TBF Lake Folsom/Granite Bay 50 Miler XC Race

[Ryan Gibson]

Well, this race was certainly a surprise on two fronts...I had not planned on racing until two days prior, and I certainly did not expect the result.

I hope my wife does not read this, but I was planning to race the Lion of Fairfax CX race Saturday...until I was reminded of the Novato Mother's Club Halloween kids party that my wife had chaired the planning committee for. Thanks for the Lion of Fairfax organizer for taking mercy on me and allowing my registration cancellation. With my brownie points earned on Saturday, I decided to race the 50 miler for the heck of it. Having won the Cat 2 category at the TBF MTB Madness event at the same location early in the year, I was familiar with this fairly buff and sandy course, so decided to just run my Highball as it was set up...for CX (rigid fork and pinner Specialized Renegade microtread tires front and back!). It turned out to be a great decision, despite being anxious it would be miserable.

 

I have been training okay and felt like I did a better job of not overtaining the week prior (which hurt me in the last race at Tamarancho), but I have never done a 50 mile MTB race before and I was unsure how my legs would hold up. I also had no clue if my fueling strategy was a good one-basically eat a normal light breakfast, one gel 30 mins prior, and eat ~2 gel or blok packages per lap in addition to one bottle of Heed per lap. From looking at past years results, I was hoping to finish under 4 hours, and maybe even around the 3.5hr mark if I had trained right and fueled correctly.

 

I took a front row spot for the mass solo rider start (80 racers), and took the hole shot into the first singletrack section. After about five minutes I glanced back and found three other very young competitors on my wheel (I learned later they were all 17 and local Norcal HS League racers). We had four laps of 12ish miles/~4k' to keep the pack behind us and figure out who among us four were going to win it. I led this group for about 2/3 of the first lap and then offered the pull on a flat section to one of the guys in this group. Towards the end of the first lap one of these young racers started having what I think was a derailleur mechanical demon, and he dropped off, never to be seen in the race again. From there it was me and two 17 year olds trading the lead for 3 laps-we occasionally saw who we thought to be 4th, 5th, etc, and they appeared to be many minutes behind. I was feeling pretty good, the fueling seemed to be right, and I was really surprised how well the rigid Highball handled the technical climbing rock features (no dabs on those the entire race) and the downhill stuff!

The race was decided just at the end of the third lap when, taking my turn in 3rd on a fire road section, the racer in second had a shifting issue and bobbled as I was glued to his rear tire...we both had to hike a bike up a steep climb and by that time the guy that had been pulling that section had seized his opportunity...kicking away from us and taking a gap neither me nor the other guy could bridge on the last lap. So at that point it was me and the 17 year old battling the rest of the race on the final lap. I hung to him for awhile, he gapped me, I clawed back to him, he gapped me again, etc. until the finish...I just couldnt get around him and was doing my best to stave off the hamstring and left quad cramps that I started to get early in the last lap. Props to these young kids...they are FAST!

 

In the end I rolled across the finish in third overall, about a minute behind first and 10 seconds behind second. My total time was 3:22:27 at an average of almost 15mph. My laps were pretty consistent at :49:16, :49:54, :50:53 and :52:24. This was good for first in my category (solo 30-39)! To put this in perspective, local fast pro Clint Claussen, who was racing on a four person team (one lap each) with his wife and another couple, turned his fast lap in :46:40.

 

The race had a decent turnout with ~120 total solo or teams (~80 of those were solo competitors-all but 6 male, the rest some team format). I have to say, the organizers did a great job with the event! Registration was quick and easy, competitors got a nice shirt, hat and h20 bottle, there was free post race massage, the course was marked well with plenty of marshalls, timing was good, etc etc. Oh, and they had good hot post race food with THREE kegs of prime beer (a porter, a pilsner and Racer 5 IPA :).

 

A really nice way to, finally, round out the XC season with an open category win!

[Jim Hewett]

Nice work, Ryan.  Rigid is not so bad, huh?  It would have been even better with some higher volume tires.

[Ryan Gibson]

Thanks Jim! Lucky neither you or Clint didnt race against me :) Yes, definitely should have had more appropriate tires, but the family and work is keeping me busy these days. I had some pretty memorable saves and lost the front twice without fanfare, but they were slightly better than expected. Rigid is a blast! I was really surprised to roll over a few technical rocky climbs that had what looked like wheel stoppers for a rigid.

[Carl Sanders]

Nice work old man!