'Cross Eyed

An hour in hell. That’s how cylocross was first described to me and as I near the conclusion of my second season racing I’d say, yup, that pretty much sums it up. Actually, most local cyclocross races are 45 minutes, so to be factual, cylocross: 45 minutes in hell! Although those 45 minutes in hell are followed by the most intense, overwhelming satisfying endorphin rush I’ve experienced in a lifetime of sports, ranging from wrestling to long distance running. And the pure misery of the 45 minute all-out effort that is cyclocross is alleviated, at least partially, by the chaos that is a cyclocross race.
Picture a hundred people on bikes, riding at a full on sprint, attempting to navigate an obstacle course of a “track” that is often less than 5 feet wide, and comprised of everything from hair pin turns, giant mud pits, massive wooden barriers and the occasional manmade lake. Now picture that course lined with 100’s of spectators, banging cowbells, screaming and tempting the racers to quit with offers ranging from cold beer to hot bacon. Now add in pouring rain and winter temperatures, all set to a sound system blaring deafening 90’s hip hop and that’s cyclocross! Fun, right?

A couple of years ago I bought a cyclocross bike to use as a commuter. In many ways cylocross bikes are the perfect do everything machine. With no suspension and the geometry of a road bike they much more efficient than mountain bikes in covering long distances. With knobby tires and a beefier frame than a traditional road bike they are capable of riding off road. My cyclocross bike, which I affectionately referred to as Burrito Bike, is the work horse in my stable. I use it in bad weather and for the “I just need some exercise” rides that I don’t always feel like doing. It is on the cylocross bike that I burn the calories that enable to me to live largely off burritos. Thus the name! Burrito Bike was a great bike from the moment I got it and I rode it a ton, but I didn’t really have any intention of actually racing it.

Then, on a Saturday night in early fall of 2010 I got a text from Wes asking if I wanted to check out a cyclocross race in Oakland the next day. Wes had the morning clear and thought he’d go see what Bay Area cyclocross races were all about and maybe take some pictures. He, of course, implied that because I already owned a cyclocross bike I should probably actually do the race. There is a C category for “beginners” and I was riding a lot at the time so I thought it would be worth a shot. I didn’t really know what to expect but I considered myself a pretty strong rider and I thought in the back of my head I had a chance to win the thing. A bunch of beginners, how tough could it be?

That first race was eye opening. I got “lapped” in the first 25 minutes and pulled off the course to clear the way for the leaders as they duked it out for the win. Getting “lapped” means the leaders were riding nearly TWICE as fast as I was and I ended up finishing almost dead last. Bam, take that ego! I later learned that C’s are supposed to coordinate roughly with Cat 4/5 on the road bike, certainly not Lance Armstrong, but a long ways from a true beginner cyclist.

Over the rest of the 2010 season, I did two more races although in these races with Wes racing alongside me (Wes, was so impressed by the scene in Oakland that first day that he bought a bike on the spot, in the parking lot). The following races in 2010 played out much the same as the first one, struggling for 20 minutes to not fall or get run over then getting lapped by the lead riders and pulled from the course before the race was done. So much for being a strong rider!

Despite my miserable performance in the three races I took park in, at the end of the 2010 season I was completely hooked on cyclocross. This was head to head racing like I had never experienced in the long distance racing I had done in the past. The intense burn of the short race, the crowds and the sense of community felt more like a high school wrestling match than a triathlon and again, the endorphin release after each race was crazy.

I road my bike a lot in 2011, almost every day. I was on my bike so much it often felt like a second job, a really great job but still a job. In the back of my head I was always thinking about cyclocross. How is it possible that many guys are that much faster than me? With the aid of a new online computer program called Strava I was able to track my training progress throughout the year and when the cyclocross season rolled around in late October I knew I was a stronger than I was last year. I still had no idea how I would stack up to the rest of the field.

In preparing for the first race of the year, with the help of some very experienced racers, I developed a plan. I was going to get to the race early, get in a good warm up, line up at the front and when the whistle blew I was going to kill myself for the first lap and see how long I could hold on. And it worked, kind of. In that first race I got to the start line early, got a good starting position, and when the whistle blew I hit the pedals like my life depended on it. My heart rate spiked to 201, the highest I’ve ever seen it, but I was off the front, out ahead of the pack and I stayed there for about 1 lap before completely exploding and getting passed by 10 guys over the 45 minute event. Trying to hang on after that first lap and was one of the hardest, most uncomfortable things I’ve ever been through in sports, but I finished in a respectable 11th place and even managed to lap a couple of slower riders!

In the second race of the season I employed the same plan. Again, I got to the start early and again when the whistle blew I went like hell. But this time a funny thing happened. I realized a few minutes into the race that I actually felt ok. I mean, I was miserable, but this time it was tolerable, my heart rate definitely wasn’t at 200+ and I was leading the race! After a couple of minutes I found myself in a group of five guys and we were way off the front of the main pack. As the laps started rolling by I remember thinking “I’m not dying, I’m not dying. I feel ok.” And the guys around me, in the front pack, were not looking ok, they looked like they were dying. Over the course of the next few laps, one by one, people started falling off the back of our group, running out of steam. When the bells started clanging indicating one lap left, I looked up and realized it was just me and one other guy. The rest of the field was long gone. And again the thoughts started running, “hang in there, don’t blow this, you can beat this guy, this is your chance to win.” I traded the lead with the other rider (who was wearing pink and black striped tights and had streamers attached to his helmet) a number of times over the course of the final two mile lap, digging as deep as I could, until we came into the final half mile, a long flat section breaking into a left hand turn and then into the final straight away. In that long flat section the guy I was racing made a break and I had no answer.

“That’s it, I have nothing left, it’s over,” I thought, as my mind tried to convince myself struggling legs that second place was a pretty good effort. But as we rounded the last corner, me trailing the lead rider by a good 30 yards – which feels like miles late in a race – and with less than a quarter mile to go I realized he was slowing down. “What is he doing?” I thought, “Why is he slowing down? Did he go too soon?” And then the realization, “He went too soon, he went too soon, I still have a chance” and I poured into the peddles with everything I had. As we pounded into the finish shoot with bells clanging and people screaming, I was right on his wheel. We dismounted for the last obstacle of the course, a barrier of unusual size, side by side. I went over the barrier first and when I hit the ground with the finish line in sight, I started running. It was too close to re-mount my bike. Pushing/dragging the bike I ran as hard as I could towards the line. I could hear him next to me, fumbling to re-mount his bike, then locking in and starting to chase. But his fumbling with his clips gave me some space. I moved out ahead of him and beat him to the line by less than a second! We both crumbled to the ground, shaking hands, kinda hugging each other and mumbling lactic acid induced incoherencies, so high on endorphins I was in another planet.

Of course, all this played out in the lowly C category, racing “beginners.” I’ve since bumped up to B category and now I am right back where I started last year, turning myself inside out trying to not get lapped and pulled off the course. But that’s cycling, there will always be someone faster than you. And the beauty of cyclocross is whether you are in it to win races or you’re just looking for an excuse to drink beer and play in the mud on Sunday afternoons, you are going to have a good time.

There Is No Single Track in Marin - A Great Day In China Camp

(photo by Ken Papai via Google)

Three years ago, I heard about an epic ride on San Pedro Mountain that takes place around April Fool's Day ever year. It's an "underground" endurance ride focused on riding every trail on the mountain in one day.

If you have done a couple of casual loops of China Camp in the past you'd say, "what - that's an endurance event?" If you are a China Camp local, you have a better sense of what this is all about. San Pedro Mountain is composed of a number of different smaller parks: China Camp State Park on its north east side, Harry Barbier open space preserve on the south side and some small miscellaneous parcels of land on the far west side. It is literally covered with trails - they are everywhere, some that are little more than deer tracks, almost none of them mapped. The place is a freakin maze. I've spent my whole life exploring that hill and I still find new trails all the time, I actually rode three trails new to me yesterday.

The ride was billed as a 50 miler with 10,000 feet of climbing, almost entirely on technical, narrow single track. The first time I heard about it I had just started riding seriously and I knew there was no way. Last year I decided to show up, went out way to hard trying to stay with some older guys that didn't look THAT fit, cramped badly within 2 hours and only made it through half. This year, after a solid winter of riding, I was headed back with the NAV crew and a bunch of other friends with the intention of finishing.

The day started early and started cold. I showed up at about 6:45 to an already full parking lot and a brisk, completely beautiful morning. 37 degrees when I got out of my car and the turnout was incredible........100+ riders. With very little messing around and no dramatic pre ride speeches (thank you Joe) we were off and rolling at 7:10. Very punctual for a ride like this.

The ride was split into 4 chapters, all of them super fun, super steep and pretty technical. All four of them had some great moments but in terms of pure fun, the 1st was my favorite (last years second). It inluded 3 of the best descents on the mountain, Hitler, JCC and Oakwood, all while still fresh enough to enjoy them! It also included almost 3k of stupid steep climbing in like 5 miles, but that's how this ride goes.

The second chapter was the most technical, with miles and miles of tight side hill riding with consequence for a mistake. Thanks to the trail ferries out there, hummingbird is awesome right now and was one of the highlights of the ride.

Third chapter was flowy, fun and covered some of the most obscure trails in the park. It was also a bit less steep, which was welcome.

Fourth chapter was pretty blurry for me with some steep sections and some descents that would have been killer if I had any coordination left.

Rather than go into a huge amount of ride details I'll just say it was a super long day on the bike, much suffering was had by all, trails were in really great shape with recent rains and almost all the crew I started with finished. That and it was super fun.

I can't speak for others but I would never have made it through if it wasn't for the people I met and rode with at different points in the day. What sets this ride apart from almost any other ride I've done is the strength of the crew, the diversity in terms of age and personality, and how fucking cool people are. Over the course of the day I met and rode with:

- Two different guys celebrating their 50's birthdays with an epic day on the bike.
- One guy who had his prostate removed less than 3 MONTHS AGO. Are you kidding me? He had his prostate removed this winter and he was in for a ride like this. Riding strongly and talking about anything and everything. He knew everyone on the trail, had something cool to say to everyone he passed and was burning bowls the whole way! Man, if you are out there, you are an inspiration and made that miserable chain strecher climb float by.
-More guys on hardtails and fully rigid bikes than most would think possible on a ride like this.
-At least half the crew on SS's.
-A super friendly EMT volunteer ripping in jeans and a tee.
-Some super strong female riders charging the climbs and descents.
-More peeps in their 50's than in their 20's.
-All in all tons of laughs, smiles and good vibes.

The trails up there are so narrow I find them as mentally tiring as they are physically. There is no break from the concentration, no time to space out like you can on most all day rides. By the end of the day yesterday, my mind was just mush. Coupled with the fact that I lost one of my contacts at Victor Jones Park, the last hour of the ride was completely weird and surreal - I felt like I was tripping. Thanks to Davey and the rest of the crew I met at Victor Jones for the pull home. I had to walk half the last descent cause I couldn't see shit, then ahhh - The Glory of Bucks and a cooler full of cold cokes, non alch's and salt and pepper chips.

Final stats: 52 miles, 9115k climbing and 8:03.

Crashes:

-I had a really solid OTB on my way down 7-11 at the end of the 3rd chapter. I was flowing well and having a ton of fun but already tired and clipped a bar. Hit my right side hard.

-One of the guys I was riding with went off the cliff on Q2 and literally fell 15 feet, down a rocky, poison oak strewn slope. Super Gnarly. He was ok though, and was right back on his bike a few minutes later.

Joe, your the man. Thanks for organizing. I'm sure this was a huge effort and it was appreciated.

There's no single track in Marin, right?