Race Report: Carrabassett Backcountry Challenge 2014 50 K: A novice female rider’s first victory by Eliza Cronkite

Let me preface this by saying that mountain biking and I have had a love/hate relationship since my inception into the sport two years ago. I never really rode bikes as a kid, so the sport of mountain biking has had steep learning curve.

One of many scrapes, bruises, or impalements suffered over the past two years.

 

I reluctantly entered this race last year, as a challenge to myself, I guess. I think I must have walked at least half of the 50 K race course and was ridiculously happy to see the finish, vowing I would never do such a thing again. Fast-forward to this year and I am sitting at the start line in the novice 50 K group…again… and why not? I love a challenge, am fitter, and have many more trail hours under my belt this year, so perhaps I can ride more terrain and beat last years’ time, at the very least.

After the count-down, off we went; a mass of novices! I placed myself firmly in the middle-to-front pack of faster racers and pushed hard. After a few hiccups in the first muddy miles and some jockeying for a good position, I found myself with some breathing room and a couple of guys keeping a good pace to trail.

I passed other racers on the uphill and flat sections, was passed by other racers on the technical sections and downhills, and yo-yoed with a couple of guys in the novice division which made for some good laughs and company along the way. I was amazed at my bike handling skills around some of the more technical rocky and rooted areas compared to last year, as well as my willingness to try descending more of the scary downhill. I guess that putting in the trail miles has helped and maybe, just maybe this whole mountain biking thing is kind of fun and is going to stick after all…

There was one awkward section a little over halfway through the race  where they have racers crossing in front of other racers paths (some sort of loop and back onto the main trail). I was coming through and called out my number, then started up this nasty hill and the official says, “Hurry up, please.” If looks could kill, that guy would be dead! Hurry up this hill after all these other hills and not to mention the fact that I’m racing and not out for a Sunday ride? Are you kidding me, Pal? Well, other than this guy’s poor choice of words at the wrong time, all of the officials/organizers in this race were just awesome and very encouraging.

After 4 hours 34 minutes and some seconds, I crossed the finish line, thirsty as hell and feeling like I was going to puke; probably how everyone else feels too. I did better about feeding myself during this race, which I think helped my energy and stamina. Last year in the interest of saving time, I think I might have had one package of Chomps during the entire race. This year, I had some Chomps and a couple of Bonk Bars; thanks, Rose Bike for the good race food!

This race is so diverse and I think that is what I like best about it. You really need a multitude of skills to do well in this race. You can’t just be a great road biker or mountain biker. You’ve got to have both sets of skills, good endurance, and a strong sense of adventure. There are trail sections that rival the Kingdom in Vermont (awesome!); there are trails that are only fit for hiking, in my opinion and no one has any business being on these trails on a bike; there are also L-O-N-G uphill stretches that really challenge the strength and will.

I am very pleased with my performance: I beat last years’ time by 21 minutes, rode way more of the technical sections and scary downhill than last year, came in first place in my division, and most importantly had a ton of fun! It was also a pleasure to race with these other badass, adventurous women. I look forward to doing this race again next year and am even considering the 100 K…

1st place on the Rock Podium - Sugarloaf in the background

 

Race Report: Carrabassett Backcountry Cycle Challenge 100k - Scott Johnson

 

At the start

 

By: Qualey Granite / Rose Bike Team Racer Scott Johnson

 

I’ll start with a little background. In 2010, Abe Furth got me back on my mountain bike after a twenty-something year hiatus where I built a career, logged millions of computer hours, and endured a love-hate relationship with the gym… I was riding a 90’s vintage Stump Jumper that had been sitting in the basement all this time, and Abe had trouble concealing his laughter as I crashed my way through the Orono trails one wet afternoon on the old classic… The Underwear Trail in the rain after so many years off the bike made me wonder if Abe was trying to intimidate me? Would he do that?

The following year (2011) I bought a new Trek Rumblefish and did the Carrabassett 50 km as my first MTB race… The mind has a strange way of selectively remembering the good bits of life, so I found myself thinking that I wanted more. I had to miss the race in 2012, but last year I did the 100 km race and, though I finished, I did poorly owing to severe cramping in my quads. I had issues with cramping in other races too, so I tried to figure it out. It turns out that the biochemistry regulating muscle contraction/relaxation during endurance events is remarkably complex, and there are multiple competing hypotheses out there about electrolyte supplementation, in-race fuel, hydration rates and a host of other factors that relate to endurance muscle performance. Anyway, I came to a few conclusions – I needed to limit my water intake to around half a liter per hour (too much dilutes electrolytes), stay as cool as possible, use electrolyte supplementation every hour, stretch well before the race, and I needed to significantly increase my leg strength. So, I spent much of my gym time over the winder focusing on my legs…

Okay, fast forward to this year, and a new bike from Rose – Trek Fuel EX 29. Love that bike! We couldn’t have asked for better weather, and I was excited to get moving. I watched the expert/elite people launch, and the rest of us lined up. Corey Oderman and Craig MacDonald were nowhere to be seen, and the race officials were preparing to start without them! It seemed that they were going to be no-shows. They appeared at the last second and we were off. I remembered most of the course from last year, except it was a lot drier this year and the Carrabassett NEMBA members had made some significant improvements to certain sections of single track in the first hour of the ride. The new bermed corners and cobble-stone segments made some of the riding very enjoyable, and the drier conditions made the mud holes easier to negotiate.

The pack sorted itself out fairly quickly. I deliberately went out quite slow and ended up passing a lot people in the first 15-20 minutes before I was in a comfortable spot. At some point in the first 30 minutes I had a major pedal strike on a rock hidden in the grass. Yikes! It nearly threw me and I worried that I might have done some damage to the crank, but all was well. I reached the first big climbing segment that starts at mile 9. Last year I had to walk a lot of this because I was already cramping. This year I chose to walk a couple of the steepest segments for a minute or two to conserve bike-leg strength. I couldn’t have ridden them much faster so I figured it was good strategy for me given last year’s performance. After this climb the course drops in steps around 1500 feet in elevation to the second aid station at around 30 miles. Along the way I caught up with Erik Dasilva, Bruce Malmer and Eric Roy, who was riding his single speed. Erik Dasilva’s words to me were “what’s your hurry!” I should have had a clever comeback, but I haven’t learned my trash talk skills well enough from Eric Roy. I never saw Eric Roy again until after the race, where I learned that he broke his crank shortly after the halfway aid point and had to exit. Bruce and I continued to stay pretty close for the rest of the race. Riding with a teammate added a lot to the experience.

 

 After the halfway aid point, the course more or less immediately entered the second big climbing segment of about 4 miles. Last year I was really hurting at this point, and walked a lot of it. Aaron Brasslett probably remembers encountering me last year around this part of the course, where I was walking the hills and pounding the descents. This year I chose to walk only a couple of the steepest segments and when I topped out I knew I was going to ride the entire race without cramping. That was a HUGE relief and I felt good about pushing myself hard from there. The second half of the course had a lot of gravel road riding, and some nasty mud and rock sections, but also some awesome single and double track. The long stretch that starts out along Stratton Brook Pond is one of my favorites, with three walk-across creek crossings, lots of smaller ride-through crossings, and long descents. I bottomed my forks really hard on the deepest of the small gullies, which sort of surprised me. A few years ago that would have meant a bad endo, but thankfully my skills have improved a bit! I took a few opportunities at crossings to throw water on my head. Heat is the enemy!

At one point, around 45 miles in, I came across some pink flamingos and signs promising a party and something about getting laid! I am not lying about this! I rode on with peaked interest, and arrived at another watery oasis where a kind volunteer cleaned my drive train and lubed my chain! Thank you! After a brief interlude, I continued to the contrived out-and-back segment, which was about as much fun as it was last year. Then some super-fast gravel road and double track riding with Craig MacDonald and Bruce Malmer. According to my Garmin, we exceed 22 mph continuously on one of the segments for more than 120 seconds. That was fun! Then back into some of the more technical muddy and rocky single/double track before finally hitting the long-awaited Narrow Gauge Trail. Almost home! Craig caught me on Narrow Gauge and left me in the dust, but I knew there were no old guys riding sport who were close behind me, which meant that my place, whatever it was, was set.  So, I held a good pace and set my sights on finishing under 7 hours. That last little section of windy single track after crossing hwy 27 was a welcome site and I cruised in feeling strong at 6 hours 51 minutes, beating my time last year by 1.5 hours and taking a comfortable first place in sport master division. Straight to the Jeep where there was a cooler full of refreshments! Music, burritos, refreshments, teammates… Good times!!!

1st place Sport Men's Maters 100K

 

Notes and Lessons:

This was the first time that I have ridden with a bike GPS (Garmin 510) and heart monitor. It was extremely valuable to know how far I had gone, how long it would be to the next aid station, and what my heart rate and average speed were. Taking some of the uncertainty out of the event makes a big difference.

Fuel and electrolytes are important during a long race. I ate 4.5 bonk bars (lost half a bar on the trail owing to bad timing), one bag of chomps, four segments of orange and half a banana during the ride. I made sure that I had something to eat every hour, along with two or three Hammer Endurolyte pills. I have tried a lot of different salt/electrolyte pills. Jury is out. Use what seems to work.

For me, leg strength (apparently) turned out to be the number one issue with cramping. My hypothesis, and I am sticking with it, goes like this. Last year I was forcing my legs to work at close to their peak capacity in order to keep up with my cardio fitness and my technical skills. Can’t sustain that for long before failure. Consistent strength training and hill riding (plus hard alpine skiing at Sugarloaf as often as possible) put me in much better balance this year. Regular PNF (look it up) stretching also seems to have made a significant difference. All anecdotal… Cramping is a complex problem.

My resting heart rate is in the low 60s, I don’t know exactly what my maximum heart rate is, and I previously had no record of my heart rate through a race. I was very surprised by my heart rate over the nearly 7 hour period. I averaged 162 bpm over the entire race, but more like 170 over the first 2.5 hours, with several spikes over 180. Everyone’s heart is different, but I know several other riders my age who say they try not to let their heart rate get above 150 in a race. Interesting… I must have been really hyped up at the start, because my peak rate of 185 came at mile 1.2, even though I deliberately went out quite slowly and I was not breathing hard at all! I am learning that it takes my body (and mind) some time to settle down and get into a sustainable rhythm. Learning to relax seems like a key skill for success.

Taking a minute or two to walk the steepest sections of sustained climbs helped a lot. Changing up the muscles for just a short time allowed for some critical recovery with minimal time loss. No news to single speeders.

The race organizers did an awesome job, as always, and the atmosphere was fun and festive. The trail improvements were noticeable, the aid stations were well stocked and cheery, and they eliminated that inane hike-a-bike segment from last year. On the down side, a couple of the turns were poorly marked, and a relatively large number of riders (some from the Qualey/Rose Team) were disqualified for taking a wrong line. I really feel for our team members who got caught in this trap, and it needs to be addressed next year. All in all though, good stuff.

 

Race Report: Wildcat 100, Wawarsing, NY. By: Eric Roy

Note:  I apologize for the lack of race pictures.  I’ll add them in as the event posts them.

The Wildcat 100 is an endurance mountain bike race festival that takes place in Wawarsing, NY.  There are 50K, 100K, 100 mile options for racers to choose from.   This race made sense for me this year because I had a work trip in Washington, DC the week before the race, so I could drive down with my bike and catch the race on the way home.  By driving down, it would also allow me to check out the course on my trip down, which is something that I would not do otherwise.  So…  I packed up the car with work costumes, bike stuff, dogs, and other essentials and took off for Washington, DC with a quick stop planned for Wawarsing, NY.

Nano is helping navigate through traffic

While the countryside in that part of NY state was absolutely beautiful, I've never seen anything quite like Wawarsing, NY. I say this becasue nestled in the beauty of hills and open pastures... there are establishments that double (triple?) as Chinese restaurants/acupuncture/massage parlors, “convenience stores”/gas stations that do not accept credit cards, farm stands that do not sell vegetables (they seem to only carry breads, pies, and flowers), and lots of sketchy motels.  

I've never seen this before

The  motels was of particular interest to me because I needed a place to keep the dogs while I was racing… and with projected daytime high temperatures in the upper 80s…  the back of my car was not an option.  Furthermore, upon my arrival to the Lippman Park, I learned that dogs are not welcome at the race venue… so I had to scrap the preride.  With the main reason for the Wawarsing stop being squashed, I diverted my focus to finding dog friendly lodging for race weekend.  I walked into the front office of the least sketchy looking of the motels and had the following conversation with the woman working at the front desk:

Me:  Good afternoon!  Do you allow dogs?

Her:  Yes, for a fee.

Me:  Fantastic … I’d like a room for next Friday and Saturday nights please.

Her:  Roommate?

Me:  No ma’am… it’s just going to be me… and the dogs

Her:  But would you like a roommate?

(Was she asking me if I wanted a prostitute?  I must find out!)

Me:  How much does the room cost?

Her:  40 dollars per night, plus the 10 dollars per night for the dogs

Me:  And with a roommate?

Her:  35 dollars per night, plus 10 for the dogs.

(Nope… not offering a prostitute…   just offering an opportunity to save 5 bucks by sharing a room with a total stranger… )

Me:  Uh… I think I’ll just stay there alone… with the dogs

I had a feeling that this was going to be a special race!

Tell me... exactly where would the roommate sleep?

OK… Fast forward to race day:  After a 1 AM arrival to Wawarsing, I peeled myself out of bed at 0530, which gave me just enough time to get to the venue, pick up my race packet, eat a bit of breakfast, build my bike, pack my drop bags, and fill my water bottles before the 0645 start time.  The race started with a 1.5 mile escorted rolling convoy led by a man (we'll call him "convoy man") who was screaming and driving a truck that eats Jeeps as  snacks.  Because I had no interest in getting bleary eyed early on to keep up with the skinny fast guys, I used this as an opportunity to warm up a bit, and I fell back into the second pack of riders.  The first 6 or so miles were a pretty steady climb on dirt/camp roads before we hit some pretty gnarly singletrack sections.  Racing a single speed, this meant a lot of standing efforts, which allowed me to pick off quite a few geared riders, but forced me to reach into “the tank” a bit more than I should have.  We were then rewarded with an awesome, gnarly, technical descent (think UMaine race loop roots on the side of a 1.5 mile long hill).   Having never ridden these trails before, I was a bit cautious on the descent, but I was still able to keep it moving pretty well.  From there, we were dumped into a 7 mile section of purpose built singletrack, which kept me grinning like an idiot for about an hour.  

As I rolled through the aid station, convoy man was getting the riders fired up for the next climb… it turns out… he wasn’t kidding.  The next 15 miles were uphill.   Parts were smooth and easy(ish), other parts were washed out and traction was hard to come by.  It was also getting hot.  I had no choice but to keep grinding along, and hope that it ended soon  (though it was pretty satisfying to pass riders that had downshifted and were spinning easy).  At some point, my focus broke when I realized that I was on the verge of passing out… a quick glance at my heart rate monitor showed that I was bouncing between 188 and 192 bpm, which is pretty close to "red line" for me... and certainly not where I want to be in a 62 mile race.   Crap.  This was not good!   I hopped off my bike and started hiking in an attempt to catch my breath and suck down fluids.  Some short time later, I reached the top of the course, where I refilled my bottles and kept rolling.  The descent was through a relatively new and raw trail system, which included rough snowmobile trails and even rougher streambeds.    During this descent, there were several racers (mostly "fast skinny guys") pulled off  the trail resting/stretching their forearms.... It seems to me that their situation could be avoiding  by eating a couple of cheeseburgers and adding some pushups to their training regimen.  It was also worth pointing out that convoy man had found his way into the the woods where he was screaming at riders to “get some” during some of the sketchier sections.  (Who is this guy? He seems to be everywhere! Is he a motivational figment of my imagination?  Regardless, he was fantastic and always a welcome sight).  

I’ll be honest… at this point, I was 50 miles in… and I don’t remember much about the last 12, except that I remember being overly paranoid that someone was going to pass me… and  that in the moment it was very important that I didn't let it happen...so I was pedaling my brains out.  I also remember that the race ended on the same purpose built single track that we had ridden on in an earlier part of the race… and that I seemed to be riding it much faster (almost recklessly so) this second time around.  The race ended with about a 100 meter section of gravel, and I was greeted by spectators and volunteers who were quick to get me anything I needed (I’m pretty sure that I looked like hell).  

Roached

Overall, the race was a success.  I ended up getting 11^th place overall for the 100k race, and 1^st place in the single speed class.  It is my understanding that a lot of people blew up on the climb and bailed when the temperature started rising.  62 miles, 7700 feet of climbing, gnarly descents,  and a daytime high of 91 degrees … this race was no joke

General Notes:

This was a well-organized event.  Aid stations were stocked, technical support was arranged for.  Post race beer/bbq was plentiful… everyone had a great time.  By having the event in a public park… park goers because spectators.  Well done!

My hat goes off to crazy convoy guy… it turns out that he is the head of the local mountain bike chapter, and he has been spending MONTHS in the woods with a chainsaw just to rid of the blowdowns for this event.  I think he expended as much energy screaming at the racers as I did pedaling.  His post race beers were well deserved!

Hot races are hard.  People dropped like flies… and NOBODY made the checkpoint cutoffs for the 100 mile race… including a multiple time winner of the Mt. Washington Hill Climb.