Big Wheel Racing

Whew, what a weekend!  I signed up for both the 1/2 Burner and 1/2 Growler, with the first day being a 25k trail run, that finished at exactly 16-miles and nearly 2700-ft of climbing.  The 1/2 Growler finished with nearly 35 miles and 4350-ft of climbing the following day.

I’ve been training for the 1/2 Burner by running at least one day a week, mostly up on Raiders Ridge and around the College.  If I was able to fit in one other day of running, it would usually be half that loop.  So with that, the fitness for the Burner was there anaerobically, but not in the joints or feet and it showed.  I started out the Burner actually very well as there was a lot of climbing right off the bat and it included some rocky, chunky sections that was similar to the ridge.  By the time though we hit Broken Shovel, that fast smooth downhill sections proved to be my toughest challenge as the joint strength was just not there to keep pace with others.  I hit the first aid station ahead of a lot of people, but spent the rest of the day getting passed, but I did finish under 3 hours and I was happy with the result.  The Garmin showed some interesting numbers as I spent 1 hour 45-minutes in the anaerobic zone, out of my entire 2:57 finish time.  I was spent when I finished, and when I made it back to the IOOF Park, I grabbed a beer and vomited it not 15-minutes after finishing it! I grabbed a sandwich at The Bean, went back to the motel and slept for a couple hours….and found my un eaten sandwich snuggled up to the pillow when I awoke.  Somehow, I downed it when I awoke but left crumbs all over the bed.

Waking up for the mountain bike race the following day was a chore, because I really hurt bad.  The Burner started at 7:30-AM and I assumed the Growler started at the same time.  Alarm went off at 6:00AM and I lay there contemplating whether I actually wanted to do the race. I checked the i-phone for last minute information and freaked out when I saw the Growler start for 7:00.  So I got up quickly and scrambled to the start.  Got to the back of the pack and the FooMTB handlebar bell fell off, so I had a last minute scramble to mess with that.  Gun shots went off and I could barely pedal.  I got dropped on the pavement somewhere around the KOA as my legs did not want to spin the 34×21 muy rapido.  Looked to be a couple hundred people in front of me – doh!

I told myself to just ride the 1/2 Growler and not race it, so I tucked away any silly yo-yo instincts with other racers.  I figured I’d be super courteous, pass when and where necessary and pull to the side for others when necessary.  I started slowly and felt horrible, but after an hour or so the legs did come back and much to the opposite of the Burner, I spent the last part of the day passing people instead of being passed like at the Burner.  So I felt good and finished feeling well.  I was a bit suprised too when I saw the result, it looks like I finished 18th overall and 2nd place on the singlespeed.  In a weird bit of irony though, I only had 5 minutes of anaerobic activity and finished better than the Burner result with all that effort!

I rode the Moots Mooto-X YBB and it was dialed in perfectly with the divine ratio gearing.  I’ve been racing Moots since 2007 and they truly make the most dependable race bike out there.  The White Brothers Fork was set up smooth and plush thanks to the IMV control.  My usual Hammer Nutrition in the bottles, of which the Moots has 3 mounts for and they were held in place by my trusty King Cages - made here in Durango!  My rode my Stans No Tubes racing wheelset and had no worries running tubeless.  Big Wheel Racing has some awesome sponsors and I truly appreciate their support.

I rolled into town with Dan Durland and another racer and then went to the hotel and showered – that is after i drank a beer and did NOT throw it up this time.  Stopped by the finish and spoke to some Crested Butte / Gunny locals as I am working on my honorary citizenship card there.  I love Durango, but part of my soul lives in that area to the North.  Hoping to see some of those faces at the DDC for sure.  But I decided to not wait for the awards and I drove home to meet Jeni at Steamworks while the IH Bike Race was just finishing.  Drank some brews and ate a nice dinner and met with some local friends.  Good weekend and I hope to be back next year…for who knows….the Full Enchilada?

Big Wheel Racing was well represented with Andrew, Mike and Mark out there as well so I will let them tell their tales as well.

-Matt

kicked  my ass and made for an absolutely stellar day of riding at Phil’s World!!!  The dreaded 7am LeMans start wasn’t so bad, even on very little sleep, but I made the mistake of taking it all a little too leisurely.  Lap 1 was my (embarrassingly) slowest lap of the day-  lesson learned!!!  Singletrack bottlenecks, standstills and grumpy racers galore thinned out somewhere in Lap 2…  where I finally got my legs under me, settled into a nice pace complete with perma-grin,  and started methodically picking off racers in the solo women’s field. 

So, I should say those embarrassingly slow starts of mine are always followed by a gradual, consistent windup that suits me.  By Lap 4, halfway through the day, I’d moved myself up from my measly 14^th place into 3^rd, where I would stay until… the end.    (Damn!!) 

Somewhere around mile 90, halfway through Lap 6, the exquisite heat of the day led me into a deep, dark funk comprised largely of electrolyte imbalance and dehydration… ohhhh, falling badly off pace and not caring.   Cognitive delay.. I think that’s when I’m thinking I should make for that sweet line and get my ass back off my saddle… and my response time is horribly off.  YIKES. 

Somehow through my mental haze,  I remembered my goal for the day:  make it back from Lap 6 for last lap cut-off at 6pm!   An agitated team rider (probably riding like his second lap) whipped by me with a curt “on your left” and it jolted me awake:  Move it, Barfoot!!

I did make the cutoff, rolling in at 5:58pm… to be told that the two solo riders in first and second place were now about 12 minutes ahead of me.  I was slumped over my bike in the pit- deeply fogged, head hanging, legs cramped and feeling generally pathetic, thinking there is no way in hell I’m gonna catch those two, and knowing that my position in 3^rd was locked in.  I also knew I was done.  I regret giving up and not blazing out (ok,uh… limping on at recovery pace) on a grand Lap 7…. 

But that is my project for next year!!  I’ll be back- with Endurolyte in my jersey pocket.  This year, 98+ miles counts for something.  No mechanicals and no crashes.  And remember- most importantly- I was GRINNING for most of that!!!

Thanks to Raw Revolution, for supplying the amazing raw bars I consumed for the first 6 hours of the race, and Congrats to the always amiable Lenny Goodell and the righteous Steve Reiter- SS 2^nd Place!  BWR made its mark at 12 hours of Mesa Verde in 2011- and the season’s just beginning.

-Rebecca Barfoot, Durango CO

Ironically, we didn’t ride the Voodoo trail; only a little bit of the Voodoo detour. The day started with some last minute changes; the start was moved back to 8:45am and the course was changed to 3 23 mile laps plus about a 2 mile paved start. Depending on who’s computer and/or GPS you checked the race was about 70 miles with 3500 feet of climbing. That sounds like less of a challenge than it was; it was a deceptively challenging course. Oh, the weather wasn’t awesome either. It may have gone above 50F occasionaly with some sun, but it was usually cooler than that with a constant wind of 10-15 mph on a course that was almost always exposed to that draining wind.

On to the race itself. I had an exciting warm up; I sprinted from my car riding head on to the start line to flip my bike around on the front row as they started the count down from 20 sec. I immediately punched it off the line only to have a pick up blare its horn at me; I forgot we were doing a neutral start. This gave the rest of the front of the race a good chuckle. Once our neutral bit was over we had a nice little paved climb of just over a kilometer. This was followed by another roughly kilometer of rolling pavement leading to a very hard right onto the single track. I was feeling good and the climb hadn’t shed enough of the field for my comfort, so I took the whole shot. Not long into the trail we had a short climb up Rodeo that gets a bit steep and rocky. I rode hard tempo up this and managed to gap everyone. Up top I felt the wind and exercised a little wisdom; I eased up just a bit and a nice little lead group of 4-5 formed (we had one guy hanging just off the back). We ripped down Cuatro Cinco to South Shore and up Pedro’s Point to a new singletrack back out to Pedro’s. After this we had another new connector trail that everyone loved (sorry, I can’t type with the appropriate sarcasm) that I’m calling Gopher Holes. We used this to get out to Voodoo Detour and over to Outer Limits. This was great for me until about 45 minutes in. I was sitting 2nd or 3rd wheel feeling very comfortable until I got a flat and watched the 4 guys fly away from me in a paceline in the wind.

Once I got over being pretty peeved after such a good start for me I got my flat fixed and got my head back in to it. I had fallen back to roughly 15th and it was hard work picking off folks on the Outer Limits trail. Once we got onto Pedro’s Point I set a hard tempo on the rolling double track until a fast rip down Waterfall. From there we had our biggest climb up Rock Canyon to Arkansas Point and Roller Coaster which has more punchy climbs. This is followed by a fun rip down Stonehenge to finish out the lap on the punchy and fast South Shore trail. Sorry for the lengthy course description, but maybe someone reading this will want to check out the course some time.

I was 4:30 off the lead after all of this and went out hard on lap 2. Every little while I’d work with another rider briefly, but mostly I went at it solo and got after it fast to finish lap 2 just under 2 minutes off first. Pretty early on lap 3, out on Voodoo Detour, I took over 3rd by myself. Unfortunately I knew 1 and 2 were working together and both are seriously fast guys who can put the hurt on me. So, I did what I could to stay steady on lap 3 and managed to hold 3rd overall.

Sorry to put this at the end; I wanted to get out the race description while I still remembered everything. Big shout out to Brad, Steve, and Mark (all of BWR) who are all better men than me; they took on this day on single speeds and all put in very good rides. Don’t quote me on this but I believe Mark was 3rd and Steve 6th in SS. Brad put in a very good time too, especially when you know he lives in Breck where I can’t imagine the conditions have been great for building a big base.

I’ve probably written too much, so thats it for now. Hopefully I’ll be blogging here again with some more good BWR results soon. Happy trails.

This year’s Dawn Til Dusk race in Gallup was shortened to 10 hours due to crappy weather.  I don’t think anyone was surprised; the forecast all week had been calling for wind, rain, snow, and cold temps.  If anything, we were lucky to have a dry morning…the storm appeared to slow down a bit, and the moisture didn’t hit until after noon. 

The first two laps were amazing, racing a fast, tacky trail under a broken sky and temps in the high 30′s.  Then, the high winds kicked up, breaking legs and blowing racers off their lines.  The exposed parts of the course were exciting…a poorly timed gust could send you to your death…all the more reason to hammer through.  The rain and snow came during my sixth lap, at around 1-1:30 PM.  The trail quickly deteriorated into gritty, slipperly mud.  It was an easy decision for me to bail after 6 laps.  I’d heard horror stories about cars being stuck in the staging area in 2009, and my Nissan Altima is definitely not a mud bogger.  Incredible job to those who toughed out the afternoon. 

All in all, not a bad day.  I haven’t been on the singlespeed much this spring, so it was good to get some SS mileage.  My new White Brothers fork was amazing and I’m sure it’s well broken in now.  Congrats to the other BWR’s who were down there also.  Steve Reiter, Durango

Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos…everything I touched turned to mud, so I left my camera safely in it’s case.

Sorry I’m late getting this posted up, but here is my first shot at contributing to the team blog.
The simplest and most true thing I can say about 24 HITOP is that it was a survival ride for me. The first big factor in this year’s event was the weather. There were sustained winds of 30-40kph with gusts over 70kph from the start through 9 or 10pm. Just for fun there were some blowing rain storms and even a little hail thrown in. On the bright side once all of that was done the wind calmed down and the course was super tacky. I’m sure at that point it was really fun if you had the legs to go fast (I did not!).
Now that I covered the basics of the great weather I’ll see what I can remember about the race itself for me. I hate running, so the start was no fun. My first lap was conservative, about 65 minutes including the run, and my second lap was slower. Starting lap 3 I found a rhythm and rode my way back into 2nd. According to my fantastic crew of Sarah and Tim I even had back to back laps where I gained time on the eventual winner getting to within 5 minutes. Obviously, that didn’t last. I rode a hard lap into the rain in the dark without good rain gear leading to a really long pit to completely redress and try to dry out. There wasn’t much to the race for me after that; pretty much ride a lap followed by really long pits to get warm and dry. On lap 14 I briefly thought I could ride fast again, but completely blew up (just ask Jeff how he dropped me like a fat kid on a Huffy on the High Point trail). I rode lap 15 w/ Sarah finishing up about 11:35am at which point we camped out in front of the exchange tent hoping 4th place wouldn’t roll in and force me out for #16.
Probably not the greatest BWR race wrap up to date, but thats about all I remember. I do plan to be back next year and get a better podium spot for BWR!