The 12 Hours of Bradbury is an
endurance mountain bike race that takes place at Bradbury Mountain State Park
in Pownal, Maine. It's one of the "gem" races in Maine that attracts riders of all levels, as well as a sizable crowd. Everyone who mountain bikes in Maine should do this race at least once. Last year, I “raced”
Bradbury as part of a two person team, but more of a fun/casual thing to see
whether or not I like racing mountain bikes (that’s affirmative). When planning race calendar for this season,
Bradbury was the race that I was going to build up to for my first solo effort…
but light peer pressure led me to throw my hat in the ring for Millstone and
Great Glen, so my overall goal for the race shifted to being the race that I “put it
all together”... However, with The 12
Hours of Bradbury taking place in Mid September, near the end of my first “real”
MTB race season, I learned definitively that cycling fitness can be converted
to midsection mass under the correct reaction conditions…
Overall, the Qualey Granite/Rose Bike Crew was pretty well
represented at the event: Bruce Malmer,
Clint Sochulak, and myself all registered as solo riders, Bill and Julie Brown
were tackling the event as a 2 person co-ed team, we had a 4 man team comprised
of Craig Macdonald, Sean Keough, Scott Neal, and Todd Neal, while Steve Kilburn
anchored a STACKED 3 man team.
I met up with Clint on Friday afternoon for a quick preride
before dinner and registration. It’s
worth noting that earlier that week… Clint became the proud father of a baby
boy… so … Clint was having a pretty good week. The course
was mostly dry, except for a few sections that had not yet drained from recent
rain events. The crew at Bradbury
stepped it up big time and built a few new bridges over some of the muddier
spots on the race course. While the
mostly dry conditions made for very good riding, I was hoping that the course
would be a mess of slick roots that favor technical bike handling over pedaling
fitness… Kind of like riding at home. Oh
well… there’s always next year, right?
After the pre ride, we scooted over to Buck’s Naked BBQ for
registration/check-in. As I have come to
expect from events put on by Casco Bay Sports, check-in was seamless, and took
all of 25 seconds. From there, we snatched a couple of stools at
the end of the bar and had a textbook pre race dinner of slow cooked meats and
beer (I read somewhere that you need carbs the night before a race).
When I stepped out of the car after a fantastic night’s
sleep, the ground was soaked. Apparently
heavy fog rolled through overnight or something, which meant ... WET ROOTS AND
SKETCHY CORNERS!!! My prospects for the race
had greatly improved... But first I had to put on some dry socks
After a quick breakfast, I started hauling my cooler, chair,
and toolbox to a trailside pit area that was set aside for solo riders. Naturally, the event had plenty of volunteers
who eagerly rushed to help with this. Just
to give you an idea about the passion/loyalty behind this event, the volunteer
who actually helped me lug my stuff to the pit area was multiple time elite solo
class winner Greg Jancaitis, who said “I figured that I’d come and volunteer
for a few hours because I wasn’t racing the event this year.” Cool guy and a hell of a rider. After a quick pre race meeting, it
was time for the solo expert men and singlespeed racers to line up. One
thing that always catches me a little off guard is that the even the most
serious competitors are friendly at mountain bike races. I guess it makes sense, because we all have a
common interest, but the vibe is just so pleasantly different than any of the hyper-competitive stick/ball sports that I grew up with.
Me at the start (Photo Credit Julie Brown, Obtained from Facebook)
And begin.
The pace off the starting line was fast, and I quickly fell off
the back. I was so far behind the pack
after the initial dirt road section that a spectator laughed and sarcastically asked
me if I had showed up late for the start.
Ouch. I did not pass anyone on the first lap that
did not break their bike (it surprises me how many people break their bike
in the first lap of a race... I wonder why that is), but I definitely got passed by pretty much every
fast 2,3,4 man team (which was expected).
The course was significantly greasier than the preride… but was totally
manageable and a whole lot of fun. In
just under an hour, the first lap was in the books, and I was sitting comfortably
DFL. I grabbed another premixed bottle
at pit area and took off for lap 2.
Laps 2-6 were an absolute blast. The course at Bradbury is perfect for an endurance
races because there is a ton of somewhat rooty/techy singletrack strung
together, but there are some short smooth relief sections to take the pressure
off and eat/drink. My
strategy for the day was to exert most on the singletrack sections, where I
felt like I could gain some ground on some of the other solo singlespeed guys...
who I knew were much more fit than I was.
Overall, my lap times were better than expected, and despite a few minor
crashes… I felt pretty good. My goal going
in to the race was 11 laps, one more than Millstone… and so far… it seemed
pretty doable.
Steve Kilburn (Photo Credit Michael Moore, Obtained from 12 Hours of Bradbury Website)
Famous last words.
“So I’m just riding along, on a smooth section of trail”
near the beginning of lap #7, I reached down for my bottle… and nothing was
there. A major focus for me in this race
was to keep my rest stops as short as possible.
Apparently the most recent one was a bit too short, and I forgot to grab a bottle… Being inexperienced in endurance races, I had
no idea how this would play out, or what I was supposed to do. I thought that the best thing to do would be
to scale back an already moderate pace in an attempt to minimize damage, and
look to see if there were any water bottles on the trail that had rattled loose
or if there was a jug stashed at a first aid tent. No luck. About 30-40 min in… the puddle water started to
look pretty good.
Me on course (Photo Credit Michael Moore, Obtained from 12 Hours of Bradbury Website)
I limped into the pit
station, a bit bleary eyed and dumb and a lot bit thirsty. Without going into any detail, I will offer
up that it is not good to pound cold fluids in this scenario. After about 10 minutes ,
I started to feel better, so I set out for lap 8, in hopes that I was squared
away. Even though the cloudiness in my
head had cleared and the headache had subsided a bit…my energy level never
really rebounded, and my lap times reflected it. I had to work much harder to get much slower
lap times. Not great for morale. In short… lap 9 was pretty unpleasant… but it occurred to me when I was sitting down
after the lap that I felt no better when I was resting… so I’d might as well be
pedaling. Terry (Bruce’s wife & pit
crew) also let me know that I had moved my way up to 4th place, and that
the guy currently in 3rd was only a few minutes ahead of me. Although I suspected that Terry was lying to
me so I’d leave, it provided a bit of motivation and I threw 2 bottles on my
bike, grabbed my light, and stashed an unwrapped sandwich in my muddy jersey
pocket (mistake) so I wouldn’t need to stop again.
At this point I had 2 goals: 1) To
finish lap 10 by the 6:59 PM cutoff so I could go out for an 11th
lap and 2) Try to catch the guy who was
sitting in 3rd place. If lap
9 was unpleasant… lap 10 was awful. I still had not caught up
on fluid intake from my bottle mishap several hours before… and the lap seemed to take forever. Furthermore, a thin layer of greasy mud had accumulated on the roots, which made things
interesting. Despite not feeling great,
my riding was still sharp… so I didn’t really see any safety issues with
continuing. Finally I rolled through the
lap area, a volunteer enthusiastically yelled at that I had made the cutoff to
do another lap. In the moment, I could
not decide whether I should be happy or punch her… but I kept the wheels rolling. Amazingly, somewhere midway through the final
lap, I started to feel human again, and the last few miles were surprisingly
pleasant. Before I knew it, I was
greeted by cow bells and cheering spectators.
Done.
While I was sitting and pounding junk food in my chair, Terry
came by and offered her congratulations… for moving into 3rd place. I was a bit confused because I did not pass
any single speeders on the trail… but apparently I passed him in the transition/pit area before
lap 11, and he didn’t go back out.
Neato.
Overall, it wasn’t a bad day for the Qualey Granite/Rose
Bike Crew. Steve’s 3 man team won their
division. Bill and Julie blasted out 12
laps to take 2nd in the 2 person co-ed class, and our 4 man team
finished in 5th place in a stacked division. Despite a lengthy delay caused by a light
malfunction heading into a nighttime lap, Bruce finished 10 minutes off the
podium in the Solo Master’s Division.
Julie and Bill on the Podium
The big winner for the Qualey Granite Rose Bike Team is Expert
Solo Rider Clint Sochulak. On the Monday
of the Race week, his family grew when his wonderful wife Jenn gave birth to
their first son. Congrats Clint!
Positive Aspects of my performance:
- I didn’t blow up trying to keep up at the beginning
- Though I’m pretty sure I died a little bit that day… I met my goal of 11 laps, good enough for 3rd in solo singlespeed, and was top 30% for all men’s solo riders.
Things that
might improve my chances of future success:
- Pre race carb loading is not a sustained 5 week process
- If you’re going to be an idiot and forget fluids… don’t do it in the warmest part of the day
Most memorable quotes from the trail:
1) Right after I got
passed by a really strong female team rider…
Clint (who was right behind me): “Ha… you just got chicked”
Me: “So did you”
Clint: “Shut up”
2) When I was skidding through a slick corner on one
of the trickier descents…
“I’m glad someone is still having fun!”
- An unidentified
solo rider who was walking through the section
General Thoughts on the Race
- Casco Bay Sports knows how to put on an event. Great energy, great volunteers, great sponsors.
- Bradbury Mountain Staff take pride in their trail system. The week before the race, they built bridges over some flooded sections of trails. Drivetrains all over New England thank you!
- In a race of attrition, sometimes the slowest guy still standing at the end of the race finishes “in the money”
- The event went to real time timing this year. This allows people to follow racers via the interweb. Very nice touch
Solid report Eric. Sounds like a perfect 12-hour race to try out. Thanks.
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