I finally got to do the Lake Wilson MTB Race.  It has been on my race bucket list for a long time.  And it didn’t disappoint.

Lake Wilson is a reservoir in Central Kansas.  And the terrain around the area is unlike the rest of Kansas.  You’d think you would be in Utah or some other arid region of the country.  Small hills and lots of rocks.  Much of the trail rides next to cliff drop offs.

The race was 28 miles, but that seemed long for the conditions.  It was hot, not hot by summer standards, but hot by spring standards.  There is no shade on the course, not hardly a tree.  But the wind was out of control.  It was super windy, like 30 + and gusty.  Gusty enough that when I was riding by the edge of the reservoir, I was pretty prepared for a gust that might blow me in.

I can’t say the race was close to perfect for me.  But, looking back upon it today, it is about what I should have expected.  I am a rusty MTB racer.  It was 100% single-track, loose single track and the skills required to ride on that are something you need to practice.  I hadn’t.  I’ve ridden my Eirksen dual suspension bike 3 days this year.   It had my number from Berryman on it just a couple weeks ago. That was from October of last year.

The race is up a kilometer paved climb and then single track for the duration.  I got the whole shot, sort of.  No one was really fighting for it.  Benn Stove should have taken it, but he couldn’t decide whether it was the turn to the trail or not.

The first loop is super technical.  Like walking technical in places.  I led for just a couple hundred meters, then slid out my rear wheel on a loose corner and Micah Gordon passed me.  Then Benn caught me a little later and I let him pass me.  Then a little while later, Kalan Beisel, tried to run by me on a little walk up and I jacked him up, so just moved over and gave him a push when he went by.  I was all over the place.  My “running” on loose sandstone is pitiful at best. Mainly from my left hip, which I broke a couple years ago.  So, I was a ways back.

We did a section they called the “bird section”, but I was over cooking the corners and using a ton of extra energy as Benn, Micah and Kalan rode away together.  I wasn’t losing that much time, but using a lot of energy, which was hard to access.

I don’t get it, but I can’t get going early in a race recently.  I kept telling myself that I was going to come around, but my lower back hurt from the day before and power was hard to come by. In the back of my mind, I was worried that I was not going to come around, because of the heat, and just flail the whole day.

I eventually caught Benn again, just in time to do the same technical loop the other direction.  It was much easier to ride the other was, but Benn lost me again.  Then we went out towards the water.  I started feeling better and tried to focus, not that I wasn’t already trying to focus.

Benn was climbing pretty good, but I assumed he was going to eventually blow.  He is young and tends to have a hard time going hard for long periods just now.  I caught him, then Micha just a bit later.  We were over an hour plus into the race and I was maybe a couple minutes back on Kalan.

I started riding harder and feeling better.  I was pedalling better.  Pulling up on the backstroke while seated.  Riding less technical hills off my seat.  I was going way better, but was still dabbing a ton.  My bike handling was atrocious.   At least compared to myself.

I did a time check to Kalan and got him down to less than a minute with 7 miles to go.  I was thinking, sort of, that maybe I could catch him if I rode smooth.  But, just a little bit later, I crashed.

It was a stupid fall.  I was threading my way through two big rocks and tapped my bar end on one of them.  I was just 1/2″ inch in the wrong spot.  It twisted my bars and I high sided forward.  My bike got wedged between the rocks and I landed on another one on my right hip.  My left foot was still clipped into the pedal and I was sort of stuck there.  Adding to the misery, my left hamstring cramped.  Plus, I ripped a hole in a brand new pair of bib shorts.  Kind of a disaster.

I finally got my left foot unclipped and stood up.  I realized I wasn’t hurt much and got going, but it was at least 30 seconds, probably more.  I looked at my Garmin and realized I only had 5 miles left and couldn’t catch Kalan anymore.  So I just rode in.

I finished close to 2 minutes back in 2:16.  Not so bad really, but I have a much better race than that in me normally.  But, like I said above, I am super rusty.  If I had the race to do again, I would try to ride much cleaner.

The course doesn’t reward speed in the wrong places.  There are very few spots where you can just pedal hard and not be worried about having to brake a ton.  I hardly ever got anything near perfect.

Doug Chambers, is the man who’s passion is Lake Wilson.  He built the trails and promoted the race.  He thanked me a ton of time for coming, which was super nice.  It didn’t disappoint.

The prize list was top heavy, but great.  $1000 to win.  But it dropped to $400 for 2nd, which was great too.  I wasn’t there for money, I was there for the life experience.  And it didn’t disappoint either.

I learned a ton, or re-learned a ton.  I got to meet a bunch of new people I should have met before.  And I got to race on a new course that is incredible.  Pretty great weekend, really.

Catherine, who went with me, did great too, but she was hurt.  Not from crashing, but from riding.  If I thought I was rusty, then she was nearly seized.  On a new dual suspension bike that she’d maybe ridden 50 miles on total.  Plus, the race was the same length.  She was in 2nd for more than half the race, but bonked and crawled back.  She still finished 3rd, but she was cramped up and barely moving.  The whole drive back she was cramping in different places.  And she doesn’t cramp.

I can’t say I’m not hobbled today.  My right leg, from falling, plus my lower back. Mountain bike racing is a hard sport, especially when it is hot and you’re not conditioned for it.

 

 

 

It seems like The Growler was a long time ago, even though it was just Sunday.   I have to say, honestly, I’d never heard of the race before.  I have been pretty removed from MTB racing on all levels, even though I did win Lutzsen 100 last year, rode Leadville, plus Chequamegon and Berryman.  The scene is so disjointed now that unless you are living the life, it is difficult to know exactly what is happening on a National level.

The Growler is two loops of approximately 32 miles.  The two loops are a little different, but the terrain is the same.  You ride up to a plateau and then ride undulating singletrack forever.  Mainly you are riding smooth singletrack through sagebrush, but every so often, like every mile or two the trail heads to a rock outcropping and it is pretty technical.   Not technical like Lake Wilson, large granite boulders with multiple lines to choose from.  Not knowing the correct lines is a big disadvantage.  But, for me, it didn’t really matter.

The race starts up a 5 minute, steep climb after a neutral 4 mile roll out on pavement.  No one was really charging early because the climb loomed ahead.  This is where the race was over for me.  I was hoping that I was going to be like last year and be okay at altitude.  I did alright in Winterpark and the GoPro games in Vail without being here.  That wasn’t the case on Saturday.

As I predicted, I crawled up the climb.  VIncent passed me about half way up and distanced himself from me.  As did nearly everyone else.  I was bad.  The problem was that after another mile or so, we turned into a very long singletrack area.  And a few guys ahead of me were pretty lousy at riding singletrack.  The front group of guys, like the first 1/3 of the field, disappeared into the distance.

So, I decided I was just going to enjoy.  I did a pretty good job of this. The open singletrack flowed wonderfully.  It was a blast getting back the skills needed to go fast.  The technical rock sections were a challenge in the masses.  Lots of walking, where it should have been riding.

Somewhere about half way through the first lap, I was walking in line, up a narrow rocky section.  A guy tried to ride a high line by us and screwed up above me.  He fell over into my bike, which jammed my pedal into my left shin.  I looked down a blood was streaming down into my sock.

I hate those shinbone hits.  They hurt like crazy and knot up.  I got on my bike a little bit later and my leg was still hurtin’.  Pretty soon I shook it off, but it took a while.

Just a while later, I thought I spotted Vincent up ahead.  He was way far away.  It took me a while, but it was Vincent.  I couldn’t believe that he could be blown at only 2 hours in.  I caught up with him and it turned out his fork on his new Scalpel  was blown and was locked down.  So his front end of his bike is 4 inches low, with no shock.  That would have been nearly impossible to negotiate.  It turned out to be.

Here’s how bad I was.  Kalan Beisel, who beat me last weekend by around 2 minutes in Lake Wilson in 2 :15, was 9 minutes ahead after 1:20.  At 2:30 he was 15 minutes ahead.  By the end I was nearly 40 minutes back.  Kalan finished 2nd again, less than a minute out of winning.

The next lap was hard. I would have been happy stopping at one lap.  It was already over 2:30 hours and I was pretty worked.  My lower back and back of my arms were sore. But, it was another lap.

At the top of the start climb, Vincent was standing at the top with a bottle.  He’d stopped to try to pump up his shock, with no luck, so he took a shortcut to feed me.  The lap was super fun.  I never got any worse and as the mile ticked off, actually felt a little better.  There was really no one to catch.  I passed a couple guys in the first half of the lap and then there was no one.

I thought I was riding the technical section better, I was, but towards the end, I started screwing up.  I think it was because I was tired.  I stopped at a couple feed stations and refilled my water bottle.  I never do that, but didn’t really have any reason not to.

So, that was it.  I finished 16th place.  I’m not sure how many people started.  There is a 350 riders limit each day, Saturday and Sunday.  On Saturday, it is only one lap.  Then on Sunday, it is the Full Growler, which is two laps, and then the overflow from the 1/2 Growler.

The trail system around Gunnison is super.  Super maintained and extensive.  It is a MTB destination for sure.

The race finishes out of town and then you just ride back to the start/expo area on your own.  It looked like it was going to start raining, so I figured I should ride back quick.  But, VIncent had driven the van over and I went over and wiped off.  I then realized that my shin scrape was a deep gouge.  Like stitchable.

So, VIncent drove to Walgreens and got some stuff to wash it out and I rode back.  The expo was small, but super fun.  Free beer to the finishers.  They actually hand you a $10 bill to go and buy food from the vendors there.  They had super burritos, and lot of other great choices.

I was planning on staying for the awards ceremony, but Trudi and just flown in from Winston-Salem and I was thinking I should address the cut.  So we started driving.

The drive back was good.  A little hail and sleet, then just scenic Colorado.  The drive from Gunnison back to Denver goes through a bunch of Colorado that a lot of people don’t see that much.  No destinations there, but small towns that face harsh conditions in the winter. I like it.

Brian and Michelle Jensen were at Vincent’s too, along with Trudi.  They are shopping for a house to buy.  Brian is starting a new job on Monday, after the Dirty Kanza next week.  They are a little stressed by the prices, which I understand.

We went out and rode North Table Mesa yesterday.  First Vincent and Trudi rode on a tandem, then we all went out and rode our own bikes.  Brian, Vincent and I rode a little further and faster.  I ended up with over 3 hours again.  Not exactly rest.

We are heading back to Kansas today.  Trudi has to fly to Belgium tomorrow from Kansas City. Then get in a car and drive from Belgium to Southern France.  Man, her schedule is crazy this year.