Sonomas 2017

[Dave Benjamin]

Sonomas has been lurking in the back of my mind for the past couple of years.  I've talked with friends that have done the race and each of them have said what a hard and unforgiving race it is.  Having done the Grasshopper MTB two weeks ago on much of the same terrain, only in reverse, I knew what I would be up against.  In fact, I had pretty much decided to skip Sonomas.  The mind is a funny thing, it seems to be programmed to forget the suffering and remember the good times, because I found myself signing up for this crazy race anyway.  Team Acme Bikes was well represented with approximately 10 riders, so I felt a little more at ease.  Carson and I arrived about 7:30 after making the Flying Goat coffee stop.  After a shorter than hoped for warm up, I rode up to staging to find myself about 2/3 the way from the front.  Not the best place to start, but I had decided not to blow it out on the first 2 mile road climb and hope to have some energy for the end of the race.  I could see teammate and fellow 50+er Greg Alsterlind about 15 rows up and at the start realized I had no hope of catching his wheel.  I settled in, got up the road and joined the endless hike a bike line entering the first single track.  At mile 7 a rider in front suddenly pulled over and hurled.  I thought, wow, that didn't take long and hoped it wasn't a sign of things to come.  Being so far back in the field, my hobby became keeping a net tally of how many riders I passed or was passed by.  To my surprise, I stayed on the positive end the whole race, with only 5 riders passing me for good, save for who knows how many that passed me when I wrongfully took a hike a bike trail, following a misplaced marker, instead of riding down a short fire road.  The trails were in pretty good shape and the creek/river crossings weren't as high as two weeks ago.  The constant up and down of the trails were killer, but I was determined to ride as many of the steeps as possible and was able to pass multiple riders.  Somewhere in the mid 20 miles, I came into a sweeping right turn too fast, got a little wide and ran my front wheel into a tree growing along the edge of the trail.  Needless to say, my bike stopped and I didn't.  After I slid on the trail a bit, I hopped up to gather my bike, but it was gone.  It was sliding down the hill, making me jump down the hill about 6 feet to catch it.  Of course, as I got back on the trail, two riders I had just passed almost rode me off the trail again.  

This was the longest race I had ever done and I really felt it around mile 25.  I tried to keep fueled and keep pedaling without making any more mistakes.  Seeing the trail finally come out to the paved road made my day, knowing it would soon be all down hill from there.  I ended up 6th in Masters 50+, about 2 minutes off of 5th.  This was by far the hardest race of my short race career.  I'll wait and see how the mind remembers this much suffering.  As of this writing, my body has not forgotten.  

Congrats to Acme teammates Cathy 6th Expert Women, Greg 3rd 50+, Carson 3rd Pro, Jim 6th Pro, Danny (new dad) 10th Pro!