Devil Mountain Expeditions

In case the Element doesn’t work out…you can go with the Nissan Cube.

Quick write up – Jah Mon and I skipped out on work on Friday to go ride.  Weather was perfect, the drive was quick – arrived in Fairfax at 10am.  Quick trip into Sunshine Cyclery to pick up our passes/gloves/glasses/pump and we are out by 10:30am or so…

After introducing Jah Mon to Tamarancho (including the balance beam which he almost stuck), we proceeded over to Pine Mtn.  After the brutal climb to the summit (which I cleaned for the first time), we armor up and head down what I think is some of the best single track in the Bay Area.
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Didn’t know you had your own brewery … jeez ….

As anticipated, I suffered big time on 1) the initial climb, 2) the climb to third and 3) the flats and small climb on 1st. Hammered the road, if you can call it that, and finished in 3:44—beating Stone’s time from last year, which admittedly was in the back of my mind on 1st. Not much of an accomplishment considering he was still drunk to start the race last year and it wasn’t nearly as hot this year … but hey, after 6 months off the bike and only 3 months of training, I’ll take what I can get.

Going into the race I was hoping to finish in under 4 hours. I wasn’t at all confident I could do that as the 6.5hr pre-ride hadn’t yielded any useful info …. too many stops with Jah-mon cramping, both of us running out of water and my mechanicals. So relatively happy in the end with my XC all things considered. My fitness really improved in the six weeks before the race. I seriously doubt I would have been able to finish under 5hrs just 6 weeks previous.

Stone—who rocked the course in 3:10, almost 20% faster than last year—and I chilled at the river with some PBR lights after the race, waiting for Jah-mon and Justin to show up. Stone was a little disappointed in his DH portion but all in all, he posted a fast time and something to build on for next year.

We’d heard reports that Justin had done well but weren’t sure of his placing, etc.
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On Saturday morning, we get to Sierra City in plenty of time. Justin registers and we get our bikes weighed. The blur weighed in at 30.1lbs. Justin’s Remedy, with the brand new warranty replacement frame that Trek expedited just for the race(!), was at 32.3 or so, IIRC. Not bad for a 6″ travel bike with a coil fork. While warming up we somehow we lost track of Stone and Ja.

As expected, I wasn’t nervous before the start—nothing to lose. Finally the race starts and I settled into a relatively comfortable (slow) climbing “race pace”. Stone passed me about 5 minutes into the climb and I said, “Good luck dude, hope I don’t see you again til the finish!“—I didn’t.

I knew my legs weren’t that great a little before the aid station. Had to hop off and walk some sections that I had no problem pedaling on the pre-ride. This was a bad omen. Sure enough, the section after the aid station killed me as I walked quite a bit of that steep shaded fireroad before the flats where it intersects the PCT. Finally, I hit the Sunrise trailhead at about the 2hr mark and immediately started passing people—nothing like DH to get me re-energized.

After Sunrise, when the road tilted upwards, I had no legs at all—the altitude plus hard pace had taken its toll and many folks passed. By the time I reached the downhill before the babyheads my shoulders were already aching. Another bad sign, with a long descent to come.

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I had planned to leave for Downieville Thursday evening … evening turned to early morning as the inevitable issues popped up.

The blur was in the shop at Cal Bikes to get looked over … there were three main issues I wanted them to fix: a) squeaking at the pivots, b) replacing the rear derailleur cable which snapped on the pre-ride and c) rear hub needed to be serviced as it sounded a little crunchy/dry. Rebekah had to pick up the bike because the shop wasn’t finished with it (hadn’t started it!) by Thursday afternoon as they’d promised and I had to be elsewhere. When she got there close to 6pm they still hadn’t started on it, doh–fortunately, Ben stayed late to work on it. I figured all was well–until I got on the bike at 9pm. Still squeaking like a mofo!!! Fsck! Fsck! Fsck!

Considering I was going to spend ~5 hours on it over the next two days with 800 of my closest friends I was a bit concerned–thanks Cal Bikes! After conferring with Stone, I decided to go to Downieville and see what Yuba could do for me in the morning. I finally got on the road about 1am and crashed in Nevada City.

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“As long as I breathe, I attack”
–Bernard Hinault

This is just straight bad ass … More on Hinault here …

So yeah – I was super productive at my desk this past Tuesday.  Enjoy…