- 6 Laps, 80 Miles
- 6500' of elevation gain
- 5:27:45 on-course
- 1st-Place Solo Singlespeed, 2nd-Place Solo Overall
With Victor trapped in the clutches of a chilly, wet spring last weekend seemed like a great time to rally south for some desert riding--dry, sunny singletrack and temps in the mid-80's? Mmmmm.
I had heard about the 6 Hours in Frog Hollow for years; friends raved about the fast, flowy course on the legendary JEM Trail. So when a crew from the Tetons decided to drive down I signed up for one of the back seats and settled in for the 9-hour drive.
Pre-riding the course with Cary on Friday blew my mind--he was a little crotchety about the lack of technical challenge, but I loved the speed of the JEM Trail. Pedal hard, don't touch the brakes, and hang on. Swooping, bobbing, pumping the rolls, airing off of the rare rock ledges, maintaining momentum...
Race day dawned clear and warm, with a light breeze.
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| Here we go... Photo: Crawling Spider Photography |
** Temporary soapbox moment: What is up with these stupid "LeMans starts"? I assume there's some historical reason that races started with a mass of bikes on the ground and the racers lined up a hundred yards away, set to sprint off the start line, find their bikes, and try to get onto the course without breaking bike or body parts in the scrum. Sure, it might be part of 6-Hour/12-Hour/24-Hour circuit racing heritage, but I wish we could move past this archaic tradition and just race bikes. If I wanted to run somewhere I would go back to racing triathlon, but I don't--I want to ride my bike. It's the same reason I do my best to avoid cyclocross. Running in cycling shoes sucks.
Okay, soapbox finished.
Despite my best efforts to start harder and place myself in a good position early in the race, somehow it still seems to elude me. A forgotten last-minute change in bicycle placement led me to line up on the opposite side of the road from my bike's new location, which resulted in much confusion when I arrived at my bike's former location to find it empty.
Once I recovered myself I had to wait for the faster half of the pack to pass by before I could run across the road to my bike's new location and mount up. Then it was pedal, track stand, pedal again, track stand again while the racers who were now ahead of me mounted their bikes and initiated forward movement. Eventually we got rolling, but I watched in dismay as the lead pack crested the horizon and disappeared while I choked on dust, weaving my way through the masses to give chase.
I mashed hard to make up time, eventually catching Shannon Boffelli and Matt Woodruff a few miles into Lap 1 and rode with them until I blew a corner late in the lap. With the speed of this course, by the time I recovered myself and got back on-track they had opened up a hundred-yard gap and would maintain that for the rest of the lap.
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| All by myself... Photo: Crawling Spider Photography |
I re-caught Matt somewhere in Lap 2 and traded leads with him for a long while. Matt and I are well-matched, and I've had a great time racing with him the last couple of years. (Thankfully he races on gears.) The pack had thinned-out considerably, so for the most part it was just the two of us pushing eachother to ride faster. And faster.
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| "Here we go, Matt!" Cranking it out... Photo: Crawling Spider Photography |
After the first couple of laps I finally started feeling warmed-up and smoother, able to stay on the gas. Inexplicably, this was also when my adductors started protesting against the effort and the deliberations began. "What's your problem? You can cramp all you want, but we're not stopping so you might as well just get with the program." They would continue to cramp on and off for the remainder of the race, but as long as I just kept pedaling...
At the end of Lap 4 Matt stopped at the pit for something and I was alone for the rest of the race. I felt pretty good overall, staying hard on the gas and maintaining close to a 15mph average speed. (Pretty good for a singlespeed!) I passed a couple of solo geared racers toward the end of Lap 5, and started wondering if I might be in the lead overall. These circuit races are bizarre for maintaining a sense of placement in the field as racers pass eachother back and forth, and between my blown start and not having Erica there to feed me info about my position I really had no idea of who might be ahead of me.
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| Rolling through one of the few rocks on this fast course. I love the LESter!!! Photo: Crawling Spider Photography |
Not that it really mattered--all I could do was focus forward and ride the best race that I had in me. It was a blast right up to the end, and it wasn't until an hour later that I found out I had finished second to a geared rider who I never even saw. Matt rallied in a few minutes after me, taking the official second-place men's solo spot. He's riding really strong this year--it should be a fun season of racing!
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| Photo: Kim Beres |
The rest of the Teton crew put in a strong showing as well: Amanda Carey and Cary Smith won the Coed Duo division, Brooke Saindon and Beth Ward were both on the Solo Women 50-59 podium, and Joanne LaBelle barely missed the overall Solo Women's podium. Sick!
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| The Solo Women's 50-59 podium. Photo: Joanne LaBelle |
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| The Coed Duo podium, with Cary and Amanda on top, Shannon Boffelli and Jen Hanks 2nd, and Chris and KC Holley 3rd. Photo: Joanne LaBelle |
Ahh, desert riding. I'm stoked to have felt as strong as I did; now I'm just bummed that I have to wait a month before I get to race again! This singlespeeding thing is addicting.
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| Photo: Crawling Spider Photography |
Now if only the skies would dry up around the Tetons...
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