idea of getting lost in the woods, although after doing so I am sad to stay I would have loved the company of a local. The trails here resemble the roads in Europe, which let me tell you, if you don’t know them, you won’t find what you’re looking for very easily. While my search for single track was never ending and at times frustrating, it only took a minute to realize it wasn’t even that bad. Getting lost in a lush forest with not a person in sight is something none of us get to experience very often. I did manage to find some trails though.

Some were a lot of work and not the most fun to ride with tired legs, but others, as short as they were, were a blast.

We head out to Zurich today, then all around Switzerland and Italy, I’ll keep you posted.

Blake

Well, I mention “two hours” but that’s a relative term. Most of our races are longer than two hours, some of them, if your name is Tinker Juarez, have laps that are two hours long….multiply that by twelve, and, well…I personally am not willing to go there, but I digress.

Cycling. Its hard work. Too often in my cycling journey I’ve run across talented athletes that were, shall I say, just too damn smart for bike racing. That’s both a back handed compliment, and one that’s proper and genuine for both them…and us.

It takes a special perspective, determination, work ethic, and focus to repeatedly get ourselves into these situations…and sometimes, the special ability to just turn off our brains and the self preservation devices. How else do you explain 31 hill repeats?

I’ll give most of us this: with the advances in both training and technology, we’re learning to get more from our hard work, but it still comes down to blood, sweat, and tears…..miles. hours. pain. suffering…and ultimately, reward.

Sometimes that journey finishes on the podium. Sometimes its just a journey. Cold. Muddy. Tired arms and drooped head. Legs searing with what feels like pure acid pumping through your veins…

But then…we look up. The same trail that was leeching the soul from my body through my eyeballs now gives life. Gravity pulls. The dirt no longer pushes back against the wheels but allows us to claw sideways against the vector forces, changing direction becomes a gift and a treat.

So…let’s update everyone on the latest and greatest:

Tinker: won the 24 Hours of Big Bear, West Virginia. That’s 195 miles of the rootiest, gnarliest, slickest, toughest mountain bike racing you’ll find. And I imagine 8 hours or so of it was done in the dark.

Bart: Utah typically is the sweet and sour of climates this time of year - Dust bowl or blowing snow. Both have been clobbering Bart’s health and while he got ahead of things at round #4 two weeks ago with a dominating win based on feats of strength and agility, its been a pair of 3rd’s since then. I wish a bad day of racing with Foot and Mouth Disease, Bird Flu, and SARS would only result in pushing me as far “back” as 3rd.

Mitchell: He had his ticket punched in a good way: Mitchell will be representing the United States at the World Championships in the Under23 Cross Country race. With that training goal in mind, he tore the legs off everyone last weekend at the 5th round of the Intermountain Cup in Utah and finished 2nd the following weekend in Deer Valley.

Sue: After winning one of the classics of the Pacific NorthWest in Falls City, Oregon, Sue put in a few hours to un-shred the trails she typically burns up with a little trail work. And who says pros don’t have any hand-eye co-ordination? Just be wary when they’re handing sharp objects.

Sager: He and Sue are equally responsible for the entire world knowing about the amazing trails outside of Falls City, OR. A free ride area with stunts, bridges, berms, jumps, and all sorts of mtb playland areas, held a brutal XC race where only 1.9% of the course was flat. That’s 49.05% uphill…but also 49.05% downhill. Now we’re talking. Sager won in Falls City, also.

Alders: 13th at the Teva Games last weekend in Vail.

Harlan: Blake is on the Euro Tour for the rest of June. Let’s hope he’s bringing home enough Swiss chocolate for everyone.

Ohran: Nessie. The Tooth Fairy. Cupid. Ohran racing a road bike. Which one of these mythical things actually exists?