Tor de 50

I’m usually shooting photos from the river path on easy rides. This is what my new easy spin loop looks like, and I must say it’s a nice change. Gotta love Tucson’s west side.

Especially love all the trails right close by.

I didn’t even really try to clean this one with my singlespeed torched legs, but Krista went back and cleaned it — on an easy day. Even worse, on one of the Lemmon workout days I skipped the AZT from Molino -> Prison Camp in favor of pure road power and rhythm, while Krista took the trail! I’m not sure who is corrupting who, maybe both!

Preparation for rides hasn’t been the greatest — I found myself in the middle of a Rock Wren sunset with no camera. Although my eyes were there, and so was my imagination, running off into the sky.

Wouldn’t be a winter of ‘training’ (word used loosely) without some fast time at Robles.

It’s fun to move fast out there, but we’re getting to know it so well that I feel like the terrain and trails are the limiting factor.

Adam Kroger joined us for some actual intervals on Redington. Not sure how it ended up being a such a fun day with ZERO singletrack, but I can’t argue with the facts. Sometimes going fast is just plain good for you.

Another cold descent of Lemmon. If we were weaker we wouldn’t make it so high and wouldn’t need to carry so much extra clothing.

Tor de 50

I split from the training plan to join a very exciting new event on the Arizona Endurance Series calendar. The rough idea for it came together while I was staying at Chad’s house. He wanted to base a 50 year loop out of Catalina and host a mountain bike party .. .. why not make it a hard loop through both the Tortolitas and the 50 year?

Being close to Tucson, the turnout was good.

We rolled out of Catalina slowly, then put some tires on cow singletrack to beat it in a bit. Then it was time to race. While singletrack I kept the fast guys contained with my slow pace, but as it opened to double track I could feel the Nimbus jerseys surrounding me like a blue and red swarm of bees. Before they got me the green hornet, Kurt Refsnider, shot around all of them, pausing to give me ‘the look’ back and a big toothy grin before continuing his attack. A smile was my only response. I was still waiting for my legs to come online, and knew there would be some minor chaos in these first few miles.

Sure enough, hopping the fence was tricky, staying on the trail was tricky, staying clipped in was tricky, and keeping tires inflated was tricky. It’s mountain biking! I had my own minor issues, but passed Kurt and Renee on a wrong turn, Daryll fell back in the techy stuff, then flatted big time, and I rocked the Como descent with only one STUPID dab. Should have had it. I was actually quite nervous going into it since I think I have ridden it only… twice? And only on a bike with 2.4 tires. Knowing that it was all rideable went a long way, but there were still some nice moments of disbelief, like when my tires ceased sliding with only a half inch of trail tread to spare. Exciting!

I followed the GPS track to Moore road where it’s all open pavement with a huge sight line back. I wasn’t sure if I was seeing roadies or Tor de 50 riders behind me, but tried to coax my legs into staying on top of the pedals anyway. Hmmm, base pace isn’t so hard, and I did that for HOURS … I can do it for a few more minutes.

Upper Javelina climbs into the heart of the Tortolitas and is full of granny ring tasty tech goodies. It has my name all over it, and was where I planned to focus my efforts. As I started I could see/hear Kurt three switchbacks down — he was close, but let’s see how well he climbs techy trail!

REALLY well. He kept the same gap throughout all of the climb, never getting closer or further. His bright green jersey was easy to pick out amongst the orange rock, but I couldn’t make it disappear. He really kept the pressure on, which was both awesome and a little frustrating to see. The overriding thought that kept popping into my head was “why don’t I ride here more often?”

I didn’t know the new trail that bypasses the goat corral wash, but I did know it was designed/built by Mark Flint. That meant I could keep it in middle ring and keep the power on. But Kurt was still there. I knew he made time up on the last road section, so my goal was to get out of sight by the time we hit the next one. To that end, I pinned the 4×4 climb to the crest of the Tortolitas, then used each and every berm (yes!) on the downhill to keep the speed up. There was no sign of him each time I looked back on Edwin road, much to my surprise.

That section was long — crossing the flats between the Tortolitas and Catalinas in a fury of big rings and flying dust. I took a brief rest on Lago del Oro, reminding myself that I had a bit of a route finding challenge coming up. Before I could even think about what the track was doing a snarling dog came flying out of the ranch house and took up chase. He nipped at my heels and barked until I finally outran him. I looked back and the little bastard had only given up because he knew exactly where I was going on the trail — it makes a big U-turn and he was jogging across the field, resting for the next round. Sure enough, he T-boned into me and shot right back up to speed. That was the fastest I rode the entire race.

Once my heart rate returned from the stratosphere, my legs responded. Climbing up the chutes I felt like I was going down them, carrying too much speed into corners and using momentum to great effect — good thing the corners are bermed out! I hit the upper 50 climb, very familiar ground, and smiled at the idea of getting to ‘race’ through here. There wasn’t much racing going on once I found the turn to Round the Mountain and started pushing my bike up it. A tire or two to follow would have helped, and the super tight turns around cactus were a bit of a buzzkill after the coasting-like climbing through the chutes. But I knew where we were going, and that the reward was worth it.

The “Cherry Tank” trail is a gem, and as it leads into the midgate descent and back to the 50 year loop, it’s one of my favorite ways to end a ride — be it a 50 year tech session or a from-town Lemmon Epic. I wasn’t particularly killing it or nailing the moves, but it still went all too quickly. On Midgate I found myself skipping the B-lines with bad consequences — I don’t really know the regular lines, and had a couple stupid moments and pedal slams. Still, each little climb was effortless, and the feeling of power in my legs was grin inducing.

I rolled into Chad’s house just two minutes under five hours, and found him already cooking! He had broken a pivot bolt on his bike, carried it out and been given a ride home by some kind hikers. Bummer.

The good part (for me… :)) was that meant I didn’t have to wait for the tacos to be ready! 😀 Neither did Kurt, who came in just 9 minutes behind me, on a completely new-to-him course.

Chad really outdid himself, and the carne asada was top notch, tasting even better after a hard effort on the bike.

Get Benji some beer, stat! Great riding by Benji, Aaron, and many others.

Finishing to smiling faces, the smell of cooking meat and a keg of beer is a pretty good way to wrap up a ride, I imagine.

Thanks for hosting all of us Chad — the food, the route, the inspiration. It’s everything the Arizona Endurance Series is all about.

Results are here, if you’re curious.

Before the “Tor” I had set the goal of getting back to Chad’s house first and then hammering Fantasy Island with Krista the next day, to grab the fastest Rocks n Clocks time, and up the ante on the free MBAA race entry offered. It seemed a far fetched Fantasy ( <--- ha!), especially given the number of strong riders at the Tor, but it was a good goal nonetheless. Even if I were dead tired, I'd serve as a good punching bag for Krista to beat up on and ride away from (as she often does, both). How to erase the fatigue of 54 miles in 5 hours as quickly as possible? Probably not by standing around talking to people, but it was too fun to hang out and chat. Eat six carne asada tacos? Yep, there we go. Then snooze at Chad's house and head to Claire's for eggs, bacon, biscuit and home fries! Chill at Chad's, then proceed to Fantasy Island and attempt to ride a bike faster than I ever did at the Tor de 50 (exception being when I was chased by the dog!). I think I need to start waking up earlier, or drinking coffee or something. I haven't felt like riding fast at the start of any of the last three weekend races, but it was afternoon at Fantasy Island, and as we warmed up I couldn't believe that my legs were saying GO! I couldn't believe my legs were there at all, really. Last time we blasted around I was on the big bike, and once we started it was obvious how much faster I was, especially accelerating out of corners. I had power for hills of Fantasy Island length (~15 seconds) and no more. There's one straightaway followed by a few 'switchbacks' that takes more than 15 seconds, and took more than a big toll on me. It might have just been that I was nearing the end of the lap and running out of juice. I kept my mental coach going, trying to keep my feet on top of the pedals on each climb -- no slacking. I stopped my timer at 47:02, and was pretty sure that did it, but it wasn't until Krista looked up the time on her phone outside Subway that we confirmed it. She came speeding by a bit later than me, having paced correctly for two+ laps. I had paced poorly, even for 1 lap, so while I tried to stay with her for the second lap as soon as she hit some open flat areas and laid out some power, I fell off. My time will go down quickly, but it was a good way to round out the weekend. That'll be my last ride with Krista for a while -- she is off around the world to start her 2012 race season and it's going to be fun to follow along and see her kick some butt. Best of luck Krista, thanks for all the rides and the motivation. I still don't know where I'm going to direct my riding energies this year (or really much about the future at all, which is kind of exciting), but I do know that there are some very good options, all of which are easy to get fired up about.