Black Holes and the Beautiful Machine: Final MTB Event for 2011

The end of last week and the start of the weekend held a lot of precipitation for the Barrie area but Sunday dawned with some sun in the sky and a stout wind drying the trails.

It was the day for what would be the final competitive mountain bike event on the OCA calendar and it looked to be a good one. Despite a lousy sleep Saturday night due to wakeful children, I felt pretty awake myself once I got going. I left the house around 8:30am and the shot below shows the car loaded and heading up the road. Rechecking the straps on the bike rack afforded the opportunity for this shot as I don't typically stop on the side of the road to take pictures of the car.

When I got to Hardwood Hills it looked wet but drying, without any standing water in sight. I made my way up to the chalet and transition / start / finish area to see where I could stow my cooler with refreshments. The fall colours were looking good and there was lots of blue sky broken up with clouds being shredded in the the wind.

There was also a Specialized demo day on but my focus was on the race at hand instead of worrying about 29'ers and full suspension as earlier in the year.

While I was up there I was able to exchange the event shirt that I picked up with the race kit the day before. Apparently size small doesn't fit too well even if it IS in the pile that says 'large'. I headed back to the car with a good amount of time to prepare and got all the tire pressures sorted and adjusted the seat post and gears. These are a couple shots of the parking / pit area and the inside of my cooler with a bunch of pre-mixed bottles, 'food' and some emergency supplies - zip ties, 3-way, chain breaker, and a tube.

I got my cooler of stuff and a floor pump stashed just past the start / transition area so I could access it easily mid-race and did a bit of warm up just to make sure my shoes were adjusted and feeling good.

We lined up for the 10:00am start and then were off at a rather leisurely pace. 50 km is a long way to sort out the finishing order so there is no sense in tearing off the start and blowing up after 20 km or so. I took it really easy for the first course which is called 'Serious' and is about a 10 km loop with a bit of moderate climbing and no technical challenge. It is a fun track to race on and I passed when ever it was easy and didn't require any serious efforts. As I said there is a long way yet to go. The picture below was from the end of this lap as I ditched the arm warmers at the cooler before lap #2.

Next we were on to the trail called 'Radical' which is super challenging and technical for a race course. It is 15 km of short, steep ups and downs which are littered with slippery roots punctuated with deep erosion holes. It is very hard to carry any momentum and within the first 800m your heart is pounding. Remembering how I blew up on this trail last year in this event, I made a conscious effort to pace myself and save my legs as I knew it would matter later on in the race. I caught and passed a few people including one guy who fell at least three times while I was behind him. He was all over the place and while he was fit enough, his skills made him look like it was his first time on a mountain bike. The funny thing is how long it took me to go around him, as most of the time the trail was so constricted it was easier for me to dismount and run up behind him than try to ride some of the climbs. Anyway towards the end, he wiped out again and I jumped off my bike to save myself. I felt that familiar vice tighten on my one hamstring but it didn't result in a lasting cramp so that was good. I realized he was a serious detriment to my progress and passed by in a rare open bit and made it stick with a short effort. As I got to the end of that trail it was nice to realize that the hardest terrain and half the total distance were behind me.

Next we did a super easy trail called 'Cranked'. It is 8 km of flowing single track that people often ride on cross bikes. There is nothing hard or technical but it is amazing how the previous two trails can make it feel like there is. This course is pretty much just recovery and on my way through the transition I restocked my gels and bottle. This trail passed with out incident and it was interesting to note how few people I was seeing at this point. Right near the end another rider caught me and we finished the lap together. Here is a shot from near the end of the loop going down a fun little roller before the finish straight.

Onto the second last lap on the trail called 'Gnarly', and yes I pronounce that with an accentuated, hard 'G'. The course is 12 km with only a few modestly technical sections but some really extended climbing (for Hardwood anyway). I was feeling recovered a bit but this is where you learn how well you paced yourself on the previous challenging terrain. It can all go wrong quickly as I learned last year while spending numerous occasions at the side of the trail waiting for my legs to uncramp. I rode with that other guy for the first two thirds of the loop until I left him on a couple of the climbs. I think he was hurting worse than I now was but so far the legs were still working and I continued to try to stay out of the red. One other rider passed both of us but I was able to keep him mostly in sight towards the end of the lap.

One last one to go called 'Fun'. It is a short 5 km that is single track for sure but you might get through on a road bike on a dry day. Super fast when you are fresh and a fun trail to try to ride without using your brakes unless absolutely necessary. Despite the easy nature of the loop it can feel pretty deadly at the end of a 50 km race as I found out last year. This year I was feeling better so I tried to push the pace up the long gradual climb at the start. After a while I felt that adductor thing start to tighten so I backed off a bit. About this time the guy who had passed me previously and who I was now catching literally dove off his bike with a howl and landed bent over with his legs spread and his feet about 5 ft apart. As I got close I asked if he was okay and he just said "Cramping .... so much fun". He was okay so I carried on for the rest of the lap alone and put in a pretty good effort to finish it off. This is a shot right at the end of the lap in the same spot as the previous photo.

I ended up finishing one and a half minutes slower than last year but I actually did better as the conditions were a lot more challenging. My time was about 3 hours 35 minutes and I finished with 80 % of the leaders speed which was up from 77% last year. That put me at 17th of 51 starters in my age category. It was a decent race overall although I have felt sort of fat and slow this fall which may have something to do with no races for a 2 month stretch through the summer. Here is a shot of the finish area in front of the chalet. You can see the wind blowing the covers on the speakers in the foreground.

Here is one last shot showing how nice a day it turned out to be with some blue sky and that amazing clarity you sometimes get when there is not even a hint of haze. It is like you can see a new horizon when you stand somewhere high and the distances seem closer and clearer.