A great day climbing Mt. Evans!

On Saturday Scott and I got up good and early to head to Idaho Springs for the Mt. Evans Hill Climb. I heard from friends who had done this race before that the climb up Mt. Evans was tough and from biking part way up and driving the other half I was expecting a long day of grinding up the long climb. Mt. Evans has the highest paved road in the country, with the race starting at 7,540 feet in the town of Idaho Springs and rising steadily over the course of 28 miles to top out at 14,135 feet. Since I like climbing, I figured this was a good race to target as the goal of the summer, and it would be a fun end to my mountain bike adventure with Scott.

We lined up at 8:30AM with the 72-person cat. 4 field. My goal was to stay with the pack for the initial 7-mile section that was a little flatter before the real climbing began with the first switchback. After a short neutral start people started getting shelled out the back as the pack started to pick up the pace. Near the first switchback I let the pack drift away as I settled into my own pace, but I was soon passing people who had also been dropped by the quickly disintegrating pack. Between mile 7 and mile 13, I passed a handful of people before settling onto the wheel of a guy who I learned later was named Bryce. Bryce set a really good pace for the next couple of miles as we passed the ranger station and rode above treeline, continuing to pass lots of citizen racers along the way. Since we lucked out with the weather and had perfect blue-bird skies and very little wind, sitting on Bryce's wheel probably helped psychologically more than anything else.
On a climb as long as Mt. Evans, it is interesting to see how you have moments where you are stronger and weaker. Right after Bryce caught me by the ranger station, I almost wasn't able to stay with him. After taking a few pulls above treeline, I decided I was going to blow up if I did more work and settled in to sit on his wheel (thanks Bryce for the pull!). A few miles later, I felt Bryce slowing and I picked up the pace and starting pulling away from him. A mile or two later, Bryce came flying by me sitting on the back of a three-person group that I joined and struggled to stay with over the next couple of miles. The last four miles of Mt. Evans from Summit Lake to the summit parking lot are definitely the hardest, both in terms of exposure, elevation and grade. As the road got steeper, I caught back up to the group of four and passed all but one of them as the summit neared. I was starting to feel a slight cramp coming on, but was able to ride through it with the help of a borrowed bottle of energy drink from one of the guys in the four person group.

As I neared the top I looked back and saw the lead car of the Pro womens field coming up behind me. A few moments later Jeannie Longo came FLYING past me, standing out of the saddle, absolutely crushing the hill. For those that don't know, Jeannie Longo is 49 years old and just qualified for the French olympic cycling team. This will be her EIGHTH (!) appearance at the Olympics. Jeannie Longo finished with a time of 2:10:10, 11 minutes shy of her course record set in 1998, but still nearly 7 minutes ahead of the next female pro finisher! The eternally fast Ned Overand also raced in the pro men's field and finished 5th, beating a bunch of riders who weren't even born when Ned started racing!

As the summit neared, I was able to catch and pass a few more people from the cat. 4 category and was actually feeling pretty good. Despite the altitude, it was the lack of power in my legs that held me back, not the lack of oxygen in my lungs. Nearing the top, I passed the 1 kilometer sign and thought for sure I had only a switchback or two left. That was the longest kilometer I have ever ridden; turn after turn, the finish line just never came into view. Finally, I caught sight of the finish line and kept a good pace across the line to finish with a time of 2:28:20, just under my goal of 2:30:00. With that time I finished 27th out of the 72 starters in cat. 4. Considering I had never been over 8,000 before this month and never done a climb this long, I really didn't know what to expect, but I was really happy with how the race went. It felt incredibly good to push hard for hours and finish on top of such an incredible mountain. I really felt like I was racing the whole way, which ma Here are a few pictures from the top. This one is of Bryce (left) and the dude from the group of four who lent me a bottle near the top:
The summit parking lot was covered by bikes, bodies and equipment as people recovered from their effort:
While I waited for Scott to finish, I took some pictures from the summit.
Sitting above the parking lot, just casually taking in the scene , was a furry mountain goat chomping away!!!
A bit later Scott came across the finish line and we took some photos on the top. Scott had a good ride on his rented bike, finishing in 3:32:14. This was only Scott's second race of the year, so he did a really solid effort considering the toughness of the climb. He's got a great base for kicking ass at the mountain bike races around DC this summer.
While hanging out at the top, I ran into a woman wearing a Putney Westhill jersey, which is a shop team I used to ride for in high school. I started talking to the woman, who is friends with the owners of the Westhill shop and realized that we had a really random connection. Two weeks earlier I was was in a shop in Boulder and started talking to a girl who mentioned that her parents had met while doing the Mt. Evans Hill Climb. Her mother threw up after the race and her dad stopped to help her and they apparently hit it off and eventually got married. This girl also mentioned that she was racing at mountain bike nationals at Mt. Snow near where I grew up instead of doing Mt. Evans.
Back to the woman in the Westhill jersey, when I started talking to her she mentioned that her daughter was racing at Mt. Snow that weekend. The details of her story started to line up, so I said to her: "this may seem like a strange question, but did you happen to meet your husband on Mt. Evans while you were throwing up. Also, does your daughter work at the North Face store in Boulder?" She looked surprised and said that yep, she was in fact the mother of the girl I had met earlier in Boulder and that she met her husband on Evans. It's a crazy small world!
The view from the top was pretty incredible:
Scott and I bundled up for the ride down. Scott seems to be a natural descender and flew down the road, with me taking it slow behind. We stopped to take a few photos along the way.
Scott with Sumit Lake in the background:Overall this was one of the most fun races I have ever done. Everyone was really friendly, the climb was epic, the views were breathtaking and to top it off, there was a mountain goat on top. Any race where there is a mountain goat in attendance is a cool race in my book. I definitely would like to do this race again in the future and try to break 2:20!

Getting smoked in Boulder

Last night I stopped by the CU Short Track race that happens every Wednesday night throughout the summer in Boulder (which is known by locals as the Wednesday Night World Cup races). The race is a fundraiser for the CU Boulder Cycling Team and breaks down into three categories for men: A, B & C. Seeing as folks like Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski and Heather Irmiger race in the A's on occasion, I figured the B's were probably a better spot for me since I should be moving up to Expert in the next race or two that I do. Oh how I was wrong...

I lined up a little over 6pm with the 40 or so other guys in the B category. The race takes place every week on the same small strip of land located right inside of Boulder. The area of the course can't be any bigger than 2 football fields or so, but there are a lot of different trails packed into that small space, with lots of banked corners, short, steep uphills and small jumps (here's a news video about the race series). Every week the course is changed up to keep things interesting. The race started off with a mass sprint for the single track, creating a huge dust cloud that didn't really settle until the last race crossed the line. Speaking of the last racer, I think it might have been me (results aren't online yet). The race was only 25 minutes long and with laps taking 3 minutes or so, I held onto 10th or 15th position for 3 laps or so, before I started imploding and moving backward in the field quickly. I was so happy that I got lapped by the winner because it meant that I had one fewer lap to do. I'm not sure if it was the huge amounts of dust, the extreme heat, the elevation or the wicked pace that kicked my ass, probably some combination of the four. That and the fact that I've favored long slow workouts over intensity stuff in preparation for Mt. Evans. Regardless, It was a really fun race with fast turns that required good steering (which I was able to appreciate only after pulling myself together and finding a sprinkler to stick my head under)! Maybe I'll do another short track race next week after Mt. Evans...only this time I'm racing the C's! The photo on the right is of Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski crushing everyone on the Mens A race.

Wisconsin Stage Racing

I've heard a lot over the years about the good bike culture Wisconsin, especially around Madison, but the Subaru Cup would be my first mountain bike race in the state as well as my first stage race ever. The flooding that hit Iowa hard mostly left Mt. Morris, located an hour north of Madison untouched. I arrived on Friday night to grab a camping site and get ready for the cross country race the next day. That night I met a number of really friendly folks, including Jan, Ross and his daughter Anna who I tossed a frisbee around with for a while. Jan helped me out a ton the next day by letting me hang out in the shade of his pop-up tent instead of getting fried under the hot sun.

Cross Country
The Subaru Cup is a national calendar race and looked to have big fields, so I was excited to see where I would finish. Once I arrived at the start and saw the 48 people in the Sport 19-34 category, I realized I should have arrived at the start line earlier. After the top 10 in the series were called up, I ended up lining up on the 4th row with probably 30 guys in front of me. The race started out with an immediate climb up the base of Nordic Mountain that allowed me to catch up to the front guys within the first mile. After some initial shuffling, I caught up to the race leader whose name was Jesse and we rode together for the rest of the race. The course consisted of lots of rolling single track with several spots with tight corners and technical rocky sections but no long descents where you could rest. Whoever designed this course did a really good job of laying out the turns and picking the terrain. Jesse and I took turns leading, briefly chatting about strategy and the need to keep things smooth to ensure that we didn't get caught by someone from behind. On the final lap of three laps, I pulled away by a few hundred feet on one of the climbs, which Jesse closed coming into the finishing singletrack section. I exited the single track first and started my sprint as I heard Jesse swing to my right to start his sprint in the longer grass. We both threw our bikes across the line and I ended up getting first by an inch or two. That was definitely the closest finish I've ever had in a bike race! Our close finish meant that I had a .2 lead over Jesse going into Sunday's Super D and Short Track races and 3:30 on the guy who finished in third place.

Super D
Though Nordic Mountain has only 265 feet of vertical, it feels like at least 3 times that tall for some reason. For the Super D we would take the chair lift to the top of the mountain and ride down sections of the xc course in reverse to make for about a 10 minute race that was about 75% downhill. I managed to miss the start of my category, but the race officials were cool and let me start with the citizens group, which meant that I was basically on my own with no idea how I was doing in comparison to Jesse and the rest of the people in my category. The course was really fun with some great fast, flowing downhill switchback sections. I ended up finishing 17 seconds behind Jesse which moved me into second in the overall standings. I continued my Super D problems by missing the award ceremony for the race...looks like I have some work to do on my Super D skills...like just getting to the start line to start with.
Short Track
Like the Super D, this was my first Short Track race ever. The race would be really short, only 10 minutes plus 1 lap on a course that took about 3 minutes per lap. We lined up with all the age categories of the sport class, but this time I squeezed into a spot on the front line. I had a great start and rode in the front of race for a couple of laps before a junior rider passed me. I kept looking back and seeing the gap between me and Jesse opening, so I was just hoping that I would end up with more than a 17 second advantage. Every time I came through the start/finish area, the announcer would shouted out my name, place and that I was from Washington, DC, which I think confused people. On the second to last lap he blew up on the one steep hill on the course and I kept the pressure on to the end to finish 51 seconds up on Jesse.

Overall
When all the dust settled, I ended up finishing first in the Sport 19-34 stage race, 34 seconds up on Jesse. Overall this is one of the best put together races that I have been to. Everyone was super friendly, the trails were great, and the venue was perfect with good camping and access to the lodge. Even the weather was perfect with sunny skies and hot temps. I ended up the weekend with some sweet tan lines on my forehead from my helmet vents! A huge thanks again to Jan for lending me some much needed shade and a place to sit in between races!

A Bike Racing Birthday in Minnesota

After a great couple of days visiting in Cleveland, South Bend and Chicago, I was pretty psyched up to race on my birthday in Minnesota at Afton Alps. With only 351 feet of vertical, I think someone had a sense of humor when they added Alps to the name of the ski area. Adding the the irony, the race was called the "Afton Avalanche" which conjured up images of...well, alps filled with snow, not 351 feet ski areas in June. But having gone to college in Minnesota and experienced some sound ass kickings on tough courses in the area, I knew better than to start getting uppity about the course. That and after a night torrential rain, it looked like a mudfest was possible.

Rolling up to the race not knowing anyone was a bit strange after having raced alongside so many friends in New England during the previous two weeks , but everyone was really friendly and it seemed like a good scene. After a good warm-up I lined up alongside the 14 other guys in my Sport 19-29 category. I came off the start in third position but quickly passed the two guys ahead of me before diving into the single track. Afton has done a great job with trail design and has some really nice, fast single track with tight corners and good flow as well as decently technical rocks sections (but no roots...which was OK by me). The trail alternated between uphill switchbacks on the ski slopes and tight, twisty single track in the woods. Dipping in and out of the woods, I slowly zig-zagged my way up the mountain.

After building up a pretty big lead in the first half of the first lap, I eased up the pace a little bit. As I finished the first lap, I looked back to see a guy in white closing in on me so I picked the pace up again. He was gaining time on the climbs and ended up catching up to me a third of the way through the first lap. I was suffering on the longest climb of the course when he caught me, so I considered appealing to his sense of charity to let me win since it was my birthday after all. Instead, I decided that I'd really make him work to pass me and I raised the pace going into the singletrack descent. I found that I was able to open a good gap on the twisty, greasy descents and switchbacks, which he slowly reeled in on the climbs. We yo-yo'ed back and forth like this for a while until we came to the final climb. I knew that if I was able to get to the top before him, I probably could outkick him on the long ski-slope descent into the finish. I crested the top of the hill with a 10 foot lead which I padded a bit more in the long, swooping descent to the finish.

Coming into the finish, I was all set to contest the sprint when at the last second I noticed a sign marking the finishing chute to the left. I tried to correct my path but ended up running directly into the sign and getting all tangled up in it. I ended up knocking the sign over and rolling over the line 1 second in front of the other guy--so much for my smooth raised-arm victory salute! All around though, it was about the best birthday present I was able to give myself. The next guy in our category finished 8 minutes behind us...so I think racing in New England and the DC area is a bit faster...but hey, I'll take the birthday win nonetheless, especially since I haven't won a bike race in 10 years! Actually, the terrain of the Afton Alps course felt pretty similar to a the race courses around DC, though just with fewer riders.

Ray's Indoor MTB Park, Cleveland

bOn my way west I stopped in Cleveland to check out Ray's MTB Indoor Park, a 70,000 square foot indoor bike park located in an old industrial park. Unfortunately the park is closed in the summer, so I wasn't sure I'd even be able to get in to check it out, let alone ride, but luckily Ray (with me in the picture to the left) and his crew were inside making improvements for next year and Ray was nice enough to show me around and chat about how the park works.


I've got to say, this park is pretty much the raddest thing I have ever seen. If you're into bikes, this place is heaven. There is something for every type of rider, including a cross country course around the perimeter with lots of techical offshoot options, a ball pit for practicing aerials, a pump course, a urban park, and even sections with rocks and logs laid down as terrain. It's hard to explain how cool this place is without pictures/video (and I didn't even get to ride) so hopefully this will give you a better sense:

Pat's Peak MTB Festival (NH)

I was pretty excited for the second race of my road trip at Pat's Peak because my uncle Dan and friend Amelia were coming along to cheer and take photos, and given that it was held a ski area there was sure to be a lot of climbing. The course consisted of three five-mile laps that included a mix of single track, logging roads, and lots and lots of uphill. From the starting line, you basically went uphill for 20 minutes and then descended for 10 minutes, gaining about 850 feet per lap.

Lining up with the 10 other starters, I was feeling pretty good about my changes given how I was riding up hill the week before. As the race started I fell in behind a dude wearing red booty covers who set a good pace for about 10 minutes but then started to slow up. As the race dropped out of the technical, rocky and rooty single track onto the open, sunbaked ski slopes, I picked up the pace a bit and moved into the lead of the race. By the top of the long, open climb that had me struggling in my easiest gear, I could see one guy behind me was catching up. I recognized him as Toby, a guy who I know is fast and who I used to play soccer with back in junior high and high school. As the grinding climb turned into a swoopy, rutted descent, Toby quickly caught up to me and rode a few feet behind for the remainder of that lap before dropped me at the top of the climb on the second lap.

In the third lap, I was caught by a two guys from 30-39 age category, but was able to hold onto second place until the finish line. Coming into the finish I thought I was going to get caught by a guy who was gaining on me (see picture at left). I burried myself to not get passed by him only to find out that he also was in the 30-39 age group. Ah well, it made the racing more fun.

It is interesting to see how at both this race and at the Coyote Hill race, there were some very tough technical rock crossings or sketchy high speed waterbar crossings, but unlike in the mid-Atlantic, there seems to just be the assumption that everyone will be fine riding this stuff. Dangerous sections in both of these races were not marked with "XXX" signs as in many mid-Atlantic races. Here are some pictures from the race (thanks to my uncle Dan for shooting some great shots!):

Coyote Hill Classic (VT)

Back in the late 90s when I first started biking I did a couple of mountain bike camps at Coyote Hill and rode on the Coyote Hill Team for a year, so racing at Coyote Hill was a bit of a homecoming experience for me. That and this was my first race in New England in almost 8 years, so I was looking forward to some classic rocky and rooty New England riding and the Coyote Hill Classic didn't disappoint.

After pre-riding the course the day before and camping out overnight (while getting well acquainted with the loads of black flies and going to sleep to the sound of trucks muddin' off-road nearby), I was ready to race the tough course, but unsure what to expect in the competition. I've been finishes around 10th place in Sport races in DC, but with fields in the 35-40 people range...so when 10 guys lined up at the start, I figured my chances of breaking the top ten were pretty good.

Coyote Hill sits on a steadily sloping hillside nestled amongst rolling, verdantly green mountains of central Vermont. The rugged hills, which are matched by an abundant supply of tire-hungry rocks and roots, mean that flat sections are few and far between. The race started off with a steep half-mile gravel climb where one other rider and I were able to pull away from the main group. The other rider (I'll call him Tall Socks because he was sporting knee-high wool socks) and I ducked into the single track with a good gap on the riders behind and rattled our way over the undulating rocky and rooty terrain for about a half a lap until I made a few mistakes and Tall Socks got by me along with one other guy who was descending like a maniac and quickly took off with Tall Socks in tow. I rode alone for the rest of the first lap but was able to catch up to Tall Socks and the Downhiller guy by the top of the gravel road, only to be dropped again on the single track.

I was feeling like my technical riding skills had grown soft living in the mid-Atlantic when I got caught and passed by one more rider from my class. After he rode out of sight, I pulled things together and redoubled my efforts in the hopes of catching up. Riding through the grassy, open uphill switchbacks coming into the finish I spotted the crazy Downhiller guy up ahead and was able to close the gap between us to about ten feet by the finish, but I wasn't able to pass him.

So I missed out on the money (or the t-shirts and waterbottles more accurately) by 4 seconds! Shoot! Regardless, I had a great time on the tough terrain, didn't land on my head, got a chance to catch up with Tom Masterson who runs Coyote Hill and had a great time riding and cheering with the friendly folks from the Monadnock Cycling Club, Jacob and Dave.

Here are a few pictures from the weekend: