Friday, June 24, 2011

Test of Endurance 50, and test of bringing gear for Ryan, plus Cramps of DOOM!

The 6th Annual Test of Endurance 50 mile MTB race was a perfect mix of climbing and technical single track this year. Leave it to Mike Ripley to put on and run the best mountain bike races in the Northwest, if not the whole country.
Lucky number 100. Hmm maybe this is a sign of good things to come in the High Cascades 100 MTB race next month
 Before I go into my own race adventure my fellow teammate had a pre race adventure. A question to all the folks out there. How many times have you forgotten your helmet, or your gloves, or your shoes for a race. Inevitably this may happen at some point. But how many of you have left your helmet, gloves, jersey and bibs, and shoes for a race? Probably not many. What if this was your second time this season forgetting your race stuff.

Well this is exactly what good Ole Ryan Garner did. After a 6 am departure from my apartment we roll up at 7:30 for the race to realize Ryan forgot everything minus his bike. I am still confused at how this happened(for a second time this season). Anyways I kept it cool as Ryan was about to loose it. We started asking for extra gear from people and within 30 minutes we had a Helmet, shoes, pedals, a Trinity bike race kit and gloves all from different people. This is where I would like to thank Ninkasi for being such a great sponsor. Normally we handout beer to people under our team tent, but at this race we used the beer to make Ryan race ready. In the end it worked out well as Ryan got 2nd in the TOE for Cat 2, finishing his first endurance race in 5 hours and 12 minutes in all borrowed gear. I am proud of Ryan, but hell at this point I am surprised he didn't get lost and up in Canada.

Ryan on the podium with the only clothes he brought to the race. "Hey guys do you have some sorta clean bibs for me to wear?" 
My race was a blast. I have raced here two other times in 2006 and 2007. Finishing in 6 hour 35 minutes, and then 5 hours and 12 minutes in 07. This time I came into this race in the best shape I have been in as a cyclist. I planned on gunning it hard at the start and let my legs dictate my pace. This meant starting out at the front with Shannon Babcock and Erik Tonkin and all the other pros. The pace was similar to racing a 20-30 mile race.

I quickly realized about 30 minutes into the race that my legs would not tolerate riding with the top pros as the course shot straight up. Did I forget to mention the course had between 8,200-8,500 ft of climbing in 50 miles. Take a look.
After settling in at a pace that was painful but doable a fellow racer and nemesis Shane Johnson of Trinity Cycling, came up to me and asked how I was feeling. I did what any racer would do that understands the game. I told him that I was feeling great, but in reality I was ready to start riding easier. So I put on the burners to create a gap on Shane that has dogged me so many times this season and broke him. With Shane down, my next goal was to catch Doug Turnbull. Doug is a stellar rider. He exudes watts like chi energy and rips the legs off mere mortals in time trials. This season I have yet to catch him, but I have a glimmer of hope as Doug has an Achilles heel, and that is descending. That being said he shamed me and put 8 minutes on me to finish 2nd in Cat 1. For that he earned a Ninkasi beer.
Nice Bronto shirt Doug. Bronto bikes are super fine, and Ninkasi goes well with them. 

With that in mind I attacked hard from Aide Station 1 to try and make up some of the difference. This would have been fine if my water bottle didn't bounce out in the descent. I was left with half a bottle of water to drink over the next 15 or so miles. This came back to haunt me, as I had to ride easy the last 45 minutes of the race because of serious cramps coming on in muscles that I had forgotten that I had. The physical therapist in me was like oh that is my Adductor Magnus cramping(oouch). Ok get out of the saddle and my quads mostly my VMO and my gastroc in my calves ripped me back to the saddle with knife bending cramps.
Missing bottles = cramps of doom

So I grinded away in constant cramping closing in on the finish. I crossed the line in 4 hours and 39 minutes and 36 seconds. Cutting 33 minutes off my previous best time. Not too bad, but leaving me with room for improvement for next year. My goal for next year is to rock under 4 hours and 20 minutes with mullet. I think the mullet will drop atleast 5-10 minutes for me.

Dave Bisers also raced in singlespeed and rode his butt off for showing up right before the race, and having to leave directly after. Dave is the man, rides up and registers races, rolls across the finish drinks a beer, then drives back upto Portland to deal with his landlord. I am stocked for Dave as he is contemplating racing the Shenandoah 100 MTB race in Virginia in September.
Dave looking good on his custom Huckleberry 29er, made by Jake Rosenfeld

Monday, June 6, 2011

Return of the Jedi: Tensegrity rocks the Raffle and Podium Finishes to match.

Check out the bling!











Yes, if you couldn't read the branding on the chunks of log Ryan and Taylor are holding that's a 1st and 2nd respectively.

Let me start at the beginning ... Sunday morning Taylor Bushnell and Ryan Garner showed up at my (Dave Bisers) house at a quarter to five in the morning to take a trip down to the Return on the Jedi race put on by the Pistis team which is about 25 miles NW of Grant's Pass. After a few hours on I-5 cresting that pass and looking onto the Siskiyou's never gets old. After getting off I-5 and stopping for gas (and a special treat for Taylor; read further) our path continued along the beautiful Rogue river and then onto a forest service road to the race course.

After registration and a little warm-up with the 32:18 I wussed out and switched to a 20 tooth cog right before the start. After a litlle sprinkling at the start line Taylor and the rest of the Cat-1 field went off first with a lap around Saturday's short track loop (those who raced on Saturday could have also done a Super-D; I'm definetly am planning on making a whole weekend of it some future year) and took off on their 30 mile ride.

Ryan (Cat 2) and I (SS) started our 23 mile race off with a 4ish mile climb. From what I hear Ryan took the lead and swapped that position a few times during the climb but ultimatley crested the top in the lead and never gave it up. I personally witnissed what seemed like the entire SS and Cat 2 fields passing me shortly after the start as I attempted to spin my tiny little gear as fast as I could; there's something very absurd about singlespeeders racing on flat pavement. We climbed pavement for a while and then entered a short singletrack section where I proceeded to blindly cut the inside of corner trying to pass a slower ride only to discover 2 logs that I at crap on. After this section I climbed for another half hour or so. An aside: I started the graduate program at University of Oregon for Architecture last June. I was in pretty good shape that June and retained alot of that fitness through the cyclocross season but by the time the 2011 XC season started the hours in the studio and not riding had really taken its toll. This season I've been towards the back of the singlespeed field that in previous years I had gotten used to riding near the front of. Settling into a good rythm of sitting and standing on this first long climb and reeling in many of the Cat 2 racers was a good feeling. Its a signal that I'm really getting some of that old fitness back. I've got 3 months till the Shenandoah 100 and want to be in the best 100 miler shape I've ever been in for that race.

Then the fun stuff started. The climb tipped over into a screaming fast, loose, abandoned fire road descent which then turned into some slightly sketchy, ripping singletrack. That singletrack section was my favorite part of the course. I excel at the tech stuff, the loosier and sketchier a race course is the better my results. I got to bring back quite a few riders on this section. We bottomed out at a creek, probably the lowest part of this course, and settled in for a long and shallow (almost false flat) climb and got to actually look around appreciate the scenery this part of Oregon has to offer. The Rogue valley in the summer is more arid than us in the Williamette valley are used to and quite a nice change from all the rain we've had. After finishing this second long climb we were treated to the namesake of this race; the Jedi Trail. Three miles of rolling singletrack that required me to stay on the gas the whole time. When I hit the final bit of road back to the finish I had a smile on my face. For me the point of biking up a hill is so you can go down. Singletrack like that is what I live for.

Pistis put on a race that really exemplifies mountain biking. In addtion to providing a fantastic race course that they had a great barbeque. Ryan and I waited for Taylor to finish while eating some burgers and drinking some Ninkasi Oatmeal Stout and hanging out with Andrew and Maire who are also from Eugene.

Awards treated the team well where Taylor got 2nd place in the Cat 1 19-34, his first podium in that class in the season, and Ryan took the win in the Cat 2 19-34. He's well on his way to clinching the series title. We also got to see Maire get her 2nd place



and another great rider, Cosmic Miller, get his award.



This guy's the real deal. He's been traveling from Everett, WA to the entire OBRA XC series to contest the Cat 2 55+ category. I first met him racing the Sierra Tahoe 100 down in California and have seen him all over the Pacific Northwest since then.

Then the real event of the day started. The raffle. Ryan, Taylor, myself and the other 6 (?) people sitting at our picnic table each won something at that raffle. I've never seen such a dominant showing in my racing career. On the drive home we stopped at the same gas station on the way out where Taylor finally found what he's been looking for a long time.



This is how they roll in the Rogue Valley.



We cruised into Eugene around 5:30. Team Tensegrity laid waste to southern Oregon and was back home all in just over 12 hours. Great race and great showing by everyone involved. Now if we can just remember how to steer our road bikes in tomorrow's crit race.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Sisters Stampede with cowboys and all


Ahh, there is nothing like camping and bike racing on Memorial Day weekend. Just think, no work for 3 full days, a few cases of Ninkasi Beer, a new team tent(from Biota Sciences), and a teammates birthday. What more could someone ask for? This would be the sentiment for the weekend had the weather cooperated. Saturday night was accompanied with 2-3 hours of nonstop hail that looked like Mordor from the Lord Of the Rings and got down to the low 30s. And the weekend had lots of rain and wind(which may or may not have damaged the new team tent, which I promise to fix)
Race day I have the routine down for my energy needs. I Drank a protein shake 3-4 hour pre-race, followed by eggs, bacon, toast and hashbrowns and 4 cups of coffee. Decidedly a lite breakfast for me. The bike gods did listen to our weather concerns and cleared the skies during our race but left us with strong winds and 50 Deg temps for racing.

This was my first Sisters Stampede and I can say that it was a blast but not designed with me in mind. The cat 1 race was 27 miles only a mile further than the cat 2 race. But that mile was the best part of the race and the only mile that was suited to my riding style.

The race started as a flash with Chris Sheppard and Carl Decker leading the charge behind a cowboy on a horse shooting a gun in the air. I was hanging on for dear life with my 1 x 10 gearing on the flat jeep roads for 5 miles before hitting the singletrack and did an amazing reverse breakaway. If you aren't familiar with a reverse breakaway it is an amazing race tactic in which you ride as hard as you can, but everyone rides away from you like you are standing still.

So after reaching the singletrack 5 miles into the race, I finally got to do what I do best most of the time. Railing turns and dropping people in the rocky sections. I worked my way up through the field passing whenever I got the chance. The Peterson Ridge trail network is super fun, flowy, with lots of twists and turns and is really flat. In my case too flat. That being said I had a good loss of judgment after passing a group right before a small descent and washed out my front tire during a full speed descent. I laid there and with my left knee bloody and tried to stand up. But whenever I did my whole calf cramped up into a ball.

I finally got back up with my whole body hurting and my ego a little bruised. That wreck cost me atleast 2-3 minutes and a bike seat as my rails twisted(So I am in need of a new seat). I starting ramping up my speed again this time a little more reserved but found that I was able to catch every single person who had passed me while I was on the ground. Then we came into my favorite mile of the course the "cat 1/pro only" hill. It is a sweet section of the trail that is all tight rocky switch back climbs that are rideable if everyone infront of you doesnt stop, which they did. That was frustrating so I decided to do a little early cyclocross practice and shouldered the bike and ran past a bunch of guys that were walking uphill. I powered through that section and just tucked my head and dug deep all the way to the finish passing another cat 1 a few hundred meters from the finish.
Don't I look happy to be running uphill

I finished the 27 mile race in 1hr 59 min and 33 sec finishing 12th with a big wreck. Not too bad, maybe I will actually place well if I keep the rubber side down. To add to my strong finish, Loren Mason-Gere from Hood River whom I had beat in the last two races in the last mile or two confronted me. He told me that I crushed his soul coming by so quickly and dropping him at the end. For his great compliment he earned a Ninkasi beer from the team.
Loren Mason-Gere Ninkasi recipient(victim)

Lindsay raced and got 14th in the cat 1 women and Ryan got 9th in the Cat 2 men. Ryan also had to give a Ninkasi beer as a an offering to a local bike shop mechanic in Sisters. Ryan was sitting at breakfast before the race to realize he left his shoes in Eugene. He rushed off to the local bike shop and was ready to drop 100 dollars on shoes and cleats when one of the mechanics offered his own shoes, pedals and cleats for him to use. So that goes to show, you treat Tensegrity riders well, and beer will come your way.