The chase is on… or "how to make the best of a two hour training ride"

The chase is on… or "how to make the best of a two hour training ride"

HRRT has been patronizing the annual Hike-a-Bike mountain bike race for years. Maybe it was the race moniker or maybe the time of year; I’m not sure why the race never seemed like something I wanted to do. This year was different. The organizers had added a cyclocross category, an eight mile (short course) option, which Jen decided to ride as part of her training regimen. Why not give it a try?

Jen figured on a forty (40) minute pre-ride coupled with a six (6) mile-per-hour short course lap to fill out the two hours of required endurance training. The short course was entirely within Lippman Park and the forty minute pre-ride afforded us a two (2) mile out-and-back preview of the short race course. The first two miles were perfect for cyclocross bikes and there was no reason to think the other six miles would be any different. The pre-ride warning from the course marshals that ‘it gets really rocky once you get to the top’ had to be an exaggeration.

Jen and I started the event towards the back of the pack – we were just out for an endurance ride. That soon changed with a bunch of targets ahead of us; we started to pick them off one by one. We caught the first of the two HRRT junior racers. The junior was a smooth rider – very competent in the turns and across the bridges. We decided that we were probably pushing her harder than she needed, so we complimented her riding, said our goodbyes and moved on. We caught the next junior in the first more technical section of the course – experience trumps youth in the technical sections – we moved on to the next targets. The next two targets to fall turned out to be the course marshals who started with the 40 mile group with the single purpose of reflagging the course where the short course splits from the long course.

Our pre-ride proved to be invaluable at this point; we had gotten specifics on where the long course splits off from the short course – ‘Do not pass any State Forest signage!’ was the bottom line warning.  The mandatory pre-race meeting was not so specific on the signage point, but emphasized not crossing course tape even when the course tape blocks the only perfectly manicured single track in sight (i.e., the “Hike” in Hike-a-Bike.) At the critical juncture where faced with the choice of ducking a tape or passing a State Forest sign, Jen and I had sufficient information to make the right choice.  We ducked the tape.

I had been keeping count and was quite sure that there was one racer left to beat. I knew this racer. He had bested me in the Tour of the Battenkill Grand Fondo, which made it so evermore sweet that the gap was closing; he was no more than a switchback ahead when we reached the top of the short course. At the top the course (a little slice of the Shawangunk ridge), the topology changed from a ribbon of highly manicured singletrack undulating along the picturesque hillsides of a creek hollow punctuated with nicely crafted bridges and berms, with a few totally nonsensical hikes throw in for good measure, to a rock and roll hell for a 32mm tire, curly bar bike – flashback to the ADK – 80K race. Focus transitioned from solely catching the leader, to survival while catching the leader. I started to call out hazards as one would on a road ride. Entering a particularly gnarly section of Shawangunk Conglomerate, a broken up silica-cemented mixture of quartz pebbles, sandstone and Martinsburg Shale thrust upward about 270 million years ago in asymmetric folds for our enjoyment, I dismounted – Jen flatted.

I couldn't see the leader. I should have been able to, for the race course fell from the ridge down a hillside

through a set of switchbacks affording a look-ahead view that way exceeded the last observed gap to the leader. Suspicious that the leader must have missed the critical turn and was now back-tracking or hopelessly lost, I thought we might be in first place. The flat took four minutes to repair – a tube upgrade to the side-wall cut cross tire. We had, however, lost the buffer we had on the next racer, forcing us to push our speed on the two mile rocky descent to the finish. As we scrubbed altitude, the rocks became more rounded and less of a threat. Now the trail pitch steepened and keeping your weight back while breaking from the hoods of curly bars became the challenge.

Jen and I were the first to cross the finish (pun intended). My suspicions were on the mark. The used-to-be-lead rider had blown the critical turn, and continued onto the long course.  By the time he realized his mistake he was out of contention, lost his spirit, and left course for a DNF.

It'll never be known if Jen and I could have caught the leader, passed and hung onto the lead. But then, does that really matter? It was a training ride and we weren't even racing in the same categories… hell ya!

Links to additional Photos: HRRT and friends at the Hike-a-Bike