Big Wheel Racing

As the song says….”it’s a long way to the top, if you wanna rock-n-roll.”
Very fitting for the Vapor Trail as the climbs are long, and the descents rip roaring fun. I entered for the 5th time this year, and got my fourth finish in this event in the five tries. The gearing was different again this year, with the choice of 34×22 instead of last years 32×21, and as such a little more than half a gear inch taller. If I am smart enough to remember to read this for next year, I’ll recommend to go with the 32×21.

Clothing was the same as the 2009 report here in this blog, except that I never once put on the leg warmers – as the Boure knee warmers worked well. I did wear the Lake winter shoes and changed to my Sidis at Monarch. Only a jersey under the Pactimo Thermal Jacket was all I needed on the upper body, and the Craft Lobsters shells over the Black Diamond wind block fleece gloves did the trick for the hands.

We started at the now usual 10-PM in downtown Salida at the bridge, and got a nice police escort out of town. Tons of people were downtown cheering us on and it was very cool to see that. When the long neutral start finished, I settled into the second group of racers headed up to the Colorado Trail, following Huck and Dan from Crested Butte, both of the Brick Oven Team (Dan owns the Brick Oven actually, and Huck has his office just right above it). We hit the CT, and we quickly strung out so that there was no conga line or any leap frogging going on. Nothing spectacular, except for the banana I found on the trail right when I was starting a hike-a-bike section, so it was just too easy to pick it up, eat it, and move on. Hey that thing came all the way from Central America, hand picked, loaded on mules, floated on barges and overseas cargo ships and then trains and trucks to a supermarket here in Colorado. I HAD to eat that thing given its journey to the remote trail up in the Colorado Rocky Mountains!

The moon was full, the trails were wet and packed down, and the usual aid stations were well stocked and full of great hosts. I grabbed some grilled cheese sandwiches at the first one, a pancake and sausage breakfast at the second one, and cookies, Hammer Products, cokes, etc all through the race. I did this race again with just 3 water bottles and no pack on my back, and toward the end, just filled up 2 bottles because once past Aid Station No. 2, they are all less than a couple of hours apart after that..

I did not see any other single speeders all evening, as Jeff Hemperley rolled pretty slow after the neutral roll out. No Kevin Thomas this year in his backyard, and of the other single speeders, I recall seeing Andy Lapkass and his fully rigid bike; I met Chad Brockmeyer; and later learned Esther Horiyani was also rocking the one gear. There might have been others, but I did not see too many this year. I ended up finishing 9th place overall, and the 1st singlespeeder to finish again, which is the third time this has happened at the VT 125 for me. Results are located here. I actually was in 7th place up until mile 123, but got passed by two geared riders on the flat paved road right near the finish. I knew it was coming however, because it ALWAYS happens like this for single speeders on this course. Last year it was 3 or 4 who slipped by me at the end, and it’s always somewhat frustrating to see. You would think an offer for a road pull might happen, but hey it’s racing and it comes with the territory of single speeding. That said, perhaps someday a geared racing may wish to go down in history and pull one of us into the finish.

The ending at the Shawn Gillis household was great as usual, with burgers cooked up on the grill, Avery Beer, and my favorite – the chocolate chip bars and iced brownies! You would think I would skip the sugar after eating all the sugar during the 16+ hours of racing, but nope, these taste too darn good! Had some good conversations with friends, and then rolled into the Silver Lodge Motel, in lieu of my planned camping up at Blanks Cabin. I just wanted a shower, a bed, and some TV.

After doing this race so many times, this year was so stress free and casual from the preparation, to the event itself, and to the finish. I purposely left the Garmin 305 off of the bike this year and had no clock or mileage computer, and that added an extra level of peacefulness out there. I ended up looking at the scenery more this year, perhaps in part because of the full moon and how it lit up the massive mountains an valleys. In fact, after Dan Loftus dropped me on the Old Monarch Pass – a tad before the halfway point – I rode the course alone, except for some recreational riders along the way, many of whom were out to cheer us racers on.

The White Brothers Loop fork was perfect and I just love the 100mm travel now. The Moots did work flawlessly, and I only had two mechanical issues – the Moots CinchPost slipped again like it did at HC100 – and I bent my 34t chain ring pretty bad. The ring is a Surly Stainless Steel cog, and my front tire kicked up a sweet potato sized rock that hit my shin and then bounced right under the chain and I pedaled through, bending the cog. Good thing this was steel, as i just kicked the ring back into “true.” Prior to that i actually thought I may have a DNF with the bent ring. If that ring had been aluminum no way would it have been salvageable.

I’ll be back next year, and am proud to have finished this monster again.

Matt

This entry was posted on Monday, September 19th, 2011 at 5:14 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.