Nothing like having the sound of thunder and downpour wake you up before you alarm clock the morning of your 2nd 100 miler. Luckily, the rain on the radar image that I posted Saturday morning passed through before the race began. The mud would still be there, but at least we wouldn’t be starting in it.

After having a modest plate of eggs and french toast sticks at the local breakfast buffet, I changed and rolled up the bike path to downtown Loudonville. Supposedly, between the 100k and 100m races, at least 500 people were entered. They started everyone at the same time since the courses were shared until aid #3. This made for a horrible bottleneck at the entrance to the first trail section a couple of miles outside of town. In an attempt to pace myself, I ended up behind a lot of people who didn’t care how fast they were going or how much of the muddy stuff they walked. I was annoyed, but figured it’d spread out at some point within the next 90 miles or so.

After the first bit of horse trail, we made our way on to the Mohican State Park mountain bike trails. I have to say, even with the mud, that was some awesome singletrack! I could tell that it would have been rippingly fast if the ground hadn’t been so slick.

Side note- a lot of people complained about how HORRIBLE the mud was. I even heard someone drop a “worst mud ever.” These people have obviously never seen the likes of the clay-based mud that we have down here in the South. Sure, this stuff slowed you down, but it had a good solid base and didn’t stick to your bike too badly, so it was, at worst, an inconvenience.

Anyway- so I’m having a good time on the singletrack and swapping places with a woman named Kelly who was there doing her first 100 miler. She was a better climber than me, but I got through the mud and technical stuff a little better than her. When I got to Aid 1, I lubed my chain, crammed half a Powerbar in my mouth, and headed out quickly. I was glad to have my Wingnut pack, because they were almost out of water (I later learned that they ran out completely soon after).

A mile or so later, I washed out my front wheel in one of the many little roller-coaster dips in the trail. I managed to not hit the deck too bad, but as my bike fell, I heard a “SNAP” sound. When I picked it up, I saw that my rear brake lever was gone. Totally gone- not even a nub of lever… Crap. I rode on. I figured I’d just ride the front brake until the pads were gone then swap my rear pads into the front caliper at an aid station.

Soon after, I reached one of many hike-a-bike sections. It was a wall of mud that was breaking people left & right. Meh… I was smart & remembered to put my toe spikes in my shoes. I tip-toed my way up past a few people and hopped on to enjoy the ride down.

Side note #2- I got a pair of Mavic “Chasm” shoes on Thursday, and they’re really, really awesome. Comfy, stiff, and great hiking traction! They also don’t loosen up when wet like my Sidis. Highly recommended!

The horse trails of that section were a bit more tedious, but generally not too bad. Somewhere near the end was a steep downhill with 4×4 posts laid out as water bars across the trail. A lot of people were walking, but I didn’t really see the point, so I rode it slowly, popping my wheels up & over the posts to keep from slipping or bottoming out my rim. Looking back,even though it was faster, it probably wasn’t all that great for the integrity of my one brake. Oh well. It was fun, anyway.

Soon after, I was making my way up a steep pitch in the granny gear when I got chainsuck. I backpedaled, it released, and I was OK. However, that kept happening. Eventually, packpedaling ceased to work. My chain was stuck HARD up between the frame & chainring. I dismounted, cursed, and kicked my pedal to try and un-stick the chain. I missed and hit the pedal with my shin. I’ll borrow a quote from one of my favorite movies to describe my reaction:

“My father wove a tapestry of obscenity that, as far as we know, is still hanging somewhere in space over Lake Michigan”

Yeah, it was like that.

So, with my chain un-stuck, and my shin feeling like it was broken, I started back down the trail. However, my chain would now not stay on the granny gear, and when it was on the big ring (remember- I ride 2×9, 36/24), it was hopping around and sounding like it was ready to drop or explode. I stopped several times trying to figure out why. Given my past history, I was expecting a bent derailleur hanger, but the rear shifting was OK, and it looked fine. I stopped and laid my bike down in a creek in hopes that it just needed a drivetrain wash. No luck. I nursed it to a road section where I could get a better look at it without getting in the way of the singletrack.

It was there that I saw the problem- The last major chainsuck incident had twisted a link of chain. I kept my cool. I had the tools to fix this. I removed the three links pictured below and, with the help of a nice guy who stopped to make sure I was OK, installed a SRAM quicklink in their place.

Side note #3- the one nice thing about being behind the “fast” people is that everyone is a lot more willing to stop & help if you look like you’re having a problem.

So now my chain was a little shorter, but it was working well. If I avoided using the 36/34, I was good. I kept going. My granny was still wanting to chainsuck, but I was managing without using it much. At that point, I’d spent a good deal of time effing around with my chain issues, but I figured I was still on track to finish just outside of a respectable time. Making my way up one of the hills on the pavement, I stood up near the top to grind out the last steep bit.

BAM!!!!!!!!!

My chain exploded. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it wasn’t actually the chain, but the KMC Quicklink that I’d put in the chain at DSG a few weeks ago. One of the pins had sheared off, damaging another link in the process. I cursed some more (though not as dramatically as the earlier shin incident), picked up my broken chain, and started walking. I knew the next aid station was around a mile away, so I wanted to get there & see if I could finagle someone out of some chain repair help. I’d never attempted to partially remove and re-install a pin, and I didn’t want the side of the road to be my first attempt. Yeah, lame, I know.

I eventually made it to aid 2. I began asking around for some spare links of chain or anything else I could use for repair, and someone finally offered up a quicklink. After powerwashing my bike, one of the volunteers at the aid was kind enough to install it while I refilled my water & ate some food. So between the damage from the first & second incidents, my chain was now a good deal shorter. I was pretty mad at that point. I couldn’t use my 36 with the lowest 4 gears, and the chainsuck on the granny gear was getting worse. To top it off, multiple steep sections of trail had started to take its toll on my one brake.

Lucky for me, a lot of the distance between aid 2 & 3 was asphalt with a tailwind. I took my frustrations out on the road. I hammered past multiple people until reaching the next bit of singletrack. For a minute, I thought it was going to be OK. Then I reached the next singletrack, and realized that I was wrong. As soon as a little bit of mud got into my battered and beaten chain, the chainsuck became unmanageable.

Fine, I’ll just put it on my “singlespeeder” gear and stop trying to shift. I’ll walk up the steep stuff and ride the rest.

That lasted about 5 minutes. I started down a steep, rocky section of trail, and grabbed my brake. My lever nearly hit the handlebar, and I had to unclip and use my feet to try and stop before I managed to grab a tree next to the trail to keep from rolling uncontrollably through a rock garden.

At that point, I felt a sense of impending doom. I didn’t want to admit defeat, but realized that things were really bad when I almost rolled through aid #3 (which happened to be at the bottom of another steep hill) because I couldn’t stop completely with my single brake. To top it all off, the skies were turning dark. The course was going to get harder going both up and down. Call me a wimp and a quitter all you want, but I wasn’t going to hike up AND down anything steep for 50 more miles. If this breaks the hearts of those of you who ride vicariously through my blog, I’m sorry to have dissapointed you.

I ended up riding back to camp on part of the 100k course with Danielle Musto, who was only able to use her large chainring without getting chainsuck- to the point of where her chain was starting to wear a hole in her chainstay. Of course, the entire way back, I never had chainsuck once.

Amanda Carey dominated the women’s race (again). She finished in 9 hours and change, and got a sweet peace pipe for her troubles…

That was a really, really frustrating day. My legs were feeling really good, and, unlike Cohutta, I did everything right on the physical preparation front. I’m not sure if there was anything I could have done to avoid the mechanicals. My chain and brakes were in good shape starting out. It was a Shimano chain… I’ve been running a SRAM hollowpin chain up until DSG where my only spare was a Shimano. I’m definitely switching back to SRAM for future replacements/spares. Normally, the Blackspire rings I use are really chainsuck-resistant, but they seemed to fail in that sense. Even though the wear on them looks pretty normal, I’m going to replace them (along with my brake pads and chain) this week.

The Mohican 100 starts in a little over 2 hours from the area in the blue circle…

I finally finished the Jet9 build last night (minus one IS mount for the rear brake). I was ecstatic when I hung it on the scale with no pedals and saw 24 pounds, 7 oz, though with pedals on it came in at a hair over 25 pounds

No worries, though- today or tomorrow, FedEx will be delivering a set of Eggbeater 2ti pedals, which I’ll immediately rebuild with a set of Wade Industries ti spindles. So, hopefully that will drop the weight back down under 25. Fingers crossed ;)

Of course, I haven’t been able to ride it other than up & down the street a couple of times because the local trails are soaked right now. I might try to swing an early week trip to Syllamo next weekend, though.

Enjoy:

Yeah, I know, it’s been a few days, but I’ve been busy! (mostly working on bikes and trying to re-assemble the house since we arrived home Sunday afternoon and dumped everything either in the garage or the floor of the bedroom)

Anyway- this is how it all went down…

Saturday morning, we got up and started trying to figure out Ryan’s shifting issues. Turns out, the cage of his derailleur was bent. Knock on my carbon X.0 stuff all you want, but I like the honesty of it. There’s no middle ground. No bending, denting, tweaking, etc. It’s either broken or not broken. Nothing to guess about. Luckily, he’d brought a spare and was able to replace it.

Next we went to the pancake breakfast at the tent near the start/finish. It was run by a church group, and they told everyone in line near me that if they ate their ration of 2 pancakes & 2 pieces of sausage and were still hungry, that they could come back for more. I did just that. Or, atleast I tried to. They turned me away because not everyone had been rationed 2 pancakes yet. Apparently, they’d left that part out of their previous instructions. We had more food at the tent, anyway. Ryan also gave me a really cute birthday card.

Eventually, we headed over to stage our bikes for the shotgun LeMans start. As everyone lined up, I only saw a few faces/kits that I knew, so I wasn’t really sure who all I was up against. The countdown started… as they neared “go,” a large man dressed head to toe in camo (mask included) came running out from the direction of the woods yelling, “HEY, WHAT’RE Y’ALL DOIN HERE?!” and shooting his rifle into the air several times. Hands down, best start to a race, ever.

We were off. The first two laps were pretty uneventful. I rode my own pace. Ryan and I ended up riding some of the course together. I could out-tech him and he generally out-climbed me. Since the end of the course featured several non-technical doubletrack climbs, he finished each lap a few minutes ahead. At the end of the 2nd lap, he stuck around the start/finish area and had the announcer wish me a happy birthday as I rode through. Awwwww… warm & fuzzy, I know.

At this point, it had started to get kinda cloudy. A few sprinkles of rain fell, but nothing major. That is, until I was about 2 miles in to the 3rd lap. I heard a loud noise in the trees that sounded like a downpour, but it wasn’t raining. Until I turned a corner, where I saw literally a wall of downpour on the trail ahead of me. Insanity!!!! The wet part of the trail was like ice. I got pretty proficient at unclipping and hanging a foot out in order to catch myself as I slid through the turns. The next mile or so was horrible. Then, suddenly, I was on perfectly dry trail. Then wet, horrible, sticking mud (like last year!) that forced me to hike. Then dry trail. Apparently, only one side of the ridge that the trail wound back & forth across had been rained on! I was mentally prepared for it this time. I knew that I had to carry my bike if I wanted to move quickly, so I did. That lap took all of 2 hours. The promoter ended up shortening the course to take a lot of the mud out, though since the two other women ahead of me (OMG! I was in 3rd place!) has started their 4th full lap, I had to as well.

Lap 4 was hard. For some reason, the chamois in my shorts had decided that it was a good day to attempt to give me labiaplasty. I changed shorts before going back out, but was still in a lot of pain. On top of that, a couple of miles in, I felt like I was bonking a little. My fault- I hadn’t been eating the mid-lap gel that I should have been eating. I had to eat more and back off the pace a bit and let my food digest. Then, about 2/3rds of the way through, the muscle in my right leg that I’d severely bruised the day before cramped up while I was negotiating a steep pitch of trail. I jumped off my bike in horrible pain and tried to stretch/massage it out as best I could. That one spot gave me issues the rest of the day (though the rest of my muscles seemed to behave themselves). About 3 miles from the end of the lap, Amanda Carey (who would go on to win) passed me on her 5th lap (first of the shortened version of the course). We chatted for a minute before she rode on.

Even though there was still a pretty bad portion of trail included in the shortened version of the course, it was drying out quickly. I was feeling a bit in laps 5 and 6 (though I’d been passed while I was in the pit and was down to 4th place). Then, somewhere near mile 4 or 5 of the loop, I was muscling over some rocks when my chain popped. I cursed and pulled off the trail to see what happened. Apparently, it had come apart at the quick link! No problem, I thought. I’ve got a spare in my seat pack.

Wait. Where the ***k is my seat pack?!?! No idea except that it wasn’t on my bike. I was screwed. I had to go back down to the pit to repair it. When I got to the pit, there were NO 9 speed chain repairing parts in the tool box. WHAT.THE.HELL. I was livid and throwing tools out hoping to find something buried in the dirt in the bottom corner of the box. No luck. I started walking around to other pits looking for a link or pin or anything and finally found someone with a spare quicklink. I installed it and hurried back up to the trail. My leg cramped on the way up, so I had to walk some of the hill. Once I was back on the trail, I realized that my drivetrain was all boogered up. The chain was making noises like it was ready to explode at any second. I channeled Emily Brock’s Honey Badger, gritted my teeth, and just kept going (mmm… delicious snake).

At the end of 6, I wasn’t in great shape- the cramps had hit my leg hard enough that the entire muscle was feeling like I’d pulled something, my unfortunate chafing from earlier was hurting like hell, and my drivetrain sounded like it was on death’s door. I couldn’t have quit for anything, though. After a little break, I went back out (leaving Ryan in the tent with his pulled pork sandwich). The next lap was a blur. All I remember was eating gel, occasionally cramping, and hallucinating a little bit. When I came back in from my 7th lap, it was about 7 o’clock. I stopped.

Sure, I could have attempted a night lap, and, with 2 hours to go, there is a chance I would have finished it. I was done, though. My right inner thigh was almost a permanent knot, and I was worried that I might be causing some sort of damage in the form of pulling or spraining the muscle. I looked at the running tally of laps for my category, and it turns out that the woman in 3rd was out on her 9th lap, so an 8th one for me would not change the standings.

It was time to clean up and start the recovery process. After a water-jug shower and nearly passing out in the tent, we headed over to the finish area for food and drinks. My brain was only half functioning, but the food brought me around a little. Hamilton Creek brewery makes some excellent recovery beverages. After watching some of the podium presentations, we turned in for the night.

At midnight, something horrible happened. I was awoken by music- loud techno music- coming from the Union College tent right next to us. I yelled at them to turn it down, but it was so loud that they couldn’t hear me. I took several deep breaths and repeated to myself, “murder is illegal, even if it’s justified” before getting out of the tent and walking over to them and politely reminding them that it was midnight, and a lot of people were probably trying to sleep, including myself. They seemed annoyed, but lucky for them, they turned it down.

It rained on & off all night, so when we got up in the morning, we tossed everything in the car (in the rain) and went to Shoney’s, where were promptly consumed somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000 calories apiece in breakfast buffet. That was followed up with Mama Mia’s pizza once we arrived back in Memphis (we got a medium & munched on it for the remainder of the day) and belated birthday dinner at New Asia with my parents. We were like bottomless pits. It was awesome.

So, my April/May overload draws to a close. I took a couple of days off to let my leg & ladyparts heal up, and now I’m ready to get back to training for my midsummer peak at Marathon Nationals.

I didn’t spend much time recovering after Cohutta before getting back in to training. Of course I wanted to rock Syllamo pretty hard, but I have bigger races on the schedule, so I treated Syllamo as a hard training day.

I headed over to Mountain View Thursday morning for a little trail work (on my adopted section of Orange trail) and preriding. I was feeling pretty awesome through the rock gardens (even rode the green trail 2x, just to make sure!) Friday, I went for a longer ride on the yellow and red loops. It took about 3 hours, and I was pretty beat when I got back to the cabin. My legs were still feeling Cohutta.

All week, the forecast had been looking messy for the race. Friday night, Ryan, Matt, the dogs, and I ended up taking to the storm shelter as severe storms and several tornadoes rolled through the area. I had resolved myself to more of the same for the race.

Saturday morning came early. The skies looked cloudy and the radar was iffy. When we arrived at Blanchard Springs, I got my packet and readied myself to ride so I could get in a good warmup- very important since the course starts with a 3/4 mile climb up a closed forest road before turning off into miles of tight and rocky singletrack. I felt like I had a little bit of an advantage since I knew the course well, so I wanted to get up the hill ahead of as many people as possible without blowing myself up.

I felt like I did a good job of pacing there. Carey Lowery (who went on to beat me and finish an awesome 8th overall) passed me on the climb. I didn’t try to catch her because fitness-wise, I’m not quite ready for an epic singletrack slugfest… even if it is on my “home” turf. Once we entered the singletrack, I settled into a hard tempo. I quickly realized that all off my practice and learning how to ride the rocky sections were in vain… the rain overnight had left them incredibly slick. I made it through a few tough spots, but soon took a couple of hard falls that shook my confidence a bit.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about rocks, it’s that you can’t hesitate or be indecisive when it comes to riding them.

Every time I’d approach the wet rocks, I’d tense up a bit and mentally prep myself to stop and unclip if I needed to. That, of course, led to stalling and unclipping. It was like taking 50 steps back from where I’d worked myself up to as far as technical skill. I was hating it, and ended up hiking more than I probably needed to. It was more of the same through the yellow and short portions of blue and orange that remained before the 1st Aid Station. I was a little discouraged at that point, but figured I’d make the best of it by just keeping steady and making the best out of all the other parts of the trail that weren’t slippery. It worked out well enough and got me to the aid station for a quick snack and water refill before heading out on the green loop.

The green loop is a lot of fun. With the exception of a couple of switchbacks and the rocks along the White River Bluff, it’s pretty flowy. It was a good chance to get my confidence back a bit before taking another painful spill on the rocks and resigning myself to walking the entire bluff section (along with about 5 guys that didn’t want to bust their butts the way I had). Matt called us the fail train…

The next bit of trail was the orange and blue down to the first Livingston Creek and Hwy 5 crossing. It was pretty uneventful, but I stopped and laid my bike down in the creek in order to clean out the drivetrain. When I got to the Hwy 5 Aid Station, Todd H. was there with my drop bag (including a spare derailleur!) and some chain lube.I refilled, had a snack, then headed on my way up the hill.

You have to be in the right mindset for the next sections of trail. The initial part isn’t really that bad- First, you have to climb a bit. Then, more rocks, and you head back down across the highway and across the creek two more times (those crossings were very sandy, so even though they were rideable, I carried my bike across to keep the drivetrain from getting fouled up).

It’s the next part that takes perseverence. The trail goes up. It gets steep and impossibly rocky. It includes stairs (made of rocks). It’s not really that long of a climb distance-wise, but it can break you if you let it. I passed several racers who were sitting on the side of the trail looking as if they didn’t know whether to keep going or to fling themselves back down the hill. I told them to get up and at least start walking. Hopefully it helped. It’s always a relief to see the logging road at the top (which, btw, still goes up at a healthy pitch, but doesn’t include any rocks or switchbacks, so it’s pretty refreshing). Once I crossed Green Mountain Road again, the sun was out, and I could smell the finish. Only the red loop and some mad crazy descending stood in my way.

Even though the red loop is not technical, rocky, or steep, its length (~13 miles) nearly drives some people insane. I forced myself to not look at my bike computer and to just keep hammering as best I could. Soon enough, I was back at the final aid station and on my way into the last section of yellow trail that led to the screaming-fast hill back to Blanchard. I was tired, a tiny bit crampish (same spots as the week before), but feeling otherwise alright rolling across the finish with a final time of 6:04. Carey had come in at a hair under 5:17 (Daaaaaamn!), and the next woman (of 13 who finished) was at 6:42.

The trophies for this race are pretty sweet (as is the cash in the included envelope!) Here’s a shot of mine with a little post-race libation:

I’m pretty happy with my finish. The next day, Matt and I built a fire pit and rode forest roads for a couple of hours… which is another post. Hopefully the race photographer will get the shots up soon!

Here’s a brief rundown of my derailleur experiences in the past year.

I got my bike in April of 2009. Exactly (almost to the minute) one week after purchase, I made the n00bsauce mistake of riding through an overgrown field and getting vines & crap tangled up in my rear mech. I take full responsibility for that one.

It was replaced then ridden all summer. Then, the Jet9 was recalled. I got a spiffy Air9 hardtail to ride in the meantime. However, within a month, I had another mishap when a stick found its way in to my drivetrain on one of my first few rides at Syllamo:

Syllamo is maintained, but no one goes around the 50 miles of singletrack with a rake, so there are sticks and rocks that are just waiting to strike at any time. About 3 weeks ago, one got me again. This time, the hanger only bent, but the DR cage cracked a bit. The DR still worked as a tensioner, but it wouldn’t really shift. I ended up riding pseudo-SS for the remainder of the weekend.

Over the weekend, I started my first XC race as a cat1. I wasn’t winning, but I was determined to go down swinging. Then, a few miles from the end of lap #2…

Yeah. I’m seriously considering selling the Jet9 upon arrival and buying myself some sort of really sweet SS frame. A Carbon Air9 would be my dream bike, but it looks like it’d be after the season before it’d arrive, so I might look for something else. In the meantime, I’ll be rebuilding and replacing to get ready for the Cohutta 100 this weekend.