Redemption

The Stats:

• 84 Miles
• 12,241' of elevation gain
• 7:59:48 to the finish (Just squeaked out a sub-8:00!)
• 1st-Place Singlespeed, 3rd Overall

Boom!  What a f@*ing unbelievable, all-time course!  As the man Dave Byers put it, "I have decided that the 2014 ‪#‎PH100‬ course should be named Beauty & The Beast.  Gorgeous.  Relentless.  And I dig that."

Yes.

TONS of singletrack, with a long climb winding through alpine wildflowers with endless views, a longer, batshit crazy fast descent down into the forest, and some sweet, rolling trail through aspen glades.  Fast, fun, hard, and demanding focus.  This was a mountain bike race, and epitomized why the Pierre's Hole 100 is my favorite race on the planet.

We toed the line just after dawn, and I had a few minutes to finally introduce myself to Mr. Gordon Wadsworth.  "Quadsworth" has been tearing up the Eastern US cycling scene, handily winning 100-milers and the X-Country National Championships alike.  We've been exchanging Facebook messages here and there and tracking our seasons as we battle back and forth in the NUE standings without ever meeting or racing against eachother.  A few days before Pierre's Hole he decided to come West for a post-wedding vacation and see how we would stack up going head-to-head.

Exciting?  Yes.  Nerves?  YES.

This dude is fast!

His quads are indeed enormous, and bely the friendly, talkative character riding atop them.  We had a brief chat in the start pack, wished eachother luck, and I had the pleasure of following the Quads up the opening snowcat-track climb.  We took the opening climb to the start of the Peaked singletrack at a moderate pace, with Gordon and me chasing Cary Smith, Josh Tostado, and Sam Sweetser in the morning twilight.

When the course took a hard left and pinched into singletrack I was ahead of Gordon and feeling relaxed--my plan to moderate the pace during the first half of the race while still trying to stay in the mix seemed to be working.  That was nice.  A few switchbacks up I took a look back and discovered that a reasonable gap had opened up behind me, and I started to wonder if Gordon's sea-level lungs were struggling to keep up with the thin air up here.  Cranking uphill at 9000' is hard!  More so if you're not acclimatized to it.

I had the lead 3 in my sights as we crested the top of the climb, and was able to stay within a hundred yards or so of them into the beginning of the epic long descent down into Mill Creek.  It even seemed like I was maintaining that gap through the opening switchbacks (maybe I'm finally learning to downhill?) but then

Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff....

Who flats in the first 5 miles of a 100-mile race?!  Way to dig a hole early-on.

So, with the sound of freewheels buzzing past as half of the field left me behind, I knelt in the wildflowers and found another damn puncture in my rear tire.  Sharp little bastard rocks.  Maybe I should consider a beefier tire?  At least I had plenty of miles to work my way back up.

Having found the hole, I briefly considered letting the sealant take care of it but after having the plug blow out at Marathon Nationals I decided to take the extra minute to break out the magic bacon-string hole plugger

and do a fix that would be more likely to last the rest of the race.  After hitting it with a blast of CO2 I re-mounted my steed and got back to hauling balls down the 47 switchbacks of 38-Special, hoping to at least not lose any more ground on the leaders.  Gaining on them would have been great, but let's be realistic here.

I started reeling guys back in on the climb back up to Targhee from the bottom of Lap 1, knowing that it was early in the race but still feeling pressure to re-connect with Gordon.  On the trek out to the north loop of the course I got to romp with a couple of friends, Gabe "Fiddie Cent" Klamer and Matt Woodruff (who would come in 5th- and 6th-Place in the Open Division) through a few miles of early-morning greasy singletrack before pushing away from them in pursuit of Gordon.

Riding with Matt in some lovely morning light.
Photo: Tom Linnell

Who finally came back to me out in the rolling singletrack of Quakie Ridge.  He seemed to be enjoying that faster, lower-elevation riding through the aspens way more than the Peaked climb, and we got to spend an hour of riding together before the start of our second trip up Peaked.  Being that I spend so much time riding solo, it's rare that I get to enjoy much conversation while on the bike, so it was a rare pleasure to pass that hour chatting it up and getting to know eachother.

"Thanks Mom!"  Having the Ultimate Support Crew (my parents, Erica, and Rue) back together to hand up fresh Camelbaks and information was awesome.
Photo: Erica Linnell

But then we started up Peaked again, and the altitude started taking its toll on Gordon and I pulled away, switching my focus to chasing Sam's orange helmet up the switchbacks.

More cowbell!
Photo: Tom Linnell

That climb and descent flew by, I closed the gap to Sam on the climb back up to Targhee, and spent the second half of Lap 2 having a ball rollicking through the alpine wildflowers on the rolling singletrack in Rick's Basin.

How's that for romping through the wildflowers?
Photo: Tom Linnell

Coming through the base area Aide for the last time I got word that Jim Meyer in 3rd overall was only a couple of minutes up, so I headed out Andy's Traverse with a new rabbit to chase.  I also knew that my focus had to shift to riding smart and holding the lead on the singlespeed division; I needed this win to put me into contention for the NUE Series singlespeed championship, and to take it I needed to stay on top of my bike and just maintain my pace.

But there's also that point where competitive urges overwhelm thoughtful logic, so when I started catching glimpses of Jim's white and red kit I couldn't help pushing the pace a little harder.  Somehow fighting the urge to chase down that rabbit is awfully hard to resist, and with Jim having beat me at the Tatanka 100 the last two years...

Chasing Cary and Josh into the final lap around Rick's Basin.
Photo: Tom Linnell

The gap closed somewhere out on the Lightning Loop, and I started the final Peaked climb alone, hoping to be able to hold Jim off and maybe close in on Josh and Cary?  I passed a 100K racer here and there as the rest of the final lap rolled past, but mostly just enjoyed some solo time romping the singletrack out in Rick's Basin.  Coming out of the Quakie Ridge descent I took a look at Mr. Garmin and saw that I had 15 minutes to finish if I wanted to go sub-8 hours--not easy, but maybe possible?  Possible enough to hit the gas, anyway, and see if I could do it.

Photo: Erica Linnell

It hurt, and my legs were feeling awfully heavy in those late miles, but I cranked through it and rallied over the fly-over, rolling through the Kenda arch with 12 seconds to spare and stoked as hell.  Finishing in under 8 hours was a pretty arbitrary goal coming into the race with all of the course changes, but it felt damn good to make it happen.

Ahh, that feels good.
Photo: Tom Linnell

Gordon came across the line in a bit later, having battled hard with the altitude challenge up here but ultimately ridden a strong race and maintained the second-place spot.  I'm looking forward to the opportunity to join him on more race courses in the future...

Photo: Tom Linnell

The Fitzgerald's Bicycles team had a hell of a showing out there at this year's Pierre's Hole 50/100, with a pretty good field of green on podiums across the three distances--so sweet to see us represent at our local endurance event!

Damn, it felt good to have a solid race after my last couple of lackluster performances.  Despite my early flat tire I was able to stay relaxed and pedal myself back into the competition.  It's difficult to express just how much I loved this race--it was hard, beautiful, fun, unrelenting.  It demanded focus and tenacity, requiring racers to keep pushing in order to find success.  Afterwards, Andy and Jake made reference to continuing with course improvements for next year's event, but I find it difficult to conceive how they could make it any better than it was this year.

Yet another awesome feature of this year's course--what better way to manage the cross in a figure-eight course than with a fly-over?
Photo: Tom Linnell

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