Tatanka 100
The Tatanka 100 takes place in the Black
Hills of South Dakota, with the start and finish in Sturgis. I was curious how
a bunch of spandex wearing self-propelled mountain bikers would fit into the
world of leather clad Harley’s? What I saw was this town is dead in June. The
famous Sturgis Motorbike Rally doesn’t take place till August, so most of the
bars were closed and only a few “bikers” were in town. Hell, there were more
people in town for a Camaro car rally than motorcyclists. And as far as Tatanka
cyclists, we were 100 strong, but spread out between the town of Spearfish, 22
miles to the West, and Rapid City, 28 miles to the Southeast. So, our impact of
taking over the town was rather meek. Regardless, this did not deter us from
taking in all the sights Sturgis had to offer. And after a 5 minute drive
through town, feeling we took it all in, we headed to Rapid City. Here we
fueled up with great Indian food at Katmandu and walked the downtown Summer Night’s
festivities with outdoor concerts, art exhibits, and excellent people watching.
Rapid City seemed to be a cool town and, found out later that it is supposed to
have a lot of great single track. If you’re driving I-90 passing through Rapid
City, I would stop and check out the biking. You might just find a permanent
place to stay?
Back in Sturgis we prepped for race day,
organizing our drop bags, figuring out nutrition for the 103ish mile ride, and
driving from aid to aid so our pit crew (aka, Mom and Jake dog) knew where to
go. If you’ve entered long endurance races, you know it messes with the GI
system. I plan days ahead. With a diet of fruits and veggies during the drive
to Sturgis and the Indian food for dinner, my GI was clean and ready to ROCK come
race day. Race start time was 5am. The promoters wanted to start at first light
to give riders “17 hours of daylight riding”. It’s hard enough to be in the
saddle for 12 hours, I don’t want to know the taint pain of 17 hours. But, if
you have a mechanical it’s good to know you have time to finish. Another part
of Tatanka 100 is the Black Hills 100 running race. The running race actually
preceded the bike race by three years. There are three categories: 50K, 100K,
and 100mile. Now, it’s hard enough riding a bike a 100 miles let alone running
100 miles. Runners are silly. The running race started an hour after we left.
The Tatanka 100 race director advised, “if a runner passes you, you should
probably think about quitting”.
At 4:45am we were at the start ready to
roll. The plan was a police escorted neutral rollout through town to a gravel
road. Once there, we were off for five miles of dirt road then to single track
(Centennial Trail). So at 5am we headed out. Now they talked about a
“neutral rollout through town”, but I don’t think they told the police officer
of this plan, or he had thoughts we were racing Tour De France. He took off at
the start and there was no catching him till he stopped to block traffic while
we turned off to the gravel road. Despite the early wakeup, I felt great! My
lungs loved the lower elevation and dry air. At one point I looked down and saw
my HR was 160 (I’ve never had it higher than 153), but still felt great. The
race was broken down into four sections: Sturgis to Dalton Lake, Dalton Lake to
Silver City, Silver City to Englewood, and Englewood to Sturgis.
The first section follows the Centennial
trail, a flowy fun smooth single track trail with great views of the Black
Hills. The ups were very manageable and I was feeling really good enjoying the
scenery around me. The pack had spread out and I hooked on to a racer from
Ontario. I like it when there’s another rider you can talk with and enjoy the
trail with. We motored through stream crossings, rain forest like vegetation, up
dry canyons, and bombed down loose single track to Dalton Lake. Dalton was the
third aid, but first drop of the race. Luckily Niki and I had my mom come out
to help crew. She greeted me with cold water and a restock of Portables (http://feedzonecookbook.com/category/portables/). Once restocked, I was on to the second
section, Dalton to Silver Lake.
The second section began with ATV two
track and mostly stayed that way through to Silver City. The race organizers
said there’s 60+ miles of singletrack. And after the first 25ish miles, I was
looking forward to another 35 miles of the same sweet single track,
unfortunately, it never came. This section was mostly loose funky off camber
ATV trail and every so often we had to dodge ATVs and Razors. When the trail
did turn to singletrack it was clear that it was not built by mountain bikers.
One downhill section was a steep loose 60 degree off camber trail that wanted
to shoot you off the hillside where big trees and rock cliffs were waiting to
cheese grate you down the mountain and spit you out. At this point my sphincter
tightened and all I could do was hold on and ride it out hoping for the best.
At Silver City, despite the challenges of the last section, I was feeling
pretty good. According to the race description the worst of the climbing was
behind me. The rest had “enough to challenge, but to still allow mere mortals
to finish the race”. So after being restocked by mom and hosing my head down
with cold water, I was off to Lakewood.
This
section of the race follows the Mickelson Trail #40 along Rapid Creek. This was
a great recovery trail from the shit storm of the last 20ish miles. The trail
is a smooth tacky singletrack that follows Rapid Creek. Rapid Creek was
anything but rapid. While riding, I couldn’t help but read the stream and think
where there would be trout just waiting to take a fly. A perfect 3wt trout
stream where one could just enjoy the day. Eventually, my daydreaming ended
with the trail. Well, the trail didn’t quite end, but went straight up. I was
at the mandatory hike-a-bike section. When I say hike-a-bike, I mean pick your
bike up, dig your cleats in, and claw your way up 100 meters of steep ass
hillside. If anything, Tatanka 100 delivers trail diversity. Once on top there
was some flowy singletrack down to the Mickelson Rail Trail. I should have
caught on from the group of riders who pulled over to stop and apply sunscreen,
headphones, eat, and recompose themselves. But I did not. The next 16 miles
were a constant 3% uphill grade. The trail was an old rail bed that was
resurfaced for non-motorized use. The trail is smooth gravel completely sun
exposed with a couple tunnel and bridge crossings. This is where things went
south for me. The monotony of the smooth gradual uphill grade screwed with me
mentally and physically. I tried to tag on to other riders, but nobody was
riding at a drafting pace. I have no idea how long it took me to ride those 16
miles, too f’ing looong. The reward was a 5 mile decent to Englewood. With
speeds of 25-30 mph, a cool breeze, and the thought of cold water and shade
waiting for me I enjoyed every second of that downhill. Once at Englewood I
laid on the shady grass next to my dog Jake (Jake had been accompanying grammy
all day) while my mom gave me ice and cold water. Food was starting to taste
bad and I could feel I didn’t drink enough this last stretch. Oh well, it was
time to get this thing done. I’d completed 77 miles and had 26 to go. Sturgis
was waiting.
The last
stretch was mostly Forest Service roads. Better than the ATV two track earlier,
but not the fun single track of the Centennial Trail. As I pushed ahead, the
days ride really began to catch up to me. No longer were my pedal strokes
smooth and efficient. I had to focus on wagon wheels, then heel slides, then
knee thrusters. What was really hard were the riders passing me, talking and
smiling as if their ride had just begun. However, misery loves company and I
had my own riding partner, Dirk, a SS from Rapid City. Unlike other riders who
spoke with positive optimism, Dirk and I exchanged profanity and discontent
about the trail, our soft puny bodies, and why in Gods name do we consider this
fun. This actually helped the miles go by and before I knew it we were pushing
up the last hill. As we crested the top, the trees opened to a view of Sturgis
three miles below. As I viewed Sturgis the thought came to me, “I’ve made it
100 miles and only have three downhill miles to go. Let’s do this!” In hindsight,
I should have been paying closer attention to the trail instead of looking at
the goal ahead. Because at that moment there was a strip of metal flashing on
the road and my front tire ran right over it, slicing my sidewall. What was a
feeling of positive hope, turned to fear and focused concentration as my front
rim ran over baby head after baby head.
Once I was able to stop the bike, a
string of loud angry profanity rang out of my mouth. For years to come, I’m
sure the children of Sturgis will talk about the day they heard the mountain
yell in anger words only heard during the motorcycle rally. Dirk, being a good
suffering companion, asked if I wanted him to stay and help with the flat. I
told him no thanks and enjoy the downhill. So with three miles of downhill to
finish, I pulled my bike to the side of the road and slowly began to change the
flat. Within a couple minutes, to my delight, Niki cruised down and blew past
me…wtf!?!? But, recognized me and hit her brakes. One thing about Niki is she
gets her second wind after hour six and is smiles till the finish. I hate her
for that. She saw my sad state and helped me put in a tube. We had nothing to
repair the sidewall, so with the tube pushing out a little, I just had to hope
it would get me across the finish line. It was great riding the finishing
stretch with Niki. Husband and wife, riding together, matching kits, awww sooo
f’n cute! The tire and my body made it to the finish line. As we crossed the
line we joined hands and had big smiles.
See, f’n cute!
If you’re
in the Bad Lands, don’t overlook the singletrack. I hope to explore more of the
Centennial Trail and the trails around Rapid City. Maybe next year? For this
year, the body endured for 11 hours with no injuries or major mechanicals. I
met some nice people, and Niki and I finished together. All in all, a good
race.
