100 miles of what?

Sunday’s ride, summarized in 16 seconds:

The Dirty Bunny Century. The website asks, “How much fun does riding 20 laps of the Bunny Trail sound to you??”

That’s right, 20 laps of the flat, fast, smooth, swoopy Bunny Trail… located at Fantasy Island! The idea was so simultaneously awesome and asinine, how could I resist?

I felt fast for about 2 laps. I blasted out 18 minute laps with a guy on a cyclocross bike and another on a singlespeed, and it felt easy. Maybe a little too easy. Then I cracked and reverted to a sustainable endurance pace. Several people passed me, only to have the race grind to a halt due to a bad cholla incident. Someone that the race leader was passing ended up crashing into a cholla cactus. By the time I got there people had helped remove a lot of it, but it was still pretty bad. We all stood around, made sure the appropriate people knew, then many of us kept riding.

Attempts at a race “restart” were made, but eventually everyone just kept riding.

photo by Paula Morrison

I rode a couple chill laps with Krista Park, and they were well timed (recovery!). After the course was clear and everyone was hammering again, we ramped it up and busted out a couple screaming laps together. Those were fun laps and the trail is more challenging/interesting at speed, but there was no way I could do another lap at Krista’s pace.

photo by Paula Morrison

I fell off big time and once again went into endurance mode, trying to focus on efficiency and cornering without braking. Good cornering practice, for sure.

They called the race at 15 laps, but as I rolled around the hamster wheel for the 14th and 15th time I kept thinking about the question from the website, “How much fun does riding 20 laps of the Bunny Trail sound to you?? On Nov. 14th, you can find out.”

And it was a beautiful day. So I kept rolling, with the blessing of the race organizer, Aaron. The trail was empty (mostly) and the true challenge of the Bunny Century finally presented itself — tedium and boredom. This was exactly the challenge I was looking for, the corner of the pain cave I was hoping to explore. I knew every twist and turn, all the slow corners, the fast ones, where the wind would blow, where I could stand up and pedal, how to avoid the sand traps, where the jumps were. And more than anything I craved change, I craved diversity — even more than stopping. I seriously thought about taking a detour to ride the “snake dancer” loop (whatever that is), just so I could break the chain of “this turn after that turn”, ride something different, bust out of this groundhog day nightmare.

But no, I continued to focus on the trail ahead, eyes blurring at the sight of more and more bike prints in the dust. The Bunny Trail is so flat and fast that you are always on the gas. There are almost no sections where you’re tempted to coast, and few where you don’t have to pay constant attention to your line.

Quite often I’d rail a banked turn or hit something perfect and think, “you know, all of this really is fun, this is a good trail.” But then I’d think of Mary’s quote from Ride the Divide (I finally saw the movie this past weekend!!): “Yeah, it’s beautiful out here, but I’ve already seen beautiful for the last ten days.” (paraphrased). That was my favorite part of the whole movie.

Bunny Trail was fun, but I’d seen this kind of fun, for what felt like the last ten days. But then that is the challenge. One lap I thought about digging out my mp3 player from my duffel bag, but that would be cheating. I decided the point was to get lost in the mind numbing purity of it all. And after a while, it was exactly that — purifying.

I did cheat and take a few breaks from the monotonicity. One lap I stopped to pick up all the gel wrappers on the course (there were only a handful, one of which I’m pretty sure was mine!). Another I stopped to look at a woman’s singlespeed, but it needed a monkey wrench to fix/re-tension. And the best lap was the 20th, when I followed a ~12 year old girl down the most challenging part of the whole loop. Her mom was trying to warn her about it, but she barely slowed down. Her 24″ bike bounced wildly as she hit all the brake bumps, and I started hoping I wasn’t about to witness a crash. She crossed the sandy wash, popped out the other side and nailed the sudden corner with more grace and maintaining more momentum than many of the racers I had followed during the day (myself included on some laps!). “YEAH! You nailed that corner like a pro. Are you a pro?!?” She smiled and laughed when I said that.

The biggest relief was when Paula walked out 2 miles on the course, leaving her croc prints in the dirt. She was awesome, pulling hyper-enthusiastic support for both Krista and me at our tiny feed zone. Having her out there, of course, was energizing, but having something to look at besides never ending TIRE TRACKS was the best part. Not that long ago Paula couldn’t even walk (post hip surgery) so those little croc prints were all the more inspiring to me.

Most everyone was gone by the time I wrapped up my last lap, which actually turned out to be my 21st. So I did 107 miles of the Bunny Trail, and I think that means Krista was the first of everyone to do 15 laps (she actually did 16). I was stoked to learn about the extra lap, because it meant I broke my personal record for 100 miles on dirt (previous was from the Brian Head 100, at ~7:40).

All and all it was a surprisingly fun way to spend a day. But then, it’s mountain biking, and when is mountain biking not fun? I don’t need to ride the Bunny Trail any time soon, though.