And We All Climb On: The Jay Challenge Part II, MTB

Event: The Jay Challenge MTB race Date: 7/30/06 Location: Jay Peak, VT and environs Course length: 72 miles Total climb: 12500 feet (Update: actually it was 14000 feet) Total descent: 12500 feet (Update: Yeah, 14000 feet, holy crap) Number of functional disc breaks: 1 Miles of hike-a-bike: 10-15 Estimated caffeine intake for race (in mg): 600 Did I finish? -Check out the results or just read my post! Bike Setup: 2000 Cannondale F800 with Super Fatty Headshok, Thudbuster LT suspension seatpost, Sun DS2+XC Rims with deore hubs, Avid BB7 mechanical disc brakes, SRAM attack shifters, LX, XT, CODA drive train, and Panaracer Fire XC Pro tires (blue sidewalls to match my eyes). Light and fast uphill, not terribly comfy in the other direction... Report: I had anxiety dreams the night before this race about drawing molecular orbital diagrams for my boss. I'm not sure what that means, but, I was definitely nervous. This was the first race I had ever entered where finishing in and of itself was going to be a real challenge. 72 miles with 12500 feet of climbing and some nasty singletrack. How much climbing is there in 4 gaps...maybe 8000 feet? This shit was going to be epic, no matter how you look at it. C again made bacon and eggs cooked in bacon fat. Ah, delicious. I was already nervous so I eschewed coffee or tea. We packed up our shit, threw it in the car, and headed for Jay Peak. We arrived around 6:30, and I began to rush to get my bike setup for a 7:00 start. Well, at about 6:45, we were told there would be a 30 min delay. That was fine, as I was able to relax a bit and loosen up. From a mechanical standpoint, my bike was in good shape: the shifters and breaks seemed well dialed in. Some dude tried to convince me to buy a lefty for my bike, but, uh, no, the lefty is FREAKING UGLY, and has no advantages over, say, a SID or a Skareb. Headshoks, for all their faults, are at least wicked light. We hung out at the Tram base until 7:40 when finally the gun went off, and the day began in earnest. I saw no reason to push the climb up Jay, so I rode those parts that were easily rideable and walked those that weren't. We started with a gradual climb up an access rode, followed by a quick descent to the base of one of the chairlifts. We then just climbed right up the mountain for a solid 40 min. At the top of the chairlift I got back on the bike and rode to the summit. The weather was perfect. Clear, sunny, and mercifully not hot or humid. I arrived at the summit after about an hour of climbing. 70 miles lay yet ahead, but the view was awesome. The descent of Jay was ridiculously scary, and my mental MP3 player switched to "Symphony of Destruction". The first pitch was steep with slippery wet grass. I had it together until the very end of it, and then I locked up the rear and went over, taking some damage to my thigh. I poped back on for the second section, which was a little less steep, and managed to ride it, no problem. We then got onto the trail Ullr's Dream, and I managed to not spill despite locking up the rear again on a really steep dirt section. I basically jump turned to avoid falling. I walked the next gnarly section, and then hit the less steep but more technical pitch of many wooden bridges. A dude in front of me ate it, and was back boarded out. I took it conservatively, and walked a little, and made it out ok. The rest was pretty easy, gradual descent on rolling grass. Its the part of the ski trail that forces you to skate for like 5 min to get to the chair lift. It was way more fun on a bike. At the end of this section I noticed something rattling on my bike. Fearing for my derailuer, I looked back to see that my rear disc brake caliper had come detached from the frame. The bolts were gone. Not good. For a moment I considered picking up my bike and spiking on the ground and quiting the race, but, I decided just to make it work with only the front. I mean, thats where most of the power comes from anyway. The rear does provide balance, and, believe me, I missed it, but, instead of give up, or take a different bike which was unfamiliar to me, I stopped at Aid Station 2 at the base of Jay and calmly removed my rear brake, cable, and housing, and put them in my camelbak. After that, it was back out onto the course. The reason for my rear brake failure is probably due to my use of spacers to make everything fit. The bolts, I guess, were not engaged all the way. Cannondale, I blame you, but I should really blame myself for not considering that eventuality. We next followed the access road up and out of the ski area and onto rt. 242. This took us to the top of Jay gap, and the climb in that direction was short. At AS3, at the top of the gap, I took gatorade, and for the first time, Monster energy drink, thus beginning the day's intake of caffiene. At every subsequent AS, I took Monster. The course proceeded onto some climby, fun single track, and then descended into woods and mud. I rode nearly every section here because they weren't very technical, and quite honestly, the mud wasn't bad either, despite some claims to the contrary. We then climbed up to AS4 on single/doubletrack of a pretty tame sort. AS4 dropped us off onto the dirt road section of the course which I believe was almost 13 miles. I was making time to the guys I was near on the climbs in this section, but losing it all on the descents. The light dual suspension XC bike was definitely the machine of choice for this race, as you could just fly on the long, bumpy downhills. Anyway, after a nasty climb up a dirt road gap, we descended a precipitous section of pavement to AS5. A friend was waiting there and gave me salami, cheese, and a snickers bar. That was awesome, and that snickers bar came in handy later on. At this point she told me that C was 30 min up on me. Leaving AS5 I climbed up a steep section of pavement, and then into a farm field, and then finally into the second single track section. This one was technical, and twisty to the point of being nonsensical. The various twisting routes cris-crossed the trail heading back out, and so I kept getting glimpses of guys way ahead of me. Basically, it went up, and then back down, but it was so convoluted that I began to think I was in the Lost Woods in Zelda. Up, up, left, down, left...fuck! I'm back where I started. I rode most of the uphill part, but had trouble on the downhill without my rear brake for balance. I got in a bit of hike-a-bike. Finally I found my way out of the woods (the trail was well marked), and I hit up AS6 at 34 miles. We descended some single track and dirt roads back to pavement, and then, once more, began climbing. This time, the dirt road was really, really steep...20% or more. I stayed on the bike for 2/3 of the climb, but, the Lost Woods had sapped some of my resolve, so I dismounted, cracked open a Mountain Dew, and walked the rest, pushing my bike with one hand, and pounding a Dew in the other. At the top of the climb was AS7 (38 miles), and I refueled and the Mt. Dew kicked in. Unfortunately, the next section was the Forest of Despair. Yeah, like an hour and half's worth of nasty, narrow, twisty, god forsaken single track. I couldn't ride it for the life of me. I was tired and cranky, especially after taking a top tub to the balls on botched descent. This may have been the most awful thing I've done on a bike. Wait, no, scratch that, the UNH road race senior year when it was 39 degrees and raining is still the most awful thing I've ever done on a bike, but this was damn close. I knew that after this we had the road climb to Jay gap, reputedly really hard, and I was looking forward to it like starving man looks to a Big Mac. If I die and go to Hell, then Satan himself will force me to ride that singletrack over and over again, on a rigid fixie, for all time. I'm not convinced that the Dark Prince himself was not consulted in the forging of that trail. Some parts were hard to walk let alone ride. Finally, the woods ended, spilling us joyfully back on rt. 242. The climb up to Jay gap was hard, but so much less stressful than the Forest of Despair that it was like a holiday. A long, hot, gear mashing holiday. I climbed in the middle ring in the front, and it worked pretty well. I passed a racer, and they adopted my gearing, and then blasted past me. I didn't care. As far as I was concerned, the only person I was racing in this even was me. The only thing that mattered was finishing. Anyway, I still felt good passing a lot of people who had put time on me in the F.O.D., even when they passed me back when I stopped for a Hammer Gel (good shit). AS8 was at the top of the gap, 47 miles into the race. By this time it was around 2:30. The next checkpoint was in Jay villiage at 55 miles, and I had to make it there by 5:30 to not be cut off. No problem, I thought. We had about 3 miles to Jay peak, and then 5 miles of single track to Jay. I thought, you know its downhill all the way, how hard could it be. Pretty fucking hard, as it turns out. The trail was more rideable than the F.O.D., but my increased fatigue didn't help matters. I rode with one of the bad-ass Jay Challengers (3 day racers) for a while, but she lost me. We climbed for a while, and then descended along this river bank. All the "bridges" over streams were busted, and so a lot of hike-a-bike ensued. I think I started running h.a.b. downhills at this point. I stopped a couple of times to refuel with Sunny B's. I felt really tired, but not, strangely, bonked. The single track rambled on, and abruptly dumped us in Jay village. AS9 was at Firstrax bike and ski shop. The bike mechanic was there, and he offered to lube my chain, even though, as he pointed out, he never works on cannondales as a rule. The lube helped alleviate some annoying squeaking and deraileur angst I was feeling. My tiredness was alleviated by a Vault soda. I left AS9 at 4:40, 1 hour before the cutoff. I honestly don't remember the next section very well. It was more single track that I could ride about 50% of. Anyway, I showed up at AS10, mile 58 (actually like 61), at 5:40, pounded some M&Ms, Monster, salty potatoes, and electrolyte pills, and hit the trail again. At this point I had been riding with a dude from Team Weak and Feeble for a bit, and we rode more or less together for the rest of the race. The race volunteers told us that the next three miles were really technical and would take about an hour. I was fully expecting something like that, so, I just went with it. The next three miles were about 75% hiking/jogging, but I didn't think the trails were nearly as gnarly as the F.O.D. We climbed a big hill, and then descended down the other side. We then had a sweet, sweet road descent into AS11, mile 64 supposedly. I ate more potatoes and M&Ms and took my final hit of Monster. I think by this point I'd taken something like 600 mg of caffiene over the last 11 hours. Thats a lot. The AS workers told us we had nasty, nasty climbing left, but when I heard it was on dirt roads and not single track, I was psyched. At this point it was really just a test of will, and more technical riding would have been a severe trial. The climb started on pavement, and then in about 1.5 miles went to dirt. We were warned that the climb was exposed to the sun, but, guess what, at 7 p.m. the sun was behind the hills. Hah, take that, race director Dan, you sadist. I never cried, by the way. I rode 70% of the climb and walked the rest since I was really tired of riding. At the top we descended dirt roads for a while, and then double track for a while, and then some pretty easy singletrack. We crossed the road near some of the Jay condos, and the policeman at the intersection told us that we had two miles left. Sweet, almost there. It was almost 8 p.m. and getting dark. The next mile was single track of the "fuck you" variety. It was thoroughly unridable. At one point, rather than cross a nice bridge, near at hand, we had to drop our bikes down a stream bank, cross the stream, and throw them up the other side. Blessedly, the last mile was easy double track. I was certain we were going to have to climb the access road again, but no, the finish was just up the little hill to the chairlift base. C and C were there cheering, having waited for 2 hours. You guys are awesome! I finished in a time of 12:36:31, 106 out of 114 finishers. The post race food was gone, the showers were gone, but my friends were there, and I was glad to be done, and even gladder to be going home with a finisher's medal. In the final analysis, this race was really epic. My technical skills were at the bottom of the pack, but my fitness and will were pretty strong that day, so, I was able to compensate. I'll definitely hit this race again next year, and I'm going to practice descending a lot over the next 360 days, and I think I could cut an hour off my time that way. My strategy and feeding and hydration were all fine, although that night, when the caffeine wore off, I shivered for a while and felt like dying. Now, several days later, I'm still tired, but my legs and ass have stopped hurting, so I'm guessing I'm out of the woods. Maybe I'll get back on the bike this weekend... I'm going to be busy over the next few weeks moving, so it'll be a while until I race again, probably Boston Tri in Sept. If I do anything epic or even kinda epic between now and then, I'll let you know!