St. Valentines Day Challenge (2/11/01): The sun was out and the weather was just about perfect as 8 freaks rolled to the starting line a little after 1pm. The St. Valentines Day Challenge was my inaugural race for the 2001 season. I was lined up with the rest of the singlespeed class along with one or two fully rigid racers. The start was called and we pedaled off into the initial lap. Today, we were to roll around the approximately three mile course a total of six times. The terrain at Steilacoom, WA lent itself perfectly to a singlespeed bike.

The course started off flat then made a gradual climb through the woods to the perimeter of the park. The climb steepened just a tad and continued up for about a quarter mile or so. After descending a bit, we hit the first of two run-up rollers, then continued down before making a sharp left hand turn into the woods again for a bit of technical riding. Right after making the turn, you were presented with a tree quandary. The slot to the right side of the tree was the one to take. Some more roots and twists to the trail, then you were down in the flats for a bit before popping out into the open. Here, we were greeted by an eastern WA style headwind. Mercifully, after about a half mile of that, the trail turned and you had a tailwind all the way back to the finish.

24hr Round the Clock (6/2-3/01): Last year, I did my very first 24hr race as part of a singlespeed team. We raced the 24hrs Round the Clock at Spokane and came in fourth with 25 laps. We were competing against the gearies because there was no SS category.

So ... this year rolls around and I once again found myself at the Spokane race site with my SS teammates to race against the gearies. We had 2 new members and three returning "veterans" to make up the Dragon Tongue Singlespeeds (motto: "draggin' tongue from riding HARD!"). We'd be competing in the 150-199 Open Age 5-person category. Would we do any better this year? Would I remember to wake up at 4am? Would my stomach rebel again after 4 laps? Only time would tell.

My teammates this year were Derk Thomson from Moses Lake (veteran), Phil Champoux from Yakima (veteran), Russ Staples from Yakima (newbie), and Andy Vosberg from Yakima (newbie). We all assembled on Saturday morning and set our riding order out. Andy would lead our team out on the run ... basically cause he's much younger and the sight of me waddling around the 600 yards would be too gruesome to bear.

We settled into our race rotation and tried to be as calm and relaxed as possible. Our team decided to do the standard 1 lap per member. Andy set the tone with a rockin' 49 minute combined lap. We were in the hunt for a medal position matching up pretty well with the other three teams in our division. One team, Go Dog Go, was a return from last years race where they finished 2nd. I was taking the 5th lap spot again but was much more relaxed than last year. I knew what to expect and was also running a newer & lighter bike. We almost made up a Kona team since all but one of us was running that type of frame. I was the only person, however, to be riding an SS conversion and also the only person to do the race full rigid.

I pulled out for my first lap around 4pm and headed for the hills. Last year, I had some trouble with some of the climbs in the latter stages of the race and wanted to do better this time. I spun up to the 1/2 mile climb and was surprised to see about 3-4 riders in front of me. See, I'd been passed by these people and had expected them to be long gone on Freeway. Anyway, I was catching up with some of them and eventually had to ride somebody's wheel up the last bit cause I didn't have the fire to make the pass over in the looser gravel. I got up to the top and spun out/coasted the Freeway Flats while catching my breath. My stomach had been feeling kinda full on the way up but nothing that I was really concerned about. Normal stuff I thought. About a mile down Freeway, that Revenge sports drink that I taken a couple sips of before I went out got is revenge on me. RALPH! Yuck ... what a way to start the race. Despite that, I managed to make it much further on the Wicked Witch climb than I had last year and rolled in with a respectable 54 min lap.

For those who don't know, the Test of Metal is a one-lap race held in Squamish, BC. The course length is 67 km with about 1200 meters of elevation gain. For us south of the border types, that translates to about 42 miles and 3940 feet of elevation. To further increase the fun factor, there is a time cut-off for the halfway point in the race. Reach it after 2.5 hours from the start of the race and you'll be pulled from the course. The course is a mixture of paved roads, doubletrack and singletrack with the majority of the climbing on doubletrack. The Test is a non-profit race and is wildly and enthusiastically supported by the residents and businesses of Squamish.

Squamish is squished between the Coastal Mountains of BC and the head of Howe Sound, about 30 minutes south of Whistler. The area is laced with tons of riding and is a destination spot for rock climbing as well. The owner of Core Rat lives and rides around Squamish.

All this combined to sort of scare me as I was driving up. I went up from my home in Des Moines on Friday afternoon. I was staying with a friend in Whistler who has done the Test before. I have never been to this part of Canada before and have never put tire to dirt in Canada at all. After watching my North Shore Extreme video many times and then watching the granite and mountains increase the further north I drove, my anxiety level rose with the mountains. This would indeed be a Test.

The race starts off on a short section of the main highway (race organizers shut it down for 15 minutes) then up through the residential streets of Squamish. Some short stiff climbs up through the city streets then onto a dirt road with eventually funnels into singletrack. Some more paved and dirt road then back into singletrack called "Deadend Loop". What happens is you exit the trees and are face-to-face with this long line of riders portaging their bikes up a hill ... only you're not quite ready to join the line. The trail loops down and back up a bit first. After the top of the portage section, its back into twisty snaky singletrack as you head downhill towards the first big spectator section. The singletrack is steepish and loose and the crowd, while cheering lustily for all riders, is secretly hoping for some spills. Now you're back onto a steep downhill paved road with riders going aero. A sharp 90 degree left hand turn at the bottom and back onto doubletrack. You're almost to the half-way point. Just a bit further and you're into the crowds again cheering you on. Nine Mile Hill looms in front of you. Time to get familiar with your granny gear. Do you wish you had that 22x34 Mega-range gear yet? You may on Bonk Hill. After pushing over the top (literally for some ... virtually for others), its time for some doubletrack descending before heading into the Ring Creek Rip. WOOHOO! Not too technical but fast and furious. Wait, there's more fun ahead! Powerhouse Plunge. The MOST technical section of the whole race. This is where the dual suspension rigs really get to shine. Then its back through the half-way point and headed into Crumpet Woods. Only one climb stands between you and the finish line. Whew ... you're back onto paved streets! A short downhill section over some Canadian Shield Rock (watch out for the climbers) and a long straight road section before the stadium. A loop around the top of the stadium and you're done! Please continue through the finish line before collapsing.

The start of the race is a cattle call. One chute for an 800 rider field. Bascially, you get your spot about 20+ minutes before the gun goes off and stand in line. Some instructions and welcome from the race organizer then BANG! ... you watch the lead riders streak out of view while you're still waiting to clip in. This is by far the largest race I've ever participated in. In addition to the 800 "regular" Testers, there were 200 more teen Testers lined up behind us. It was almost kind of fun waiting for the 11:00am start. I chatted a bit with some of the riders around me and just generally soaked up the race atmosphere. While I was waiting, I saw Seattle honch Brett Wolf riding around getting ready to race. There is no excuse in the world that has any validity after watching Brett ride. The man has one leg and still smokes most of the people out there. Even though the course is on some steepish paved streets, you're still bunched up pretty good from the mass start. I wasn't pushing too hard not knowing what was ahead. Early on, I watched a singlespeeder come blazing past a bunch of us. Never saw him again. Right near the end of the paved section I was climbing along and not really paying the kind of attention to the road that I should have. I looked up just as I was about to run into a rider who'd stopped in the middle of the road to fix his chain. Down I went and onto my back. Luckily neither of our bikes nor us were hurt. While we're riding through this residential section, people are out in their front lawns ringing cowbells and cheering everybody on. The community really turns out for this big race.

We finally made it to the dirt roads and people strung out a little more ... but not for long. The road went down kinda steeply and was covered with about 4 inches of round rolling rocks and gravel. People where walking everywhere ... most didn't have the consideration to walk along the sides so people who could ride this stuff could pass. I threaded my way through the crowd and finally just started calling out that I was coming through. Thankfully, I didn't wreck and didn't hit anybody. Not too long after that, we got into the first section of singletrack ... and another bunchup. I don't know what the problem was. The trail was 2 ft wide, smooth and only had a few roots in it. There was nothing that any of the racers shouldn't have been able to ride. Nevertheless, we had us a traffic jam. Once you got past the jam, we were into some nice easy singletrack for awhile before hitting the "Deadend Loop" and another jam at the hike-a-bike section. Major props to Brett Wolf and the other one-legged racer who got up this section. It was tough walking it with two legs.

Once you're over the top, its downhill on twisty, snaky singletrack. Major fun. It'd have been nice to open it up a bit more but I kept running up on the person in front of me. Down through the cheering crowds at the first major viewing section (rode it all nicely thank you very much ... well except for the one part where I washed out the front wheel. I spun around quickly to grab my bike out of the trail and I saw that nobody was coming so I hopped up and back onto the bike) and onto a steep downhill paved road. More gravel roads, more cheering spectators, where the heck is that half-way point? Finally made it and was under the cut-off time but not by much. My rear tire had felt kinda loose in the corners from the start of the race and I was worried that I'd have a flat. I made a pact with my tube that if it would just hold until I made the half-way point, it could do anything it wanted after that. The half-way point is also where I lost first gear. The chain would overshift and wedge between the cogs and spokes. I tried to fix it by adjusting the derailleur by only managed to lose first AND second gears for a bit. I needed that first gear for Nine Mile Hill. I was doing too much walking for my ego but there was no go in the legs. Finally, we hit the crest of the hill where there were volunteers waiting to cheer us on. I mentioned to one that I must look like death warmed over. He misheard me and though I said I wasn't warmed up yet. I quickly corrected his mistake. At the very top was a one man British cheering section. Lots of UK flags strung over the road. I popped a very small wheelie in celebration. From the top, we entered the aptly named "Ring Creek Rip". Lots of fast singletrack downhill with not too many obstacles. Of course, knowing where you're going and what's around the next bend help to increase the speeds. At the bottom of the Rip is the heinous Powerhouse Plunge. A dual suspension, rocky, rooty, steep obstacle course. After going over the bars while trying to stop, I decided that I would no longer try to ride. I'm walking until I find something that's a little more within my riding skills. I'm pretty pooped when I come through the last aid station and it doesn't help that the volunteer tells me I have one more hill to climb.

It's on to the Crumpet Woods. This is a fun section of trail, make no mistake. However, by this time I don't care. I catch up with one other rider in the Woods and we both decide that we no longer want to ride. Where's that dang finish line! Back onto the Squamish city streets and there are still homeowners out in their lawns cheering people on. This is truly awesome! Sprinklers and water hoses for cooling off if you want are in most people's hands. One more short section of trail that goes down over Canadian Shield rock. Watch that first dropoff ... no time to crash now! Straight road!! Stadium!!! Finish Line!!!!

I had a good time at this race and will definitely be back next year. I finished in 5hrs19min so there's lots and lots of room for improvement. No excuses, I just wasn't in the kind of shape I needed to be. It didn't help that I'd picked up a cold two days before and sweated like crazy the whole night before the race. One thing I was amazed at was the number of mechanicals I passed. Many people were fixing chains and flat tires ... especially in the early stages of the race. I was lucky and except for the missing first gear didn't have any problems. That low feeling rear tire? Finished without a whimper.

All I have to do now is somehow convince my mad Englishman friend (who hasn't ridden the race yet) that we shouldn't be doing it on our singlespeeds.

"I really love the early mornings
Just wish it came later in the day" - Jim Morris

7:30am - what am I doing up this early on a weekend? Oh yeah, I'm standing in line to complete my registration for the MS Mountain Bike Ride.

Due in no small part to the fact that Deadly Nedly (Ned Overend) was the chairperson for this benefit event and that he'd be riding the route, I was going to do the Advanced Route of the ride. The Advanced Route was basically the same route that the Intermediate riders were doing but with four singletrack loops tacked onto it. The whole route would start and end at the same point in Fall City, about 30 minutes east of Seattle. The length of the route would be about 45 miles with 18 miles of that on singletrack and the rest on doubletrack. I decided to do the ride on my SS bike.

Race around some singletrack trails that I've never been on before and then have a BBQ afterwards ... what's not to like about that scenario?

I competed in the Hot Dog Dash mountain bike race put on by the Valley/Capital Bike Club in the Capitol Forest. I didn't hear about this race until the week that it was going to be held and since I'd never been down there, thought I'd give it a go. Besides, it was a lot closer than driving over to the Wenatchee area to do the WIM race.

As soon as I determined that I was going to race, I went and checked out the weather forecast for the weekend ... not good. It was supposed to rain and after the drenching I took at the Bear Trax race earlier this year I really wasn't too keen on that. It did rain Saturday evening but by the time I got up on Sunday morning it was just cloudy ... I decided to risk it.

Got to the registration area just as they were setting up so I could have left home about 1/2 hour later and still been there in plenty of time. My buddy, Mo Lettvin, had said he was going to do the race as well and was going to join me in my SS endeavors. Well, Mo did show up but not with a SS. Seems he'd just got his high zoot Chris King SS hubs and couldn't get things to work just right. The CK gear only comes in an 18 and Mo wanted something else. His buddy took an 11 tooth gear and ground off the teeth. He then took a 20 tooth gear and ground off the splines (CK uses the same spline pattern as Shimano). Welded the two together and voila' ... custom gearing for a custom hub. Mo tested the drivetrain out Saturday evening around 7:30pm and the chain kept jumping off every 5 revolutions or so. Anyway, to make a short story long, Mo brought his geared bike.

The race course was held on portions of trails #6, #10 and Mima/Porter #8. Distance worked out to be about 6 miles and the sport class was going to do two laps, experts three. The race starts off with about a 1/2 mile "climb" up a gravel road before jumping into the singletrack for the rest of the time. No rest for the weary when you're racing SS. There wasn't a large portion of climbing to do but when you only have one gear it worked me pretty good. Now, if I'd only ride this hard when I'm on my gearie, I'd be flyin'! Yeah, right ... slugs don't fly.

The rain the night before didn't mess things up too bad although there were a couple muddy spots to grind through and some of the climbs were kinda slippery when climbing out of the saddle. We exited the forest trails for a short bit after about 2 miles, hung a left up the road and back into the forest for more singletrack. I'm guessing we were on Trail #10. We continued to climb some more through the forest then the trails leveled off and I could catch my breath a bit. The course switchbacked downhill through the trees and you had to watch out a bit for the slippery roots in sections. One final small climb back up and then suddenly you popped out of the woods and you were back at the start/finish area! Wow, how'd that happen? Bell lap already!?!

There was only one other "freak" on the start line with me. Eric Kackley (of the Peaks Grassroots Racing Series) was riding a full-on dual squishy bike. I passed Eric on the inital road climb and he was practically whistling the theme song from Andy Griffith. I've never seen someone so non-chalant while racing. Right then I decided on my goals for the race ... #1: don't get lapped by the experts and #2: Beat Eric! First lap went just fine although I half expected to be blown off the trail on the downhill sections as Eric flew by. I did get passed by one racer but mostly (and typically) rode by myself. I thought I caught a glimpse of Mo up ahead of me on some of the early climbs but those riders quickly vanished. Second lap hurt a bit more than the first on the climbing. I was really wheezing like a steam engine but managed to ride all but one little section. In retrospect, if I'd hammered right before the section, I'd have probably made it cause it wasn't very long. Eric's impending approach was occupying the small portion of my mind that was still working so I tried to go as hard as I could. Greasy hairpin turn ... we're almost there ... don't get passed now! WooHoo! Made it!

Turns out I got third place in my class! I'll take it, thank-you very much. I was about 5 minutes back of Mo who took first. I finished the race in about 58 minutes. Just barely managed to keep ahead of the experts cause the first place finished came in not long after I did. They were turning about 20 minutes laps.