Carson City Offroad

[Jim Hewett]

The good burst of XC racing in NorCal ended a few weeks ago, which works for me as my fitness is usually down in June as I prepare for another peak in August.  I have gone back to some endurance oriented base miles, so I thought it would be fun to check out a longer race not too far away.  The Epic Rides Carson City Offroad is a 50 mile race and a weekend-long mountain bike race festival.  It is part of a 3 race series, and the prize money is quite good, so the Pro field is very competitive.

Cathy and I arrived Friday so I could make the obligatory Fat Tire Criterium.  This is a crit style race on pavement through the streets of Carson City, NV.  You must race the same bike that you will race on Sunday, but you can change tires.  I opted for Bontrager CX0 38c tires, the narrowest allowed.  I lined up in the back of a 42 person field for the 7:20 pm start, with the oppresive heat of the day just starting to subside.  We would be racing a short course involving  7 90degree turns, no real elevation change.  Laps would take under 3 minutes, and we would race for 20 minutes plus 3 laps.  I started near the back and pretty much stayed there, sprinting as hard as I could with my 34x10 high gear and getting yo-yo'd off the back as the group compressed and shot out of each turn.  I maintained a pretty high heart rate for the 23 minutes I raced before I was pulled, with the leaders doing a couple more laps.  That was something for which I had not been training, and I was glad it was done.

We rode Clear Creek Trail on Saturday morning, and the rest of the day was spent resting and staying out of the heat.

They moved Sunday's race start from 8:30 to 7:30 a.m. in an effort to reduce the time spent in the higher temps.  We lined up again under the starting arch, but this time rolled out at a much slower pace.  The first lap involved a gradually increasing paved climb where the group stayed together until we hit the dirt.  I was closely monitoring my heart rate in an effort to keep it at 160 or below.  Most of the field moved away from me as we climbed the fire road, but I knew that I would suffer later if I pushed it too hard.  I was relieved when we entered single track, where we found shade and a slight breeze on the ridge.  We climbed some more but eventually came to the long single track descent.  I had not had a chance to pre-ride the course, but I was moving pretty fast on this section.  I caught and passed a few racers in the 20 minute descent, and did my best to hammer the 5 minutes of flat pavement back to the start/finish area.  I came through for my first lap in 1:18, 7.5 minutes behind the leader and  38th place out of 46.

On the second lap, we followed a different course at the start.  We hit the dirt sooner and climbed on a treeless hillside with no breeze, following a rocky and narrow trail that presented some technical climbing challenges.  I overtook a couple of racers, but didn't have the punch to climb hard.  I caught and passed a couple more, including John Nobil and Josh Whitney just before we hit the single track again at around 45 minutes into the lap.  Josh stayed close on me as we meandered around, up and down, to the beginning of the trail down.  The summit altitude of 6,600 ft was slightly noticeable, but the breeze up high was very welcome.  Josh asked to come around me before we dropped, and I asked him if he would be fast on the descent.  Of course, he told me he would, and he pedaled hard up the last bits to gap me by 10 seconds or so.

I gathered myself for the descent, a little more confident after having ridden it on the first lap.  I let it rip and soon saw that I was making time on him and the rider ahead of him.  I caught him and we both passed the other racer, and afterwards I put the pressure on him until he pulled over and let me by.  I felt like I was flying, but I heard someone gaining on me.  At the bottom, I was overtaken by Geoff Kabush, who was a favorite to win but had flatted on the start of the second lap.  I stayed with him alright on the rest of the trail along the creek, until we hit a short, soft fire road section and he pulled away.  After pedaling hard up the hill, and not pedaling much on the descent, my legs were annoyed at being asked to pedal hard again.  The ribbon of single track after this fire road was very fast, and I got up to 30 mph.  At one point I hit some soft sand and almost crashed hard, somehow fishtailing but keeping it together.  I put my head down on the last section of pavement back to the start, completing my second lap in 1:37.

The temperature was now at 90 degrees, but we all headed out knowing that this was the last one.  I had hoped my conservative pace at the start would leave me fresher at the end, but I really did not have any kick while climbing the rocky, exposed single track.  2 racers passed me and moved on ahead, and I suffered through.  I soon saw Stephen Mills, and it seemed like I was gaining on him.  I would have felt better about this, except for the fact that he had raced this same course the day before in the amateur event.  I called to him as we both came through the aid station where they dumped ice water on our backs, but he stayed just ahead of me on the fire road climb over to the single track.  I was slowly gaining on him, but I thing it was because he was slowing down.  I was shaken out of my lethargy when I noticed that John Nobil and Cody Scwhartz were all of a sudden within striking distance behind me.  I picked up the pace, hoping to get to the descent ahead of them.  Alas, they both caught me and started down ahead of me.

Once again, I closed the distance as we dropped on the narrow trails.  We all passed Mills, then Cody and I passed Nobil, who said he had nothing left in his legs.  I pushed Cody hard and he eventually let me by, as he was starting to cramp.  I tried to keep my speed, pushing my advantage while avoiding any crashes.  We were all hurting pretty badly, but there was only 10 or so minutes left in the race!

When I hit the short, soft fire road climb, my right hamstring seized.  I whimpered to myself, but I was able to keep pedaling and work through it.  I looked back to see Cody only a couple hundred feet behind me.  I pushed on and then cramped in my left hamstring.  I somehow worked through it without stopping, and amazingly kept ahead of Cody.  I made the right on the last single track section and really pushed it.  Just before the pavement, I saw Chris Ganter, a rider that had passed me on the climb at the beginning of the lap.  I rode as smoothly as I could and came by him on a wide section with a decisive pass.  We made the right turn onto the pavement and I had a decent gap, so I put my head down and turned over the cranks to stay away from him for the five minutes to the finish. 

I looked back to see someone gaining on me, but there was nothing I could do about it.  Cody Schwartz passed me, too fast for me to jump on his wheel.  I stayed ahead of Chris to finish in 34th place with a time of 4:44, after 55 miles and 7,700 feet of climbing.