Flagstaff XC

A curious set of circumstances resulted in the brain patterns necessary to convince myself to race “cross country” again. Ironically, a large part of what led me to race XC was the two days of lift served downhilling at Winter Park. I’ll leave the ‘how’ behind that one as an exercise for the reader.

Beyond convincing myself, I was bursting at the seams, wanting to ride fast and hard, without planning and without regard for any kind of endurance. The closest thing (both spatially and temporally) was the Absolute Bikes Old Fashioned MTB race. So I signed up, and I put a big ring on my bike, for the first time in… 5 years? At only 30 miles, this would be the shortest race I’d done for about 8 years.

how do I shift with 3 rings again?

I rolled into Flagstaff and went for a lap. The course is pretty flat, but the singletrack is “race techy.” It’s almost identical to the route that the Coconino Loop finishes on. Some good stuff in there.

My “pre ride” was terrible. I hit every rock wrong and my legs felt like they were filled with lead. These last two weeks of riding hard in the desert have left a mark. Though it wasn’t even 80 degrees, I felt hot and burnt out.

Fortunately I had hooked up with Handlebar Nathan who lives right near the course and was also doing the race. I had a relaxing evening at his house, and woke up feeling much better.

The Pro/Expert start was insanely fast. 3 miles of slight uphill, big ring, high RPM, burning rubber. I did my best to stay with the group, but eventually I didn’t have enough of anything to stay with them. Anything = legs, lungs, heart, mind. There was no identifiable weakness, all were lacking.

The start is fast because the singletrack is near impossible to pass on. I could see the leaders as we turned off onto trail, but was sitting in 13th or 14th place. It soon became clear that many of the riders in front of me had lost their composure. They were bamboozled by the aggressive start and could not ride anything techy. I wouldn’t say I had much composure myself, and may have only been saved by my bike, which handles rocks so well you can ride it brain dead. Art Keith and I got stuck behind one guy for quite a while that wouldn’t yield even when he was off and walking. It was a good excuse to recover a bit, though.

“You’re taking some nice lines, are you a local?”

I laughed but absorbed the compliment nonetheless. Art disappeared on the downhill into the conclusion of lap 1.

Two guys worked together to pass/drop me on the smooth dirt road. I do not have the leg speed to push a gear like that. I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise since I never ride with that kind of gearing or speed. But I did know where a clear passing zone was on the singletrack. I caught them, backed off, then sped up and blew by them as fast as I could. Once out of sight, recover.

I saw another opportunity to attack when Art unclipped in front of me on the pipeline. I knew he could descend Moto trail much faster than me, but that if I got out of sight the carrot would be gone. So I put everything I had into the last rises and tried to regain myself while catching air on down the trail.

The third lap was, as expected, filled with pain. This is exactly what I was looking for. Teetering on the edge of collapse, and desperately trying to hold it all together. All the while there are guys in front that might be taken down and guys behind that will appear with a moment’s hesitation. I loved it.

It was a bit of a challenge to navigate around the racers we were lapping. But everyone was nice and I was wasting energy being encouraging (esp. to the juniors). Why be so serious, anyway? Only one guy really screwed me up, but I didn’t care because he genuinely tried to ride the rock pile that he dabbed on. It wasn’t a half hearted “I’m not going to make this anyway” kind of effort, but a grit the teeth pedal hard push. So that was cool with me, whatever class he was in.

My legs failed on the pipeline. I had to walk. I smiled at this, knowing I had accomplished the mission of shattering myself (my only goal for the race). But I looked back and a certain rider in green caught my eye. His body language said he was still motivated and had actually been moving up the ranks just behind me.

I had a small gap, and intended to keep it. But I wasn’t intending to take any chances on the downhill. This race is definitely not worth a crash! But I rode as smoothly as I could, and comparing the GPX file for my laps shows I was ~20 seconds faster than either of lap 1 and 2’s descents.

But I still got caught! After not hearing anyone behind for the entire descent, he appeared behind just as we got to the final half mile. That half mile has three short descents and three short climbs. He jammed it to get right behind me, first saying “on your right.”

“Nice try,” I thought. I was impressed, but though my whole body cried to let him pass and coast in, this was a rare opportunity, a real race situation. 2.5 hours of hard riding had resulted in the two of us being neck and neck at the finish, and neither of us were going to give in.

I ran through the next sections of trail in my mind, thinking not only how much was left, but where possible passing areas were. I did my best to accelerate each time I saw a wide spot approaching. But he did the same and I saw his front wheel in my periphery three different times! Each time I countered the attack I’d enjoy a split second of relief, before it was time to counter the next one. It was all guts, and all I could think is, “wow, now this is racing.” Brilliant. It was hard to tell what exactly was going on, because all efforts were focused on one thing — standing up and pedaling HARD. It would have been so easy to give in, but I planted a firm “NO” in my mind, and the resulting brain rush temporarily suspended all sensations of pain.

“I think it’s all downhill from here?!” And it’s so sketchy that he’d have to be insane to try and pass! He wasn’t insane, but we still came cooking around the last corner up to the line.

Turns out we were dueling for 4th place, just out of the “money”, but the rewards of the contest were far deeper than that. We gave high fives and agreed that we both really enjoyed the duel. My legs felt so bad (on the verge of cramping) that I couldn’t stick around long, I had to go pedal, spin them out.

A crappy photo of the not-yet-complete results. Full results here. 12.1 mph average speed!? That still cracks me up.

Nathan and I pedaled commuter bikes downtown for the free pizza and awards. The guys at Absolute Bikes put on a great event. Nathan had rocked it into a 3rd place podium in the singlespeed category. We will both find out if this race was a good tune up for the Vapor Trail 125 or not.

The next day Troy took me out for a spin through the AZT…

… and through fields of flowers. This is the “Flag bypass” of the AZT, which the AZTR does not use, neither have I ridden it before. Some great country out there, and little used trail. Also along for the ride was Mr. “J-money.”

Not content simply to coast through flowers with them whapping his handlebars, or to devour the colors with his eyes, Troy stopped to eat them too! He’s too much fun to ride with.

It was a nice 25 mile cruise with beautiful weather, wrapping up a super weekend in Flagstaff. I really miss that place. Thanks a bunch to Nathan for the place to crash and Troy for the AZT ride.