No Coastin' for Bold Men: The 24 Hours of Big Bear (Part 2)...

A change of speed, a change of style/a change of scene, with no regrets/A chance to watch, admire the distance/still occupied, though you forget/Different colours, different shades/over each mistakes were made...
—Joy Division, New Dawn Fades

I don't like this arrangement
Your wild schemes are nothing but pipe dreams
I don't like this arrangement
And we can't win without the kid
—Royal Trux, Yellow Kid

[Ed. note 1: Back to the machine gun¹...finally. Just when you thought you didn't give a damn anymore about a race that took place a month ago, this fractured mosaic, this tattered patchwork of Indo-European, West Germanic symbols and universal blank space comes along and confirms your feelings. Such is life. You want posts on fresh races? Go here and here and here...you ungrateful, insatiable bastards!]

[Ed. note 2: This post was written variously under the influence of hops, malt, water, yeast, caffeine, ennui, a mysterious sort of literary inertia, and Joy Division's inimitable chef-d'oeu·vre Unknown Pleasures, and likely against the tacit advice of both the caudate and quadrate lobes of a certain bile-producing organ that is far too forgiving for its own good. You've been warned, and now the lawyers have all gone home for the evening to leer lasciviously at their bloated bankbooks and dream of eternal litigation. Yay!]

Seven in the Morning, Saturday (Race Day):

We emerge slowly from our tents, like zombies dreading the dawn. All through the night, the aforementioned newborn pushed his lungs to their limit, wailing and screaming as if in the grip of some unimaginable pavor nocturnus. Each time he paused for breath, his brother, apparently upset by the sudden, frightening silence, would take over in a lower key, but with every bit as much gusto, as if a gold medal hung in the balance. None of us slept well, save Ricky and Jo, who showed up late amid the horror show soundtrack and decided that camping a little out of range might be a good idea. Now that the sun is up, the children are eerily quiet. Mission accomplished.

After breakfast, I decide to forego the parts-swap I'd been counting on to help me get through the nasty stuff. So, instead of installing the shorter Sugino cranks I'd recently acquired, I choose to "run what I brung" and stick with the 175 mm cranks already on the Monkey. I guessed at the correct spindle length when I bought the new bottom bracket a couple days ago. And now, this close to race time, I don't want to break down the drive train only to discover my guess was wrong, then have to cobble everything together and hope I get within the proper torque range to keep it all intact. I figure the current set-up got me through Lodi, it'll get me through this race as well. I'll pull and toss the ISIS² shit some time post-race, when it makes sense to do so.

One Forty-five in the Afternoon (Race Day)—Introducing "The Kid":

The Kid is tall and whipcord lean, with longish hair that lends him a slight lionine quality. Built for speed, he looks like a cyclist. His racing bio on the team page informs the curious that he is a mere 20 years of age. But looking at him, you'd guess someone somewhere must have rounded up. He's quiet and unpretentious, preferring, it would seem, to let his riding do the talking for him. He's got a good sense of humor. He's new to this group; we met him last year at SSWC in Scotland. He doesn't seem the least bit disturbed by hanging out with a lot of old(er) fucks. Perhaps he feels we've a few bad habits he can adopt by mere association—sort of a mainline approach that gets you there quicker without all the trial and error and, yes, rational thought. Time is on his side, true, but somehow he fits right in with our gearless ad hoc group like a shiny new upgrade. With less than two decades ex utero, he's already a far better rider than me in every way, and right up there in terms of speed and endurance with my other two teammates, the Outlaw and RickyD. The latter two need no introduction. Me, I'm the dark horse, the question mark, the filigree thread (for you third-rate poets) from which Second Place dangles precariously. Bottom line (for you first-rate philistines): I've got nothing to lose, baby.

But it's not my time, not yet, though the hours run away like wild horses over the hills. (Unlike Bukowski's besotted yet prolific imp, my muse is a lazy little bastard, content to corral the fallen fruit with a couple kicks rather than reach for the ripe offerings overhead. Alas, the span between earth below and limb above is the chasm between mediocrity and genius.)

Back to The Kid, who has just banked his first lap. His time is good, especially considering he did the running start. Oh, and he's racing on a Soma Juice with a nice little crack developing at the bottom bracket/seat-stay juncture, a nonticking time-bomb waiting to blow up when the moment is right. The Kid knows this and races it all the same. Like I said, he's young and invincible, and McFate³ doesn't want to McFuck with him right now. There will be time. He's speckled all over with mud, and some of the first words out of his mouth are, "That was tough...well, tougher than I expected."

When Joe returns from his first lap some 83 minutes later, he makes a similar remark, adding that he just couldn't seem to get his legs going. Doesn't seem to matter much—his lap time is the fastest in our class. For the entire race. So much for sluggish pistons. [Ed. note: The Outlaw has since pointed out that, in fact, he had the second fastest lap in the SS/Rigid class. See his comment to this post.]

Sometime After Midnight, Lap 2:

The stream is almost as tricky as the forearm fryer that gave way to it.  Rather than cross it, the course runs through it, following the orphaned artery as it seeks level ground.  The water is deeper than I expect, and the rocks are the size of trolls.  There is no "line" for me; I negotiate my way as much by caroming off obstacles like a hapless pinball as by picking my way through them.  But this section is short, and soon I'm back on more stable ground; "stable" being a relative word.

The trail is degrading by the minute.  Each tire that rolls through the muck acts like a blender, sucking water from the puddles and churning it into the surrounding soil to form an inky batter. The mud tugs at my tires, stealing precious momentum.  I approach and pass a few riders, then settle in on the subtle crests and troughs of the trail, keeping the cranks moving and finding space between islands of rock.

It isn't long before I sense a rider on my ass, or so it seems.  I ask him if he wants to pass.  No response.  A minute passes. I ask again. No response. I ride a little further, and still I hear him behind me, closer this time, I think.  I ask again, and he responds in a frustrated tone, "I'll let you know if I need to pass."   Okay, asshole, have it your way, even if that means pulling my rear tire out of the new gap between your front teeth on the next descent.  I just ain't that fast headed downhill on a fixie.

About five minutes later, I negotiate a tricky section of rocks that are like talons, squeezing the trail edges together so that only a narrow slot remains.  Seconds later, I hear the silverware-set-down-a-flight-of-stairs jangle of sound that announces the spectacular yard-sale of the uptight rider behind me.  Karma, baby.  I call out amid the glow of shadenfreude, asking if he's okay.  No response.  I press my luck again, and this time he replies, "Yeah, I'm fine...thanks, man!"  Huh, change of heart.  I roll on, putting some much-needed distance between us.

A quarter mile later, Karma returns, ponders the previous event, weighs the cause and effect, the action and reaction, the crime and the punishment, and decides to make an adjustment to the cosmic balance.  On a curve hidden from me by a cluster of branches and the limits of a bar-mounted light, I come around too wide, and overcorrect by leaning the bike and jerking on the handlebar.  My front tire washes out in the parfait of mud and pebbles that signals the boundaries of a weak stream.  The bike follows the tire and I follow the bike.  It's not a bad spill, by any definition.  A little trail rash, a flush of embarrassment, and I'm back up and rolling again.  

I cross the shallow stream—hardly more than a trickle, really—and immediately there's a problem.  Something feels off, and in the darkness I'm certain the impact has twisted my stem to the right.  I dismount and check out the controls.  But all is as it should be.  I remount and try to ignore the odd feeling, to make sense of the dubious feedback that reaches me through cromoly conduits.  It's a proprioceptive glitch; a stutter in the flow of nerve impulses that has me questioning the relative position of my hands, the handlebar, and the track the bike takes as I pedal on. Eventually it disappears, and my confidence returns.

The parts of my brain not busy keeping me awake, upright, and moving safely ahead now split the duties of intermittently reminding me that this lap is passing slowly and making sure that "New Pleasure" plays on an endless neural loop in the stadium of my skull.

In the distance, a rider appears, disappears, then reappears as the snaky path my light takes falls in synch briefly with the spectral figure slaloming through the woods ahead. I catch up, and see that it's a chick. She has on a particular outfit for the race. I find out later that she's one of a handful of female racers known as the Live Dirty Girls. Like her teammates, she is dressed à la gamine; in pleated skirt (pink, plaid), black sleeveless top, and white knee-socks, to be precise. Her petite body enhances the illusion. In the grainy circle of light that opens the darkness ahead, I find her image refreshing and energizing, a welcome bit of whimsy amid the dark lumps that sprout from the trail like massive fungi.  She rides with skill, taking the downhills with the kind of confidence that suggests she might have designed the course.   We talk as we ride, and I find out she is one-half of a duo team. I have the opportunity to pass her with each climb, but I hang in behind her instead, talking and riding and mirroring her good moves. She's setting a decent pace and would likely catch me at each downhill anyway. We ride maybe two miles together, and near the end of the lap, I pass her with an effort.

Within the last half-mile of every lap at any race my energy seems to build with every turn of the crank. This lap is no exception. After the last rocky drop-off, where the trail begins to mellow in anticipation of the finish, I lay it down, building enough momentum to climb the ramp seated and at a good clip. I crest, pass over the section where the trail bends back on itself, then relax my legs and let the cranks take over on the descent. A quick arc left at the bottom through loose rock and dirt, around and under the ramp, and I'm through the gate. I locate the baton, hand it over like it's kryptonite, and send The Kid off to war on his third lap. My time is not good, but it's good enough. It's 1:20 in the morning, Sunday.

8:53 a.m., Sunday:

I finish my third and final lap, coming in with just enough time left in the race that, if The Kid and the Outlaw ride true to form, Rick will head out for a fourth lap. It's an evil move, but not one I pursued with malice. I used it only as motivation to keep me moving through my lap. I know where we stand, I know there's no hope for a first-place finish, and also no need to pile up laps to secure second place. We're done, pretty much, as long as Joe and Dan complete their laps in a decent time. I'm done, regardless. Beer time.⁴

We end up taking Second Place—as the Outlaw had predicted—in a three-team category, Single Speed and Rigid. Or, as someone else pointed out, first place in the unofficial Fixed and Rigid class.

Death or glory, indeed.

All photos by D. Ross, except photos 1 and 12, stolen from R. Deleyos and T. Baur, respectively and respectfully. Special thanks to Jojo and Donna for support above and beyond the call of duty. We couldn't have pulled it off without you. And uber props go out to Team "The Wild Bunch," who dug down deep and gave it everything they had to pull off a second place finish in the Women's Sport class. Belated congrats, ladies!

1. Yeah, I know, the relentless march of technology renders the metaphor as obsolete as the equipment itself. I like it anyway, so it stays.
2. The original ISIS system—a large, splined, hollow bottom bracket spindle coupled with bearings the size of flea shit—was a feeble solution to a problem no one had.
3. Humbert Humbert's term personifying the force responsible for a series of uncanny coincidences that Nabokov throws his way in the literary masterpiece Lolita.
4. A quick thanks to the ale-swilling emissaries from Breckenridge Brewing Company, whose beer station was a welcome oasis in the shade-less camping area, and whose free beer was even more welcome. Hard to beat a nice, cold 471 IPA any time, let alone post-race. Thanks, gents!

No Coastin' for Bold Men*: The 24 Hours of Big Bear (Part 1)...

(In which now-gimmicky cinematic filming techniques à la Memento and Irreversible¹ are borrowed to inject excitement into a long and otherwise urbane race recap. This one goes good with a cold one; I suggest a nice Russian Imperial Stout such as the gold standard, Old Rasputin, from North Coast Brewing Company. That, or a heady, hopped-up red, such as the one under whose influence I type these words, Hop Head Red Ale, the bitter brainchild of the Green Flash Brewing Company. Morrison had it right, at least when it comes to good beer: the West is the best.)

"The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action."
—Bruce Lee

“It’s getting bad out there.”

Rick has just turned in his second lap, a slow one for him. He looks tired. He manages a cherubic smile, his trademark if you discount the goatee, deep laugh, and erstwhile Pinoy ‘fro. But there's something wrong with it, this smile. It looks a little off, a little strained, like there’s nothing behind it. His words come out in a neutral tone, soft and weightless. If I didn't know Rick well, if I hadn't ridden with him many times before, I might be tempted to dismiss his warning as a paper tiger. But I know better.

I accept the baton, fumble with it, then manage to stuff it into a zippered pocket in my shorts. I jog out from under the harsh yellow light of the pavilion and into the darkness, where my bike, leprotic with flecks of drying mud, waits among others on a community rack. The time is 11:16 p.m. (EDT).

Forty-five Minutes Earlier:

I’m sitting at the start/finish line waiting for Rick. Surrounded by other riders, I pass the time by retracing in my mind the tricky spots of the course, most notably the quarter-mile rocky downhill, aka the "forearm-fryer," that is sprinkled with loose baby-heads. I’m anxious to ride, to get this night lap underway and over with. The light on my helmet, a NiteRider TriNewt, is heavy. I can feel it pressing on my head, as if my anxiety has assumed a physical form and now weighs on me like the Sword of Damocles. Earlier, I spent a good part of the night wrestling with the decision of whether to go out with just the bar lamp mounted or to go with two lights. In the end, I decided having a back-up on a course like this one was crucial. To deal with the extra weight, I’ve tightened the straps on my helmet to the point where they feel uncomfortable. There's a throbbing in my neck just behind the condyles of my jaw. I readjust the buckles, but there’s no sweet spot. The tightness of the helmet threatens me with a headache whose origin can be traced back to the acrosonic wailing of a newborn in the tent next to me last night—what the hell were the parents thinking?

Forty-five Minutes Later:

On the bike now, I enter the woods on a long and winding ribbon of dark, damp earth to take on my second lap. The trail is rocky, not a bed of rocks by any means—not here at the start—but enough to make the ride far from a smooth experience. The jarring and jolting is relentless, it travels up the steel frame and fork to tear at my body like lingchi. I do my best to balance speed with control, eyeing each upcoming rock with the goal of avoiding pedal strikes as the fixed cranks spin like a perpetual motion machine. On the first lap, I kept a loose tally of the number of times my pedals hit something hard, and lost count after twenty. The bane of the Karate Monkey, besides its portliness, is a comparatively low bottom-bracket. This, along with the 175 mm length cranks I'm running, has me overly concerned about an involuntary pole-vaulting whenever I approach a bumper crop of rocks.

The two-light system illuminates the trail nicely, giving me time to adjust to the topography well in advance. The efficacy leaves little to be desired. But the goddamn heavy helmet lamp delights in pushing my helmet down and forward, where it comes to rest on my sunglasses. The bridge of my nose becomes just that—a truss for the poundage perched atop my head. I deal with it, sacrificing one comfort for another. But I curse myself for not trying out the light as a helmet lamp before the race.

Soon the rocks give way to the first patch of goopy mud. Like a rotten spot on the earth's skin, it's as black and sticky and treacherous as a prehistoric tar pit. The best strategy seems to be to ride straight up the middle, through the really wet stuff where, beneath six inches of wheel-swallowing, diarrheic water, lies a relatively firm bed of mud. It works. Most of the time. When it doesn't, the threat of a mud facial looms large: during my first lap, my front wheel was swallowed by a huge puddle of pudding, forcing the rest of the bike up and forward in a slow motion arc, taking me—still pedaling in denial—with it, and bringing my junk to within an inch of the meat-mallet² stem clamp before settling back down safely on two wheels. I avoid that mistake now by wheelie-dropping the big puddles and grinding the rear wheel through it all.

A little over two miles into the loop, after a short climb that, oddly, has many a rider spinning out and walking, the trail turns upward. The slope isn't dramatic by any means, nor is the terrain rough. But the climb is long, and even seated, I quickly and easily catch and pass a number of geared riders who have shamelessly resorted to the granny ring to stay in the game. I say to myself, what the fuck was Rick talking about...things are getting bad out here? Everything is pretty much the same, it's just harder to see it.

I grind through the long climb mostly in the saddle, and the trail levels off more or less for a couple miles. Small mammals scurry across the path ahead of me, nonplussed by the sudden advent of concentrated daylight. Eventually, I enter what is surely the shangri-la of this race: the hallowed pine-forest section. Here the mud and rock give way to a rich and loamy layer of black dirt and soft pine needles that slaloms left and right through bermed corners in the fractured shadow of a grid of identical conifers. It is, hands down, the most enjoyable part of the course. And the most scenic.

At this point, I've had enough of the goddamn helmet lamp. The situation has deteriorated. The excessive weight, combined with choppy sections of trail, mean that my sunglasses are slowly vibrating down the slope of my nose—walking the plank, as it were. Riding fixed, I'm reluctant to take a hand off the bar every couple of minutes to poke them back into place with a deliberately chosen middle finger. And the forearm fryer is approaching soon. I'm pretty sure I'll need both hands on the bar to negotiate it. I weigh the pros and cons; more light and aggravation vs. less light and peace. Peace wins.

I pull off the trail, propping the Monkey against the bole of an obliging pine, and go to work on dumping the helmet lamp. I'm slow and clumsy in gloves. Several riders I passed earlier now pass me. One asks, "Enjoying the fixie?" as he sweeps by, and, in my concentration and haste, I can't tell if he's being friendly or sarcastic. Whatever, I'll catch his polite- or smart-ass on the next climb, and then we'll see who's enjoying what. I jam the light and mount into my bladder pack, zip it all up, strap it on, and take off again, carving through the pine grove with renewed vigor, a little more peace, and a lot less light.

Approximately Three Days Earlier:

The Outlaw sends me an email asking me to join his fixed-gear team for Big Bear. He's pretty sure, he tells me, that we can beat one of the two other teams competing in our class. Joe has already run through a string of better and/or more experienced riders before coming to me, in the waning hours before registration ends, with the offer. Most either had obligations or didn't find the idea all that appealing. I have to decide quickly, because time is running out and if I decline, Joe will need every minute to track down and convince the next hapless fool that riding a 24-hour race on a fixed gear is a good idea. We go back and forth with the emails, with me trying to secure a 19t TomiCOG to match up with some 34t, 165 mm Sugino cranks I have on order. Finally, foolishly, I simply say "yes." The Outlaw ends his last email with the dubious phrase "Death or Glory!"

It isn't until a little while later, when I check the Granny Gear site to have a look at our competition, that I realize we're racing in the SS/Rigid class. SS, as in single speed. As in freewheel equipped. As in "not fixed." As in "coast on the downhills and gnarly stuff." Joe's plan, his winning strategy, is to race fixed against two single speed teams. Of course, he failed to mention this up front, and I can't help but think I've been duped into something that's pretty far over my head.

I spend a sleepless Wednesday night wondering if perhaps I've been duped into something that's pretty far over my head. Since Lodi two weeks ago, when I raced fixed—rode fixed—for the first time off-road, I've straddled the saddle of a mountain bike exactly one time, and that was for a single-speed ride at Rosaryville on a 26er. For about ten miles. Not exactly specificity training by any measure. It'll have to do.

Approximately Three Days Later:

Rick was right. It is getting bad out here. The second half of the course is a nightmare. It seems the darkness and drop in temperature have spawned a layer of dew that slimes the rocks and makes even the once-dry sections of trail damp and slippery. Pair up this development with mud-clogged knobbies and you've got a recipe for carnage. Whenever I deliberately ride the off-camber edge of a rock to avoid getting slotted in the "v" it makes with another outcropping, the tire gives in to gravity's seduction and slips abruptly into the gap. If it's the front tire, I get the bonus of a pedal strike that jackknifes the bike toward the opposite side.

I stay loose and try to take things with as much speed as possible. I pass several geared riders at the side of the trail who are frantically digging at their rear derailleurs, trying to dislodge the lumps of sludge that cling to the delicate mechanisms like caramel on a candy apple. Right now, I'm thankful not to have that "advantage."

Between miles five and six, I arrive at the top of the aforementioned forearm fryer, the one part of the course that consistently works the adrenal cortex just as hard as it does the flexors lexor digitorum superficialis, digitorum profundus, and, lest we forget, pollicis longus, among others. Oh, and then there's a little thing called the cremasteric reflex that kicks in about a quarter of the way down that we won't get into here (suffice it to say that, for men, it gives us a wee bit more clearance for getting back off the saddle). This sketchy downhill leaves no room for hesitation; like a horrible sin, you either embrace it utterly, giving yourself over to it, smiling idiotically in the face of doom...or you leave it the fuck alone. On a fixed gear, the chasm between these two options is even more vast. Two words describe this downhill: steep and rocky. Steep as in fast and relentless. Rocky as in loose and everywhere.

I start down the slope with speed, balls out (cremasteric reflex notwithstanding), banging a pedal here and there as I try to glom a line, any line, that will get me through this run intact. Unconsciously, I employ a counterintuitive strategy the Outlaw imparted to me days ago, pedaling against the force of the front brake which I feather vainly for control. Somehow, this sloppy gonzo approach pays off, and despite the soccer-ball sized boulders I punt off into the woods, I manage to maintain control down to the bottom. There, I see Julie, of team The Wild Bunch, negotiating the last bits of technical terrain on her single speed just before the course dips left into a creek bed. I call out to her as I roll past, saluting her for her dogged perseverance. Then I drop down into the thin stream that signals the end of this epic interlude. At least for this lap.

[End, Part 1]

Most photos by D. Ross.

*With apologies to Cormac McCarthy and the Coen brothers.

1. Apropos of nothing, one of the most disturbing movies I have ever watched.
2. Damn, that would have been a fine name for the team: The Magnificent Meat Mallets.

Grimace and Bear It...

"Must...finish lap...in time to...make Rick...go out for...another lap...must...finish lap...in time to...make Rick...go out for...another lap...must..."

(Lodi on my mind, ha.)