Climbing hills (or mountains) on a bike sucks. So Sandie and I did a 24-hour race in Bend Oregon with about 1500 feet of climbing per lap (High Cascades 24 Hours of Bend on 9/10). This would be Sandie’s first 24-hour race, and she was doing it on a 2-person team with our friend Karen who flew in from Dallas. Hopefully this won’t be Sandie’s last 24-hour race!
Not only does climbing on a bike suck, but driving sucks too. It was about 7 hours of driving from Seattle to get to Bend. I drove my Jeep since I was going to Portland after the race. I think my Jeep and I are spending too much time together. Sandie and Karen drove separately so they could go back to Seattle after the race. We had no friends go or pit support…this would be interesting.
Scenery was amazing again on the drive to Bend. I’m seeing a trend here…the Pacific Northwest is awesome! Our first stop was Pine Mountain Sports to pick up packets and get Karen’s rental bike. Pine Mountain Sports was also one of the race sponsors, and is a very nice shop. We got some nice schwag…pint glass, t-shirt, blinky light, Hammer stuff, etc. They were giving away lots of Hammer Nutrition products before and during the race too.
The race was being staged from the Wanoga Sno Park, about 11 miles from Bend. I’m not sure why they spell it “Sno Park” and not “Snow Park”. Oh well, we had to drive like over 3,000 feet up to get to the park, which was at 5,250 feet elevation. Great, another bike race at altitude with lots of climbing.
The “sno park” had no amenities. It’s all National Forest land, open to snowmobiles, biking, x-country skiing, etc. I was worried about not having electricity for charging batteries and water/ice, but Mudslinger (event organizer) brought in lots of water jugs and had ice, plus generators running for electrical hookups if needed.
Driving into the park there was plenty of parking. Looked like the paved areas were available for RV’s. Everyone else was being directed into a huge field to park and camp. This was mostly dirt and sand, and EXTREMELY dusty. Not good.
We decided to consolidate pit areas into mine, since Sandie and Karen were designated further away. This worked out nice since we could setup anywhere in that field. The shade of a nearby tree worked well since it was warm and sunny during the day. Sandie and I just bought a screen shelter which came in handy because of all the bugs out. We had plenty of food, water and ice.
I talked to a few guys who were racing solo. Everybody who races solo for these types of events is so damn cool. I’m finding out that Mr. Big Pig himself (Dr. Rich Szecsy) is a very popular man. While we were relaxing on Friday evening after getting setup, a guy comes up asking if he could borrow a floor pump. Somehow we end up talking about Dallas, how he did the Ultracentric 48-hour bike race at Grapevine back in 2008 when it was freezing cold (and windy), and then he was throwing out Rich’s name and Ray Porter’s name. Apparently he met them at the 2008 solo world championships that was held in Canmore (Alberta, Canada). What a small world! This guy was Shaun Taylor from Canada, and he was racing solo single-speed. I just searched his name and found out he’s a pretty bad-ass dude. This is pretty cool to get to be at events with people like this and guys who are elite racers.
I walked around before the start of the race and took some pics. Nothing terribly exciting. One thing I liked was they had a limbo bar at the timing station to force riders to dismount their bikes and walk through. Some races I’ve been to there have been riders just blasting through the timing station even though they asked riders to dismount. Good idea on the limbo bar!
I did not pre-ride the course. My thoughts are that the first lap is a pre-ride. This race had about a half-mile Lemans start, where we ran (or jogged or walked) around the camping area. All the racers pretty much sprinted around this, while Sandie and I were back-of-the-pack. I brought my camera with me to take pics, and would have it with me for the first lap.
I was literally the last person getting on the single-track. That’s cool with me, I’m on a “fun” ride today and will be taking pics on my first lap to give all you fools reading this something to look at! I knew the course was going to be about half single-track and half double-track (or fire roads). No problems there, but some guys I talked to who did ride the trails before and pre-rode said they hated the fire roads because it was like a “death march” and pretty damn boring.
I ended up washing out on my first lap because I had my camera out trying to take pics and holding the bar with one hand doesn’t work well in the sand (stupid me). Oh well, slow speed wreck, had a small strawberry on my knee but didn’t hurt too bad. Camera was OK though!
I didn’t know the course was going to be so fucking sandy. Not just sandy, fucking sandy. I thought the 24-hour race I did at Palo Duro Canyon in Amarillo back in June was bad, then I thought 24 Hours in the Sage in Colorado was worse, but damn…the dry conditions of this course here was abysmal!
Overall the course layout was pretty nice. It had good flow and was nice wide single-track. One lap was about 16 miles, but I got around 16.7 on my cycle computer. Holy crap, that’s a long lap! There was nothing technical on it, and it would have been a very fast course had it not been for all the sand traps everywhere. The fastest lap time was around 1:05 (yes, about 16mph)!
I think Sandie and Karen liked the course because they could ride everything at their pace and didn’t have any excruciating climbs or technical stuff they didn’t feel comfortable on. Most of the course was shaded too, which was nice because it was warm during the day with the sun out. Temps dropped down into the 30′s at night, so once it got later in the afternoon and evening it was feeling pretty damn nice out there.
They had a stocked aid station about 10 miles into the course, where the fire road climbing started. Good thing, because I stopped there a couple times for water. And I had to notify the EMS guys of another racer who wrecked on a fast downhill section where he passed me and missed a turn. I saw a big dust cloud in front of me, then saw this guy get up with blood all over his face and mouth. Another rider was behind me, so she stayed with him while I continued to the aid station ahead to let them know. He split his lip and chin wide open…that ended his day, but he was alright.
The dust was so terrible that on my night lap I could not see the trail in front of my tire when I was behind someone. I literally veered off the trail in plenty of spots. I can’t count how many times I almost washed out. This caused my night lap to approach 2 hours, where I had my helmet light go out. Yup, dead battery. I charged all our batteries on Thursday, but guess this one discharged a little because they normally last at least 2 hours on high. They required all of us to have helmet and handlebar mounted lights, just in case of shit like this. But now I was worried about my bar light going out. Thankfully I turned that one off when I didn’t need it, so was able to get back with no problems.
I ended up doing 5 laps by 10:30 PM. I have figured out that I simply don’t like going past this point when I haven’t trained for events like this. I haven’t done any training since May, where I was working toward the 24-hour race at Palo Duro Canyon. I thought maybe I could keep some level of fitness by using my commutes to work in Dallas for my riding, and by doing trail work with DORBA for other exercise. This simply does not work well. Good lesson learned.
We all went to bed by 11 PM. I woke up around 3 AM and thought maybe I’d go ride some more. I could see my breath outside it was so cold, so I said fuck that! Got up around sunrise and Sandie and I got ready to go do one last lap together. Karen was out riding a lap already in the morning, and when she got back she was interested in doing another one! Way to commit!
So Sandie and I start out around 8:30 AM, so she could get back before cutoff so Karen could go back out. No problems there. I felt so much better after sleeping. I brought my camera so I could get some pics of Sandie riding. I think she’ll appreciate the pics now even though she was tired on that last lap and probably didn’t care that I was out there chatting it up with her.
I ended up DFL (dead fucking last) in my category. Maybe I should think more positively and say I finished 4th! Sandie and Karen finished 2nd! They were also DFL, but they put in more miles than me! I’m proud of them and glad they experienced riding in a 24-hour event.
Karen and I both won raffle prizes. I got a nice Yakima Holdup 2-bike rack…retail is over $400! I guess it was worth it to come out to the race! Plus I got lots of Hammer Nutrition stuff for free. Karen won a Specialized Captain Control 29er tire, which I ended up getting because she doesn’t have a 29er…sweet! Thanks Karen!
There was an event photographer there…he’s got some pretty good pictures. If you look through some of the pics, you can certainly tell just how dusty it was.
So…I’m burned out from 24-hour racing. Driving more than a few hours to do a race is very hard. It’s even harder being self-supported. And harder yet when trying to do the best you can to help your wonderful girlfriend and another person (Karen) have a good experience so they wouldn’t be turned off from future 24-hour races. Sandie has helped me plenty, and if she or Karen wanted to do another 24-hour race I would surely be their pit crew.
