Big Bikes

Root 66 Brialee Ramblin' Rumble:
Movin' On Up

Woke up feeling like this was not my day. Had that “demon elves came with caulking guns full of cement, stuck them in my ears, and filled up my head during the night” feeling. You know what I’m talking about right? There was not enough coffee in the world to burn it off. So groggy and unmotivated, I slumped behind the wheel and drove down to Ashford, CT.

My fuzzy math skills had landed me there even earlier than I’d planned, which was already plenty early. The start was 11:45, not 11:15, I could do with making those kind of mistakes more often. I got a lap or so in before the race, the course was dope, very technical and gnarly, a real roadie killer, moo ha, ha, ha. I had opted to run a Camelbak…which I despise, totally sucks and throws me off, but I knew there would be few places to drink and I had no one feeding me bottles so it seemed like the best choice at the time.
About last place into the woods, maybe not that bad, but close anyway, I could still see all the leaders, this is a new experience for me, I’m still getting used to it. Moved up a few spots, partially due to checking and re-checking some of the early parts of the course for good lines. I could see Sean Cavanaugh up front putting the hurt on the geared guys, but I was out back ,struggling to get my cloudy head in the game. Gaps formed and I lost sight of the front of the race. A little while later I caught up to Alec Donahue and another guy. I had looked at the results from the Sterling Road Race the day prior, Alec had taken second in the Pro/1/2 race after riding in a break with Mark McCormack all day. The fact that he was slowing this dead beat down on the climbs was probably a result of that business.
Oops, gotta back up here. Before running into Alec I had happened upon Sean Cavanaugh as he was remedying a burped tire situation. He quickly gapped back up to me and then it was, as they say…”on”. There are certain riders you have a sort of psychological link with, something in your brain says “I can go as fast as this guy…no matter what”. Your brain forces your body to do so as it writhes and screams in pain. A problem arises when the other rider’s brain tells their body the same exact thing. The battle that ensued between Sean and I was akin to a fist fight where two men grab each other by the throat and proceed to trade unblocked punches directly the face…for nearly two hours.

Directions from the south scribbled out, directions from the north scrawled in, and the correct start time right there plain as day, not to be noticed until the ride home.

Don’t remember seeing anyone but lapped riders out there for a while after that. Due to the short length of the course (Dear Root 66 race organizers…five laps for the Pros next year) the lapped traffic became a major issue by the end. I apologize in particular to the Bikeman rider I passed just toward the end, I think I was a little snippy (Cough! Understatement, Cough!) with him. For anyone reading this who might have fallen victim to the rudeness of me or another rider in my class, please try to understand, if you’re riding in no man’s land, you have two guys battling it out behind you and another guy in their class has just passed you fifteen seconds prior, you are effectively between a father bear and his cubs…who he badly wants to eat.
What was going on ahead of us, I did not know, but I thought there were several dudes up there, my only concern was ditching Sean. However we are evenly (but differently) matched. I would get a gap through the mud and roots, that’s my bread and butter. He would rocket his rigid Niner up the steep, punchy climbs and kill my gaps. I would think that I could get him in the really rough stuff because he wasn’t running a suspension fork,but I couldn’t really, he would go just as fast as I. Somewhere in there I decided to enact “Operation Reckless Abandon” , I would ride like a brakeless nut, take huge risks, and ultimately rid myself of Sean, but it turned into something more like “Operation Wreck and Abandon” as I dove down over a wooden bridge and into an uphill turn at Godspeed (that’s really f-in’ fast), clipped a pedal or something and flew to the ground like goat hucked off a cliff by a Golden Eagle. I guess it looked bad enough that Sean thought he should stop and see of I was alright, that or he is just a class act all the way, or a combination of both. Took me a while to regain my composure and I actually lost sight of Sean for awhile, but I did see Foley ahead.
Fourth lap I dropped the Camelbak like a peeing toad and took off with renewed impetus after Foley and the monolithic Bethel Cycles rider beyond. I closed the gap back to Sean eventually and the battle was on once again. We passed a side-lined with a flat Andrew Freye and could see totallybad-ass junior Seamus Powell a ways up. Here I started thinking, “Ya see this is why you never give up, this is why you always go hard to the end, anything can happen”. After a miserable beginning to the day and the race I felt that I may be holding onto the series lead and possibly nabbing another podium spot.
I made a decisive move through the mud section, I think Sean bobbled, but I got a big ‘ol gap. Then I tried to power up the steep, stair-stepped climb and my right foot came out of my pedal. Gap…gone. I kept the lead until the last maybe 1/4 mile, giving it all. Sean came around and lead into the last singletrack section before the line. I tried to be all savvy and come around on the outside for the sprint but the combination of my ass already being resoundingly kicked and Sean’s .18 gear inch advantage (yes I calculated it and yes I am joking) he crossed the line half a bike length ahead of me…for the WIN! Yes, two guys who aren’t from Wisconsin who aren’t brothers one-twoed a Pro race on Single Speed 29ers. I hate text messagy acronym’s but I also generally don’t curse (too, too much) on the blog here but WTF?
I’m being serious when I say I wouldn’t even have been happier with the win. I went as hard as I could, I had nothing left, and I had damn good time doing it. Sometimes after a race you scrutinize the results, going “man, forty seconds to the next guy, oh, I shoulda, coulda…aw crap”. But I know there was nothing more I could do here and that’s a satisfying feeling. Big, HUGE ups to Sean for the win, it was a good field and he earned it, like he said after the race “It’s gonna be a fun season”.

The Beer Fairy left me a present for after the race, thank you Beer Fairy, whoever you are.

On a side note this might be a good time to go off on my “Finishing is winning” rant. It relates somewhat to my bit on Tim Johnson’s “lucky win” at ‘Cross Nationals but on the mountain biking front. The short of it is this: if you cross the finish line before another rider, you beat them. If you cross the finish line DFL and another rider was DNF…you beat them. Dropping out because “you’re not feelin’ it” is losing. Having a technical due to poor equipment choices is losing, flatting…losing, you get the picture. One of my favorite overheard quotes was at the Palmer ‘Cross race years ago. A junior was coming through the start/finish and whining to his dad about how he was going to drop out. His dad replied “The FIRST race you drop out of is the LAST race I pay for!”. Yeah guy.
Showing up to a race with sound equipment, picking good lines, not crashing, not flatting, not breaking your bike, it’s all part of this game. In road racing flatting or crashing can be bad luck, in mountain biking it usually isn’t, it’s bad bike-riding (or bad equipment to some extent). Would these excuses work in motorsports? No. If you show up to a Nascar event and forget to put gas in your car, don’t take a tire change, flat, then decide to turn right instead of left, you lose.
I just wanted to clarify for the roadies (or other folks that don’t get it) out there that come over to the dirt side and say things like “Yeah, I would have beaten that guy but a., b., or c. happened”. On the road you don’t hear a guy say “Yeah, I would have totally beaten that guy but he rode his bike up the hill faster…he got lucky!”.