Wednesday August 11th, 2010
| 5 Comments | Gerry Pflug
It was pleasure for me to compete in the sixth race of the NUE Series, the High Cascade 100, on August 7, 2010 in Bend, Oregon, on and around the slopes of Mt. Bachelor. I realize that many of the blog entries I write are about the pain and suffering I endure while competing in 100-mile bike races. Believe me, there were times when I was also hurting at this race, but for some reason the HC 100 never made me feel completely spent. I find this to be quite remarkable because my finishing time was close to 9 hours, which is a much slower time than I typically ride at most of the NUE Series Races. But, looking back at the race now, in hind sight, I can understand why my time out on the course went by so quickly and found the race to be such a great experience.
The HC 100 starts off at the ungodly hour of 5:30 in the morning with a mass start up a road climb. I arrived at the starting area with about 15 minutes to spare before the race started and was actually still getting all my gear together when the race promoter, Mike Ripley, started calling people to the line with his megaphone. I was barely able to make it to the starting line before the large pack of 200 riders began rolling out of the parking lot. With no warm-up and also having the sensation of needing to pee, I decided to go pretty hard up the first road climb to put my head and body into race mode. I do this often at the beginning of a race. Not so much because I have a plan to ride away from everybody, but because it clears my mind of other thoughts and at least puts me in the front group where I feel I need to be for a successful race.
After leaving the pavement, the large pack of riders turned onto a rough dirt fire road. Almost immediately, a cloud of churned up dust made visibility on the course nearly impossible. An email sent out earlier in the week by the race promoter suggested that riders should consider wearing a dust mask for the start. I had one packed in my jersey pocket and was real close to putting it on, but did not because I was afraid to take my hands off my handlebars in order to remove it from my jersey and place it on my head, since it was hard to see what was coming up on the trail. Since we were still climbing, things split up pretty good anyway, so the mask was really not needed after the first off road mile or so.
Eventually, the long initial climb came out in the parking lot of the Mt Bachelor Ski Area. I looked over my shoulder while riding through the parking lot and noticed that I was the lead singlespeed racer and did not see any others around me. I also noticed that the cold morning temperature of around 35-degrees had caused my fingers to go numb. This is not a great feeling to have before entering the first long technical section of singletrack. Shortly after entering this singletrack containing many section of lava rock outcrops, I saw two of the overall pre-race favorites ( Schaulk and Tostado) fixing flats on the trail side. After getting a flat the weekend before, I could empathize with the frustration they were probably feeling and also began to worry about the possibility of one of my tires being torn by the razor sharp lava covering this section of the course. Perhaps it was this feeling that caused me to ride a little bit conservatively through the many lava rock outcroppings on the trail. In any regards, I soon heard someone heckling me from behind. I looked over my shoulder to find Team Niner rider and fellow singlespeed racer Deejay Birch fresh on my wheel. Deejay was the only other SS rider I knew in the race and I also knew that he would be giving me a run for the money at the event.
Deejay and I rode the singletrack together for about 30 minutes or so, before his bike started making a bad squeaking noise. He stopped to check his equipment over as I continued down the trail. At this point, I knew there was a lot of time remaining in the race, so I didn’t push myself too hard. I figured the break from head-to-head competition would provide a chance for me to eat, drink and return to riding the more technical stuff a little more conservatively. During this time, I was also able to get some great views of high alpine lakes and enjoy the natural beauty of the Cascades, which would have been hard to do with another rider with me. Before I knew it, I was done with the first loop and arriving back to the main checkpoint and transition area. I did a quick grab of a filled camelback and two bottles, before rushing off to do loop number two.
Without a doubt, loop number two was the toughest of the three and this immediately became evident on the first trail leading out of the transition area, which is called ‘Ugly.’ This trail is basically a logging road that climbs partway up the mountain again. It is called Ugly because it is cover by 3-6 inches of moon dust, which covers hidden roots and rocks under all the mess. I was so happy to be on a singlespeed with all the dust being kicked up. I could not imagine the havoc it would cause to the drivetrain of a geared bike. At the top, things did not get much better as the trail descended down into a pit filled with small to medium-sized loose lava rocks. I was able to handle the descent down with no problems, but the steep climb out of the large pit was covered with the same rock and it became a hike-a-bike portion for me. It was at this point that I realized I forgot to remove my long sleeved Salsa jersey at the transition area and I began to notice it was warming up fast. I thought about ditching the jersey by a tree or bridge and picking it up later, but figured instead it would be better to wait a little while and leave it at the next checkpoint, which was only about 20 miles away.
Loop two continued to climb up the mountain and I eventually came to a section the race promoter warned all the riders about at the pre-race meeting. Apparently, there was an angry grouse at this section of trail and she was reported to be very protective of her territory. I checked for the bird and was glad that she had decided to let me pass her home without consequence. Other riders reported after the race that they were not so lucky. After making it passed the angry grouse section, I came to what I thought might be the top of the climb. I decided to stop here and resolve two issues I was having. The first priority was to remove a small stone that somehow had entered my shoe and felt like it was digging a hole into the bottom of my foot for the last 15-20 miles. After removing my shoe and knocking all the junk out of it, I took care of issue number two. During a 100-mile race, there are times when it becomes necessary to relieve the body of excess liquids. I figured this was as good of a place as any to allow myself this relief, since it appeared that I was all alone and in the middle of nowhere. It always feels good to take a quick pit stop, but sometimes it is hard to allow the time for the relief.
Not long after I jumped back on my bike after my pit stop, I heard the familiar heckling of Deejay behind me again. It was actually good to hear his voice and I yelled back at him, “Where have you been?” We then rode some of the best singletrack on the mountain together for about the next hour or so. It seemed during this time that we were in a constant state of descending. But, I knew eventually the long fun ride down the mountain would end and when it did I knew we would have a long journey back up to the top. My guess about the course wasn’t wrong, but I had no idea that the course was basically going to go up for the next two hours of ride time.
It was during all of this climbing that I was able to get a pretty good gap on my closest SS competitor. It was also another great section of amazing trail, which eventual lead all the way back up to Mt Bachelor and even passed a handful of snow piles along the way. The pristine beauty of the high mountains has always been a favorite of mine and the Cascades did not disappoint me with the views I saw on that trail.
After leaving the Mt Bachelor checkpoint, it was mostly downhill again leading back down to the ‘Ugly’ trail, which then led to the main and final checkpoint. I was shocked as I rode down Ugly and saw other racers just starting a trail that I had entered about 4 hours earlier. I felt like stopping to warn them of the obstacles ahead, but decided they would be better off not knowing what loop two had in store for them. It felt great coming back into the transition area and the final checkpoint, leading to the super fun loop number three.
Since loop number three is only 13 miles long, I did a pre-ride of the loop the day before the race with my fast friend Josh Tostado. It was great having at least an idea of what to expect going into the last leg of the race. But, at the same time, I had no idea what my gap was on Deejay and feared the possibility of being caught with so little course remaining. So, to maintain my lead, I stayed on the gas and tried to keep things smooth on the BMX-ish style loop. This section of the course is so awesome because it has tons of banked berms, large tabletop and double jumps, and basically just has a nice flow to it. There is no way to become bored with riding on this trail, even after completing 87 miles prior to starting it.
I was able to finish loop three without any trouble and secure the hard-earned singlespeed victory with a winning time of 8 hours and 55 minutes. After finishing, I rode up the parking lot a short ways turned around and then noticed that my friend and competitor of the day, Deejay, had finished a short two minutes and one second later. On a course containing so much climbing, I was surprised to see that my finishing time was actually good enough for a 6th place overall finish out of 200 riders.
It was a great feeling to finally get another win at a NUE Series Race after struggling at many of the races this season. It was also nice to not have to dig so deep within myself to find the energy and courage to finish a race for a change. These feelings coupled with the course layout and the amazing singletrack trails of the race may lead for me to refer to this race as the sweetness, instead of the HC 100. Yeah, it really was that good.
Wednesday July 21st, 2010
| 0 Comments | Gerry Pflug
Last year I raced the Breckenridge 100 NUE Series Race and was completely conquered by the course. I also had a mechanical problem on top of the first long climb that made an attempt at winning the race impossible for me. But, even with the mechanical issue and the difficult course, I was very happy to pull off a second place finish last year. Feeling that I could only improve on how I did in 2009, I decided to give the Breckenridge 100 another try this year.
There is no doubt that Breckenridge is a super hard 100-mile MTB course. The overall high altitude of the race, which is held at between the elevation of 9500 and 12000 feet, combined with well over 12000 feet of total vertical climbing on three different and distinct loops is a brutal combination to overcome. Of course, doing the race on a singlespeed bike only makes the fight against all the climbing and the high elevation even more difficult to complete.
To make the race a little more bearable than last year, I decided to use an easier gear and also thought that knowing the course layout from my previous attempt would help me improve my finishing time. But, even with these two advantages over my 2009 race, I knew that I would still need to contend with attempting to breathe at the high Breckenridge elevation with a much lower oxygen amount than I am used to breathing at my home in Pennsylvania. Knowing where I was on the course and my better gear selection certainly did make the race less difficult than my 2009 attempt, but my inability to collect enough oxygen with each breath was enough to keep me in a world of hurt for the majority of the race.
At most of the NUE Series Races, the race begins with groups of riders forming in packs of equal ability and working together. This is a good thing, as it seems to make the miles and time tick away a little quicker. At Breckenridge, however, things immediately split up during the first long, one-plus-hour climb up and over Wheeler Pass, which starts off the race. From that point on, riders come and go, but there is little opportunity to develop any long lasting working relationships on the trails. The race becomes a long solo journey, with an occasional hello to another rider here and there. Fortunately, there is plenty of natural beauty around the surrounding mountains of Breckenridge to enjoy and help pass the time during the race.
I put in my best battle against Breck this year, but she did not make the competition an easy one. I thought my preparations for my journey this year would make things easier for me than my 11 hour and 6 minute trip of last year. I was wrong. Yes, my time was faster. Almost an hour faster than my 2009 effort, as a matter of fact, but Breckenridge still put me at a level of hurt that no other course has done. The hard effort I put out was good enough for a third place finish in the singlespeed class, but the beating the course gave me did not make me feel like a podium finisher.
Yes, I am happy about surviving and finishing the race. It was certainly a hard task to do on a course that completely defeated many race starters by placing a DNF next to their names. So, I guess that I should not feel completely conquered by you, Breckenridge. But, I will never again let myself feel like my pre-race preparations are enough to help me claim victory over you, for you will always be one of the hardest races on my list and should never be underestimated. Breckenridge, you have my total respect for kicking my butt not once, but twice; and, all the while doing it with a complete look of magnificence.
So, with the Breckenridge 100 complete, I have now finished four of the eight 2010 NUE Series races this season. Currently I am leading the series in the SS class, but a lot can still happen since only a racer’s best four of the eight races count for the overall. My plan is to do all eight of the NUE Races, with the next race being one of my favorites of the series, the Wilderness 101 in Coburn, PA on July 31st. A week later I will travel out to Bend, OR for my first attempt at the new NUE Series Race, the High Cascade 100. The last two races of the series, the Fool’s Gold 100 in Georgia and the Shenandoah 100 in Virginia, are also two races that I really enjoy doing. If you’re doing one of these races, I will see you there. If not, you should really consider getting your name on the starting list before it is too late.
As a friend of mine and fellow singlespeed racer, Ron Sanborn, said to me while we were waiting in line to clean our bikes after finishing the incredibly muddy NUE Series #2 race, the Mohican 100, in Loudonville, Ohio, “My mind was in a very dark place at many points during the race.” I could not have agreed more. While any ultra-endurance race will be a grueling test, this year's Mohican was nothing short of an epic adventure.
The Mohican 100 was intensely tough this year after the area received many days of saturating rain, which included heavy rain falling the day before the race and on the day of the race. Riding in wet, muddy conditions for 8-plus hours will make an already difficult race almost impossible at points.
I think for many riders the race was more against the course than it was against other riders. Sure, there were individual battles taking place between riders during the race, but I am pretty sure most riders would agree the race was more about surviving the nastiness being thrown at us by Mother Nature and hoping that the mud on the course would not cause a fatal bike mechanical than it was about beating the guy next to you. In conditions like these, the singlespeed is a viable weapon of choice. Overall, my Salsa Selma accepted the challenge quite well. I did have my issues at times, both physically and mechanically, but my trusty singlespeed helped guide me through the muck and the mire to a respectable 3rd place SS finish and to 13th place overall.
There were so many points in the race where I just wanted to quit because things were such a mess. I started questioning why I torture myself this way race after race, year after year. I couldn’t come up with a good answer, so I just kept riding, waiting for the pain to come to an end. Eventually, everything that hurt, including my mind, went numb and my only focus was on finishing the race, not allowing the course to beat me.
As I entered the last four miles of singletrack, which was more like a flowing stream of water at that point, I actually became euphoric about conquering the course. It didn’t matter what I was riding over or through during this time because I knew I had won my battle against nature and I was feeling good. The feeling of overcoming such a difficult test is a good one, especially since many did not finish the given challenge.
After the race, the darkness that entered my mind faded into the past as I was able to share stories of the race and hang with many friends that endured the same hardship. I am sure there are many people that would consider riding a bike in the mud for 8 hours and 53 minutes over a 100-mile course as being somewhat insane and at certain points during the race I would probably have agreed with them, but it is almost impossible to describe to anyone never experiencing such a thing just how rewarding it also feels to push yourself to the limit and finish something so hard. Congratulations to everyone else that suffered along with me at the Mohican 100 and was able to push through all the mess to finish the race. It is one challenge that I will never forget.
Happy Trails, Gerry
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Don't forget to purchase your advance tickets for Salsa's Minneapolis showing of Ride The Divide on June 15th at the Riverview Theater. Tickets available now by clicking the logo below.
Ride The Divide recently won Best Adventure Film at the 2010 Vail Film Festival and is an Official Selection for the Newport Beach Film Festival.
Enjoy the trailer below. Proceeds from the Minneapolis screening will benefit 1Gear1Cause.org
Wednesday April 21st, 2010
| 4 Comments | Gerry Pflug
The National Ultra Endurance (NUE) Series is beginning its fifth season. The series consists of eight 100-mile off-road endurance mountain bike races across the United States. If you enjoy doing long races, or if you are a XC racer looking for a new challenge, the NUE Series might be just the right choice.
This will be my fourth year doing the NUE Series. It actually should be my fifth, but a bad injury during the first year of the series prevented me from doing any of the events that year. The first two years I did the series, I competed in the men’s open class with a geared mountain bike. In 2007, I finished the series in 5th overall and the next year finished in 8th overall in 2008. Last year, I decided to do the singlespeed class for something different and I ended up winning the overall series in that class. For 2010, my plan is to defend my 2009 NUE Series Singlespeed Championship and make a run for the top of the podium again.
I raced seven of the eight individual NUE Races in 2009. This year I am going to do all eight. From my three previous years of doing the series, I have learned a lot about how to prepare for the events and also how to race them. Additionally, I have become very familiar with the courses used for these events and what to expect at each race.
Each race of the series is unique from the others, but all of them are certainly difficult to do and challenging in their individual ways. The 8 race NUE Series starts in April and ends on Labor Day Weekend, but four of the races are held in the time frame between the middle of July to the middle of August. In case you are curious about doing one or more of these races this year, I have written a brief summation about each of them below.
The first race of the series for the past 3 years has been the Cohutta 100 in Tennessee. This race has about 35 mile of singletrack with about 20 miles at the beginning of the race and the rest of it at the end of the 100-mile loop. The remainder of the course is on backcountry fire roads. With approximately 65 miles of fire roads, the Cohutta is one of the fastest 100-mile races in the series, but it still very challenging because it boast over 12000 feet of climbing in the mountains of Tennessee and Northern Georgia.
The second race of the NUE Series is the Mohican 100 in Ohio. Like the Cohutta, the Mohican is one big 100-mile loop, as are most of these races. The Mohican starts in the town of Loudonville, but quickly leaves the paved roads behind for some sweet singletrack. The race then switches between a constant variance of trails, paved roads and fire roads before coming to an end. The diversity of this course and the ever changing weather in Ohio always makes this an interesting race to do.
Two weeks after the Mohican, the series travels to Michigan for the Lumberjack 100. The Lumberjack is kind of unique because it uses a multiple lap format. Additionally, it is the only race that is basically 100 percent singletrack. The last four years it was completed by doing four 25-mile laps, but for 2010 riders will do 3 laps of a 33-mile loop. Many riders did not like doing four laps and felt that increasing the lap mileage while decreasing the laps would be an improvement. I don’t mind the multiple lap format because I know exactly where and when I can re-stock on nutrition and other supplies. The Lumberjack may not be a grand tour through the mountains, but I still think it a fun and challenging race, especially if you love riding on sweet singletrack.
After the first three races, the series travels west to Breckenridge, CO for the Breck 100 in mid-July. Out of all the NUE Series Races I did last year, this was by far the hardest for me to do and it also took the longest amount of time to complete. I believe the reason this race is so difficult is because of the high overall altitude of the course and because of the many long climbs it contains. In addition to this being one of the toughest races in the series, it is also one of the most scenic with absolutely beautiful mountain views along the route. A unique feature that I liked about this race was its cloverleaf layout. There are three distict, separate loops that begin and end in a community park. Like the Lumberjack, planning nutritional needs is certainly easier to do when you come back to the same location multiple times.
At the end of July, the series travels east again to my home state of Pennsylvania for one of my favorite races the Wilderness 101. This race course has a combination of everything on it from paved roads to some of the most technical singletrack around. Like many of the other races of the series, it also has many long climbs. The mountains of Central PA may not be the Rockies, but they are still plenty of fun to explore. If you can only pick one 100-miler to do during your season, this would be the one I would recommend as a must do. I think its combination of terrain and the amount of support provided to the riders make it a real good choice for a 100-miler.
The next race of the series, The High Cascade 100 in Bend, Oregon, falls on the very next weekend after the 101 and it is also a new race in the NUE Series. I have heard some good things about this race, but cannot give my opinion about the race yet since I have not competed in it. I am registered to do it this August, so hopefully the good reports I have heard will hold true.
Two weeks later on August 21st, the Fool’s Gold NUE Series Race will be held in Georgia. I did this race for the first time last year and had a really good time, even though I was at first a little hesitant about doing a MTB race in the heat and humidity that Georgia is known to have during the hot summer months. Unexpectedly, the weather was not as bad as I imagined it would be. Even if the temperature was high that day, it probably would not have been too bad since most of the course is in the woods and riders are thereby protected from direct sunlight exposure. The Fool’s Gold Course is a great combination of forest service roads and technical singletrack. The 100-mile distance is achieved by doing two 50-mile laps, which I thought worked out pretty nicely.
The last race in the Series for 2010 is the Shenandoah 100. The promoter of the race, Chris Scott, also puts on the Wilderness 101. He knows better than anybody how to promote a race well, especially an endurance MTB event. The Shenandoah is by far the most popular race of the NUE Series. As a matter of fact, last year over 600 riders started the race. The race has become so popular because of the overall good experience the race has a reputation of providing to the riders, not to mention that it is also held on some awesome trails in the mountains of Virginia. One of my favorite parts of the course is a long section of climbing approximately 18 miles in length, which is known as the soul crusher because it comes so late in the race.
If you have never tried a long mountain bike race, don’t let the distance scare you away from doing one. I will admit that the prospect of doing a 100-mile off-road race was a little intimidating to me at first, but I was hooked after doing my first one. If you are interested in doing one, pick any of the events above, then start a training plan that includes a 4-6 hour ride during your training week to build your endurance about a month before the event and I am positive it will be a great racing experience for you. If nothing else, you will get to ride some sweet trails and be able to say that you rode 100 miles off-road. I think everyone into MTB racing should try something NUE from time to time, so come on and give it a try. You might find that you will become hooked on doing them like me.
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