Bradbury Mountain Enduro

[francis]

I've always had fun racing at Bradbury and was looking forward to the 30 mile lap on the singlespeed. We had a Le Mans start with all elite, expert, and singlespeeds dashing at once for our bikes. I lined my bike up in the front row and lined myself up on the shortest side of the start. I ran pretty hard and was able to be about 10th into the singletrack. I think that saved me at least a minute or so of the log jam. 

The beginning had some real tough climbs, but once we got to the other side, the course started to smooth out. About halfway through, I reached back into my jersey pocket and my arm locked shut! My upper forearm and lower bicep had cramped from pulling on the handlebars. With some concentration, I straightened it out again. I was also getting cramps in my upper back and my calves. None of them were debilitating, but I've never gotten cramps in those muscles before.

I lost one of my water bottles on the downhill, and I was getting really thirsty by the time I reached the second water stop. Once I got there I felt re-energized and kept on going. I finished in 3:12, which was 7th out of 17 in singlespeed. I felt much stronger than at pats peak, and I was happy with the result. It was a nice long ride to prepare for the hampshire 100k.

[Reenie]

I had a great race at Bradbury. It helps that I went in with low expectations. It poured buckets in metro Boston on Sat, and the forecast for Maine on Sunday was 50% chance of rain/thunderstorms. It was already a damp 75 degrees and murky as hell when we left Arlington at 6am. I knew the course was hilly, rocky, and rooty and I figured I was in a for a hike-a-bike and slipply-slide slog with maybe some thunder and lightning thrown in for fun. As we got further north, though, the fog lifted and by the time we hit the venue, it was perfectly clear and sunny. We found out it had barely sprinkled the day before and the course was bone dry. I love bone dry even more than I love perfectly clear and sunny.

The course started out with a mercifully short LeMans start (I like running, but not in bike shoes). I carefully put my bike at the end of a row, so I’d be able to find it when I got there. Of course, when we got to our bikes,I ran right by my bike to some other bike at the end of a different row. When I returned to my bike I picked it up from the wrong side. I can do a reasonable imitation of a cyclocross mount, but not from the right side of the bike. So I started out my Expert race doing some painfully slow newbie find-the-pedal clip-in. Turns out it didn’t matter much. The course went about 50 yards around a field then narrowed into single track. By the time I got going, there was a huge bottleneck at the singletrack and I had to slowride in the field until it cleared out enough to ride through and even then I was soft-pedaling for the first few tenths of a mile until the course took a sharp turn into a series of steep switchbacks. The switchbacks were the start of a climb all the way to the top of the mountain. I was trading places with Dawn, Kazcor a woman in pink shirt and two guys on singlespeeds until the trail leveled out a little and I pulled ahead. The downhill off the top of the mountain was a skills test - big root balls, ledges, drop-offs, rock walls. It would have been a nightmare wet, but it was a big ball of fun with the dry conditions, and I had it all to myself.

The fun ended abruptly when the trail took a sharp, slimey turn left into an endless energy-sucking newcut. It was soft as hell and really uneven with these super steep 2-3 foot mounds that threatened to reach in behind my kneecaps and eat the cartilage for a snack. I spent a ridiculous amount of time getting on and off the bike. It was annoying, but I was still so freaking happy that the weather was good that it wasn’t making me mad. I didn’t even get mad when the woman in the pink shirt spun on past me, with half of the Sport pack, while I was walking a climb. The newcut did actually end and we moved on to some more established trails where I could finally ride more than a few minutes without having to dismount. There was one more hike-a-bike and some more climbing then we finally descended off of the mountain, through the start area to the other side of the trail system 13 miles in.

I didn’t know much about the trails over there, but I knew there were no mountains, so I figured the next 17 miles wouldn’t be as slow as the first 13. I was right. There was a lot of twisty tight singletrack that required constant effort, but it was fun effort. There were tons of little bridges, and logs, and big bridges and rock walls and rock gardens, but enough smooth low-effort stuff to keep it from getting old. I loved it. The last couple of miles were some beautiful, smooth, flowy singletrack, but I I was getting tired. I could tell because I started crashing for stupid reasons (clipped a tree, overshot a corner). I was leapfrogging with a guy on a RIG and a guy on an titanium IF 29er SS. The IF guy pulled ahead and I couldn’t catch him but I caught the RIG guy and held him off.

The singletrack dumped out onto a jeep trail and the course marshall there said “only a 100 yards to the finish!” I said “get out!” I couldn’t believe it was already over. I finished in either 3:56 or 4:06 depending on whether the posted results were correct (long story… the Singlespeed class was timed with sport.) I was the only one in women’s Singlespeed, and crossed the finish line, so I “won” by default. If I had raced in women’s Expert, I would have been 3rd of 4, which is pretty good for me, and I did beat at least one SSer…

[Jake]

With the exception of Great Glenn last year this was my first race since the Pinnacle in 05. I went into the race with low expectation and just tried to have fun. That plan flew by me about 1 minute into the race when I realized I can't just cruise along and let people pass me in a race; I think I have OCP: obsessive competition problem.

It would have been better to diagnose myself with this problem before I got caught in the very back of the pack at the start. The giant log jam our of the start and into the first hill just killed me and I spent the next 3 hours catching up to people.

The first 13 miles was slow newly cut trails that felt like you were riding with a flat. It was faster to run up most of the hills then to ride. As we came to the end of the hilly side, Tom pasted me and I tried to stay on his wheel, but he was gone in minutes. I spent the next 17 miles cruising at my own pace, catching people and trying to find Tom. At one point in the super twisty technical section I somehow landed on my head. Not sure how it happened it was one second riding along the next head down. I felt like I split my helmet in 2, but when I got up it seemed ok. By the end my forearms were pounding and my lower back was permanently locked in a bent over position, but it felt good to race again. So good I think I'll race again next weekend.

Oh that crash left me with 2 giant bruises on my head. I looked I slammed my head into 2 steal bars since I had 2 perfect stripes that ran down the middle of my head from the foam in my helmet.

[Tom]

So we raced the Bradbury Mountain Enduro yesterday. Thankfully, the big thunderstorms we had the day before didn't impact that part of Maine so the course was dry. The weather wasn't bad either, in the lower 80s and just a little humid.

About the race: To be honest with you I really didn't care for the first 10 miles of "fresh cut" single track. I've done enough trail work over the years to know that raking a path through the woods and marking it with little orange flags does not make a trail. Actually, we were very lucky it wasn't raining because all that duff would have turned the trail into a giant quagmire. As it was, the trails were just very soft and lumpy and that sucked the life out me.

So after I got past that stuff the rest of the course was very technical and fun and I liked it a lot, lots of tight rocky lumpy trail, pretty cool stuff. Things started to go better, despite me being pretty far off the back.

Eventually I settled into my "endurance pace" and I pretty much rode alone for a long time and began to zone out. I soon realized that my endurance pace is actually a lot slower than the pace most of these guys ride normally when I started to get caught by a group of riders that I had passed earlier, one of which was  Jake who I spotted through the woods behind me. So I kicked it up, breathed a little bit harder and tried my best to ride faster for the remainder of the race which was about 8 miles or so. In doing so I was able to pass two other single speed guys, and a couple of geared riders as well. I thought at the time that it would be nice if I could be able maintain that pace for the whole 30 miles, I would do a lot better. I guess that's where actual training instead of screwing around without any type of plan would pay off.

Anyhow, so I finished the thing and felt kinda wrecked but not too bad. I came around mid-way through the pack of single speeders at 9th place with a time of 3:16 which isn't too bad considering the size of the class as well as there being some really fast riders in the mix. Afterwards then we hung around with Frank, Max and Francis for Reenie to collect her award. (first and only women SS)