Team Mango

indie race #4 - leavenworth

the “bavarian bike & brew festival” in leavenworth, washington was last saturday, june 4th. i made the 2-hour drive out there at the crack o’ dawn. unfortunately, i didn’t have time to pre-ride the course before the first race began, so i had to gather beta from those around me that had. the comments i heard made it quickly apparent that a pre-ride wasn’t really necessary. a 4-mile, 1800’ climb straight up, a 4-mile 1800’ non-technical singletrack back down, and repeat. …and they weren’t kidding.

after registering, i warmed up on the short hill just below the start line, did some stretching, then did the usual 20 minute wait at the start line for the race to begin. at the starting gun, i, and my racing brethren, went from a dead-stop and resting heart rate, to a hard crank uphill at almost max heart rate in the tiny space of about 2 minutes. i think all of us had in mind that this race would be won on the long drawn out uphill slog.

all season long, i had started each race in my rightful place somewhere near the end of the pack so as to avoid potential collisions as racers vied for position. at this race, though, the pack spread out quite nicely at the start and i was able to work my way up through the pack at whatever pace worked for me. i decided to push myself a bit harder than usual for a race start and soon found myself passing about three quarters of the pack. i kept my HR at a manageable 165 and just kept cranking away.

at about 1.2 miles, the doubletrack road turned to singletrack (still uphill). passing was nearly impossible on this section as the narrow trail was severely off-camber with a huge drop to the side. crank, breathe, crank, breathe, creeping along at about 4 mph until the 4-mile mark. at the top, there was a water station with a wide spot in the trail. i grabbed a cup and doused my head, then geared up to enjoy the ride back down.

like the others had said, the ride back down was almost totally non-technical. except for the high speeds (i hit 39.5 mph), it was merely a matter of staying on course. one exception to this, though, were the occasional “waterbars”. for those who don’t know, a waterbar is a mound of dirt piled up perpendicularly across the trail to prevent water from running straight down the trail and eroding it. the waterbars on this trail were about two to three feet tall. soooo…, about every two hundred yards, i’d have to go from 40mph down to about 15 in order to avoid launching myself off the mountain, go over the waterbar, then do a short sprint to get back up to cruising speed.

once i got a feel for how the waterbars felt, i started getting cocky and hitting them at faster and faster speeds, catching a little air. that cockiness came to an abrupt halt when i hit one waterbar in particular, entered said air, then returned to earth on my front tire with my rear end dangerously close to traveling in the wrong direction (over my handlebars). i don’t know quite how i did it, but somehow i maintained my balance, swerved a wee bit while riding my front tire in a sort of brake-stand, then returning to normal with both wheels on the ground. it was extremely uncoordinated, but at least i didn’t crash. i toned it down a bit and continued on, doing my best to keep close to the earth.

at the bottom of the downhill (40 minutes up, 13 minutes down!), i exited the singletrack and settled in for another long slog up. i knew a was still in the front half of the pack as no one had passed me on the downhill. so i cranked as hard as i thought i could sustain for the next 4 miles. i passed a few more people on the uphill, but found out they were in the 40’s age group.

at the top, i geared up again and sped back down — keeping in mind the lesson i learned on the first lap. towards the bottom, i came up on one rider going about my speed but i couldn’t find a good place to pass. i ended up coasting closely behind him until exiting the singletrack. we both broke into a sprint and i managed to eek by him, beating him to the finish line. after stopping, the two of us shook hands and found out we were in different age groups (he was quite relieved).

i’m happy to say that i did indeed finish a lot higher than i typically have so far this season — 13th out of 34 riders! that helped to jump me up to sixth place overall in points for the series, but there are now only 10 riders still in contention for the whole series in my age group.

after the results were posted, i started playing “what if” games with myself. if i had only cut 60 seconds off of my two climbs, i would potentially have passed *four* riders in my age group, putting me in 9th! as always, if only i had pushed just a *little bit* harder…….

next race is the padden mountain pedal, part of the WHIMP FEST in bellingham, july 10th.

Posted by jason at June 13, 2005 5:34 PM