Gooney Riders

Coast to Coast

Short update- we have made it across Ireland with a pitstop at ss worlds. Worlds was nuts... More on that later. Great tour and hopefully we ll catch the train back to Dublin!

Silly Single Speeders Sliding on Snow

Over breakfast: poached eggs, steamed spinach, english muffins and bacon smothered in hollendaise sauce (breakfast of champions) Jj asked me what made Saturday's ride so good. The Crew, plain and simple.  And the fact that we got away with murder with the weather.  And the boozing at the hut afterwards didn't hurt either. 

Jj had told me to block out the weekend for the Annual Hut Ride well over a month ago.  The timing couldn't have been more perfect.  After a week of nearly 70 degree weather in Bubble town, a gloom and doom forecast gave us the trails to ourselves with just enough moisture  to lock up the death pebbles at Buff Creek (sort of like winter time snow and ice making the north face of the Eiger more climbable because you have less rocks sailing down).

It was the most unique, diverse group of bikes and people I've ever ridden with.  We had three amazing photographers with us to capture the magic.  These are the shots captured by Chris.  I'm sure Ed will have more up too.

Ed.

The girls.

Classic Buff Creek moonscape.

 

Erik and Maddie.

 

Maddie.  Mile 10 of 30.

 

Then the fog set in.  Fairies and elves danced through frosted grass.  

Unicorns graced us at Chair Rocks.  Until we bit their heads off.

Then we carved our way home, laying down fresh tracks the whole way.

 

Girls with grace.

 

Boys with style.

 

Dogs that know what's up.

Then after a night of debauchery, snowy pump track riding, and storytelling at the hut, we awoke to find the storm had finally hit.

 

The timing couldn't have been better.

24 Hours of Moab

There are two reasons that I will sign up for any particular race.  It either needs to have epic single track, or it needs to be a giant party.  There was something about 4,000+ people congregated in the deserts of Moab that I just had to see.  It's maybe the biggest 24-hour race in the world, and hosted the US 24-hour National Championships this year.

When 9 wonderful people came out to cheer and crew for me, I was hoping, at the very least, to put on a good show.  My race plan was to have fun as long as possible, and when it stopped being fun, to put my head down and suffer.

The Le Mans start was pretty cool.  Those who look closely at the people in this photo will appreciate the irony.  

 

Those who have ever seen bike racers try to run can appreciate the cluster that occurs when 400 of them take off down an open field of tumbleweeds.

The starting gun was a potato cannon.  Classy.

 

And so began 24 hours of bike racing.  

My support crew were absolute rock stars.  I owe them more than I could ever repay.  RC and I went through lap by lap details of what I needed that morning.  What I was going to have to have forced down my throat, what I was going to argue about.

 

From what I can tell, crewing for a 24-hour race is serious business not intended for hippies from Boulder.  While I pedaled, they seemed to enjoy themselves.

 

 

They even built a berm.

Every once in a while I'd finish a lap and come visit.  Each lap I'd make a mental list of funny and cool things that I saw that I wanted to tell them all about.  The cool little gray mouse I almost ran over, the epic sunset, the new line down one of the XXX Danger sections that I found. Each stop, I'd forget. I'd pick up two bottles, some gels, argue like a 5-year old about not wanting to eat any more solid food, and head out for another lap.

After 6 hours the sun started to go down.  I watched the sunset from high atop a mesa, both marveling at the fact that I got to ride through such beautiful places, and at the same time, wondering what the heck I was doing.

 

I had a killer set of lights I borrowed from Chris, who apparently knows a thing or two about this enduro-racing stuff.  1200 lumens made it daylight in front of me through the dark and lonely hours of the night.  The first two night laps were wicked fun.  Then I realized I had 4 to 5 more of them to go before the sun came up, and then I had the potential for 3-5 more laps depending on timing, and my spirits dropped.  2 am was the worst.  The thought of 10 more hours was completely disheartening and I found myself pushing my bike up hills, not because I couldn't pedal them, but because I was lonely, tired, and feeling like an idiot for signing up.  Everyone else was pushing, I was going to push to.  Welcome to the Eszter Pity-Party.

These are the times you really really appreciate your support crew.  While I was always sad to be pedaling out into the darkness, leaving the fire, food, and music behind, using their infectious energy definitely got me up the major climbs in the first half the course.  I left the pity-party behind and got on to the job at hand: actually racing my bike.

As the race wore on, pit stops got longer, motivational speeches got more frequent, and I started dreading more and more sections of the course.  Then I'd get angry at a technical section and clear it just to spite it.  I cleared every ridable (for me) technical section during my 4 am lap on sheer anger.  Yes, 24-hour racing will mess with your head.

Around 6:30 in the morning, I started doing the calculations.  Running about 1:50 laps with Sarah Kaufmann within minutes of me, it dawned on me that I had the potential of having to do 4 more laps if we both managed to squeak under the noon cut-off for heading out.  60 more miles.  4 more hikes down Nosedive, 4 more times up the brutally rocky first climb, 4 more times through the nasty sand traps.  

I mentally prepared for three more laps and hoped for the best.

Then the time gaps started to open up.  While I was out on course calculating madly trying to figure out how much time Sarah would have to lose per lap to miss the noon cut-off in order for me not to have to do 15 laps, the support crews were conferring.  Sarah was done.  She went out to finish her 13th lap to secure second, but she wasn't going to head out to attempt number 14.  That meant that as soon as I made it back, I could be done.

The crew lined up on the finishing straight to tell me the news.  I saw them from far away, I figured they were just out to try to lift my spirits.

I honestly didn't believe them when they told me.  I was done?  I didn't have to do another lap with the potential for two more laps?  Were the absolutely, positively sure?  I'd actually pulled it off?

I went to talk to Sarah's crew, just to quadruple check, and very happily signed myself off of the system for good when, through my not-so-coherent state, I realized no one else could catch me.

The face of exhaustion.

 

At that time, I swore I'd never do another 24 again.  This morning I found myself laying in bed thinking about what I'd do differently.  It's a strange sport we participate in.

Sarah made the race what it was.  Our crews were set up across from each other, and lap after lap, we'd come into the pits within sight of each other.  In a race format that the winner is generally decided by laps not by minutes, having a race so close added to the excitement.  And the stress.  She's a wicked strong bike rider, can ride the technical stuff with the best of them, and an amazingly nice person to boot.

I've thought about getting to wear a stars and strips jersey of a national champion a good bit.  I hadn't really believed it was possible.  I'd figured that I'd cashed in all my 'Ride of my life' tickets earlier this summer and this race was going to a good learning experience.

It was an amazing Waltworks Dream Team effort.

 

As I'm sitting here, doped up on plenty of Vitamin I, a half-eaten jar of Nutella next to me, and no plans to touch a bike for at least a week (except for commuting, of course), I feel an incredible sense of happiness, not because I won a bike race (because really, it's bike racing, we're not saving puppies from burning buildings) but because I got to spend a very special weekend with amazingly fun, supportive people who I owe at least several rounds of beer.  I couldn't have done it without them.

 

What a perfect end to an absolutely perfect summer.

Durability Training

It wasn't a sane idea.  9 of us woke up in our pseudo-legal campsite on Sunday morning to a dusting of snow and below freezing temperatures.  6 headed to warmer climates, 3 set out to 12,500 feet. Yeah, those three were Chris, RC, and myself.  I told myself I'd be more than happy to turn around if it got really cold.  I'm pretty good at lying to myself to get my butt moving.

Chris had been talking about re-riding the Canyon Creek section of Vapor Trail on his big bike since we pre-rode it seemingly forever ago.  I figured that if we put it off long enough and it snowed up high, the idea would go out the window.  Well, we waited, and it snowed, and we went to go ride it.

The climb up Tomichi Pass road from Snowblind was miserable.  I'm fairly sure the only thing that kept me from turning around was the knowledge that the descent down the road sucked nearly as bad as the climb up it.  So instead of turning around and retreating to the warmth of the car and piles of down jackets, I just pedaled faster...and when I couldn't feel my feet anymore, I walked.

Conditions were a stark opposite to the previous day's sunshine.

 

We reached the false summit of Granite Peak 3.5 hours after we set off.  It was maybe a little bit windy.  A little bit chilly.  And a little bit snowy.  But our death march over Boreas Pass earlier this summer was infinitely worse.  I'll take cold and snowy over slightly less cold and rainy any day.

 

RC was much more motivated to ride than me.  Walking is way easier.

 

Then the 1.5 hour free fall.  I almost didn't want to climb Granite because I knew the descent was hard when it was dry and I was more than a little worried that if it was covered in snow, I'd be walking my bike down 3,000 feet.

The first section went well.

  
The snow was sticky and a snow squall was bearing down on us, so we had the motivation to book it.

 

Then low and behold, as soon as we dropped off the shoulder of Granite proper, the snow disappeared.  The trail was tacky, smooth, goodness.  They were in better condition than when we pre-rode for Vapor Trail.  We hooted and hollered the whole way down.

I feel like we got away with murder for this one.

 

Evan left us the van to get home with.  But not before a roadside picnic. Poorman's mochas, chips and salsa, and cupcakes.  We really are a classy bunch.

Birthday Ride

Last year, RC turned 30.  Big occasions deserve big parties, so we all rode bikes to Oskar Blues and drank beer, and a day later, went out to Moab and rode bikes.  

Last Thursday, Chris turned 28.  Big occasions deserve big parties, so again, we rode bikes to Oskar Blues and drank beer, and a day later, went to go ride bikes.  The only difference, this time we rode trails pseudo-legally to Oskar Blues, and went to Salida instead of the desert.  

First on the list was Monarch Crest.  We had a shuttle planned and everything.  Leave one car at Absolute Bikes, take two cars to the top.  Brilliant.

It was a bit of a motley crew, to say the least.  While we were moving fairly quick when we were actually moving, I think we were, on average, the slowest group on the Crest that day.

Not a cloud in the sky.  Not a mud puddle to be seen.  Not a complaint to be had.

 

As always, the Crest/Silver Creek/Rainbow trail delivered.  And as it turns out, it's a lot more fun to ride when you don't already have 65 miles in your legs.

Then we realized that the shuttle car keys were actually locked in the car at the top of the pass, people who agreed to shuttle us ditched us, Bama ended up at the coffee shop, and the rest of us, well, we ended up at the Grub and Pub in Poncha Springs while the drivers figured out how to retrieve keys and cars.

They had a great happy hour...and we made full use of it.  Nearly 2 hours of $2 Stone IPAs while watching the sun set over the Collegiate Peaks...and tamales with green chili to die for...may have led to a little bit of silliness.

Even the drivers who didn't get to (over)indulge at the Pub and Grub joined the fun.

A silly, fun-filled day for sure.

Mondays

When the 10 am checkout time at the hostel came on Sunday morning, Chris and I made an executive decision.  We only make it to Crested Butte twice a year, and you only get engaged once...work can wait, we're staying an extra day.  

We wined an dined ourselves at the best CB has to offer, slept in, watched sunrise on Red Lady mountain from bed, and even went for a little bike ride.  The little bike ride may have turned into a bigger bike ride had my rear brake decided to completely give up on me...stupid hydraulics.

But that's the beauty of Crested Butte riding. In the hour and a half that we were out, we rode trails like this.

As always, we were reluctant to leave.  So reluctant, actually, that 10 minutes out of town we decided that we were hungry and we needed to stop and have a picnic and further delay our arrival back to the front range.

Becker made some comment on Facebook about 'the hippies are getting married!'  I don't know what he's talking about.

But alas, even a stop at Bongo Billy's for pie and coffee couldn't delay us forever, but further stuffing ourselves at Sherpa's while my mom grilled me on wedding planning make the return not as brutal.

And if anyone is planning on doing the CB classic next year, we have some maps for you to borrow. 

Complete with milage (+/- a few miles here or there).

It worked for us...somehow.

  

Crested Butte Classic

It was just another magazine inspired idea.  The Crested Butte Classic.  First discovered in the pages of Mountain Flyer where Ed had some pictures last year, and then rediscovered over beer and BBQ post-Vapor Trail, Chris and I were set on doing it.  Never mind that the course wasn't marked and I'd only ridden about 15 miles of the course, Chris was slightly better at ~30 miles, or that it had snowed in CB three days earlier and we had no clue of trail conditions.  It was Crested Butte, we couldn't go wrong.

We bought a map.  We drew the course on it.  We wrote down mileages between the major junctions on the drive down.  We were set. (And we hoped really hard we'd have people to follow for the critical junctions)

Pre-race instructions by Dave were amusing.  Take a left here, right here, left at this junction, a right at this one, and if you see any cows on the trail, aim right at them, they'll move.   Ready, set, go.  As per tradition, I got dropped during the neutral rollout when my knee warmers decided to fall down.

It was 27 degrees out, a fact that became abundantly clear at the first creek crossing.

Luckily, the sun rose over Teo ridge, the temperature climbed, but not too much, and Chris and I went for a wonderful 96 mile ride, with 12,000+ feet of climbing, together.  Chris, because he tends to go downhill significantly faster than I do, took some pictures.

Loop 1 followed the classic Teo Ridge, Strand Bonus, Strand, and Canal Trails.  We completely lucked out and hit the Strand trails on the tail of some Brick Oven guys from CB, so we followed them with full confidence.

The aspens were in their full glory.

After a brief stop at the car (too brief for Chris to put sunscreen on, apparently) we headed out for Lap 2.  A climb aptly nicknamed Slate d'Huez (I would name it soul-sucker, personally), and the classic 403/401 link-up.  Chris and I got passed by Suzee D. riding as part of a relay team on the final climb of the 403.  That chica can ride.  I would love to follow her downhill someday.  It gave me a total boost of energy just chatting with her for a few seconds before she pedaled well out of sight.

(We were headed up over the pass to the right of that peak...brutal)

Chris survived the totally un-singlespeeder friendly lap with grace. Steep climbs and flat-ish downhills. Next year, we're getting him gears.

Refilled bottles at the car, drank some Monster Energy, ate a Snickers, and headed out for the 3rd and final lap. The 'ever-sexy Dyke trail' as the race organizers called it.  It was the single best piece of trail that we rode all day, absolutely beautiful singletrack, golden aspens, and the knowledge that we were within 10 miles of being done.  Simply stellar.

Once at the bottom, it was simply a matter of preserving the adrenaline rush as long as possible to get back over Kebler pass and cruise back into town.  

Somewhere on the order of 10.5 hours.  It was a long, stupid-fun, day in the office.

Crankcollective did a nice little race write-up here.

This morning, Chris and I went for a little bike ride.  Because regardless of how wasted we felt, we were in Crested Butte, and it would have been a sin not too.

Can't ask for anymore than this...

... especially if you happen to get a proposal and a ring right before a rippin' downhill.

Designed by Chris, metal work by Bikesmith Jon, spokes and chainring bolts.  I'll take it over a rock any day.

A picture for posterity.

Not a bad day...not a bad day. 

Visitors

Whenever Chris and I have guests up in WP, we do our best to showcase the best trails that WP has to offer.  Sure, there's Zoom, and Flume, and Chainsaw, and Tipperary, but it's the trails between the trails that are the real gems.  Unfortunately, as the Forest Service has done fire mitigation in the Valley, more and more of these gems have been mowed down with devastating results.

When the threat of weather shut down our high altitude plan, we decided to show Walt and Sarah the neighborhood instead.  Backyard trails to resort trails to a free-ride jump trail to railroad grade to blackmarket duff trail to an old racecourse to new trails in a neighborhood that was responsible for mowing down our egress from Rollins Pass.

Chris explained the ride to Walt.  Sarah asked where we were going.  Walt summarized with: We're following Chris.

There are two trails off of Rollins Pass that Chris and I know of.  One got mowed down 2 years ago rendering it impassable.  We're still not sure who does all the trail work up here, but the forest fairies have been hard at work with a reroute.  And questionable stunts...

The reroutes do an amazing job skirting the wood piles.  Considering the mess this area was in last time I visited (and nearly cried at the destruction), the wood fairies did good.

 Walt's always been known for his lack of style and his collection of hideous jerseys.

I think I may have outdone him this time.

We ended riding on the new neighborhood trails in the Rendezvous housing development.  They're actually fairly nice trails and from the slightly overgrown state of them, I think it's a fair assumption that nobody actually rides them.  They sure do like switchbacks though.

When the weather finally moved in both from the west and from the south, we hightailed it back to the condo via the liquor store.  It's definitely getting to be the time of year where a 2-3 hour ride seems just about perfect.

After the rain (and snow up high), Chris and I went for a sunset walk with the puppies.  The light was nothing short of amazing.  This truly is the best time of year.

Snow in the peaks last night.  Snow in WP this morning, as in I'm watching it snow right now.  Summer is done!

Riding Bikes

My parents asked me this morning what I was going to do today.

I'm going to ride bikes.  The same as yesterday, the same as tomorrow.  And it never gets old.  

We all did different things in the morning.  Chris tried out for the Winter Park Bike Patrol with great success.  I went as got my first collegiate XC start of the season at Sol Vista with great success.  And Walt and Sarah went to go ride lifts at WP with their XC bikes with not so great success.

Luckily, we all rallied for some Phase trail action at sunset. A new, 1-hour loop, that consisted of a 20 minute dirt road climb, followed by 40 minutes of screaming singletrack.  Great success.

Walt, classy as always.

Little biker, big valley.

It's golden carpet season.

This is why it never gets old.

Snow in the mountains this week.  The seasons are a changing.

Vapor Trail 125 (or 108)

Where to start, where to start.  

I guess all bike racing begins with packing a bag for the conditions.  Forecast was rain, snow, near-freezing temperatures for a 'race' that is 98% above 9,000 ft.  Chris took a picture of his pile of stuff.  Most of the food (and the beer) got axed when we decided that the aid stations would have enough...but the rest came along.

 

We invaded Jj and Ed's hotel room when we got to Salida.  A blessing when they postponed the race start 2 hours due to pissing rain and lightning.  They also took out the super-high alpine part of the loop and an extra loop to save on time.  Good call.  The rain cleared up an hour later and 38 crazies toed the 'start line' at midnight.

It rained again on the climb up to Blanks Cabin.  I think the Boreas Pass death march we did earlier this year has made all other rain storms seem not so bad...

The Colorado Trail section was the most fun I've had on a bike in a long time, and I have a lot of fun on my bike.  The added moisture made the trail tacky beyond belief and riding with a good sized group lit up the wet night.  It was really cool.

Chris kept me company on the long climb up to Alpine Tunnel.  Having him there made the night much more tolerable even if we exchanged maybe 5 words in the pre-dawn hours.  I think those words were: 'My feet are cold', and 'Mine too'.

Dawn brought Tomichi Pass, which may be the single most heinous ride-able climb, ever.  Any worse, you'd have to push, but its just right on the border of too hard to pedal.  I left Chris at the base with a fat ol' kiss, knowing that he'd be third gearing (pedaling, coasting, walking) it on his single speed, and if I could muster the motivation, I could pedal it.  I told him to take lots of pictures.

Before we split, Chris asked for some of my water.  I didn't realize that he wasn't just looking for something other than HEED, which was in his bottles, but that he was out of liquid completely.  He was a bit bonky at the top of Tomichi.

snow up high..

Good thing Dave Wiens and the Gunni Crew had a kick-ass aid station set up 2,000 feet down.  I rolled through, grabbed some food, some lube, and apparently left just 2 minutes before Chris showed up.  Doh!

The 4 mile coast to the base of Old Monarch Pass road were nice.  The 9 mile climb up, not so much.  Passed Carney stripping warm clothes off.  He passed me again when I stopped to strip.  I passed him again and garnered the sage advice of: While we're near the power lines, we're not even close to the top.  Awesome.

I guess I was pretty out of it at the top.  I didn't even notice Jj at the aid station till she referred to my bike as a pony and I came to.  We took some pictures, I downed a Monster Coffee super-sugar-and-caffeine drink that I'd bought the night before, and headed out for the last 30 some-odd miles.

Chris rolled up 15 minutes later, and all the girls said that he was looking good. 

Then Monarch Crest bliss.  After the crap weather the night before, we couldn't have asked for a better day of riding on Sunday.

I was worried that I'd be too tired to enjoy.  I wasn't. :)

Apparently a handful of us beat the course marker to Rainbow Trail.  Anton from Absolute Bikes was sitting at the entrance of the trail with a BOB trailer full of course markers (he rode it all along the Crest and down Silver Creek marking the course) and gave me directions to the finish.  I realized about 10 minutes into the trail that I apparently wasn't listening too well because while I knew how to get back to town, I had no clue where the finish line was.  I also knew Carney was right on my tail and he knew how to get back, so I wasn't terribly worried.  

I was worried that Rainbow Trail would kick my ass.  It didn't.  It was fun going back through it thinking: I have a picture of Sarah there, that's where Walt decked it really hard, are we there yet?  Where's that final switchback?  Carney chose the very end of the trail to finally catch me after a flat tire and bad tube.  We rolled the final pavement miles to the BBQ/finish line together finishing in 13:14 in 4th and 5th overall.  We didn't sprint for it. :)  Turned out, I was the only girl who thought it would be a good idea to ride up to 12,000+ feet in below freezing temperatures...I can think of plenty of other times that I've been colder.

Chris rolled in 8th and second among the SS crowd. Full results here. For someone who hasn't raced in many years and hasn't 'trained' in the traditional sense of the word, I was beyond proud.

We stuffed ourselves silly at the BBQ, checked into our motel, and after 36 hours of being awake, passed out fully clothed on top of all the covers.

Back to Boulder in the morning after breakfast at Bongo Billy's.   Adios Salida, it was fun!

Before this weekend, we'd never really hung out in Salida.  This weekend, it moved up several notches on the 'Possible Places to Live' list.