Almost A National Champion

The Stats:

• ~40 Miles  (Slightly shy of the typical 50-mile marathon distance.)
• 6300' of elevation gain
• 2nd-place Singlespeed
• 3:21:11 to the finish
• The "# of Crashes" stat has been suspended indefinitely, given my blossoming ability to stay on my bike.  Should that change, it will return.

Independence Day weekend in Sun Valley--pretty sweet!  (More my speed than the warzone of large explosives that Lander, Wyoming turns into for July 4th.)  A relatively large posse of riders--Jason counted 18--headed west from the Tetons to compete in the Mountain Bike Marathon National Championships last Saturday.  If that title means nothing to you, Marathon-distance events are around 50 miles in the mountain bike world, and Sun Valley was chosen to host this year's national championships on the closing weekend of their Ride Sun Valley mountain bike festival.

(On a sidenote, it's a little bizarre that USA Cycling has deemed itself our governing body of bicycle racing, and designates seemingly arbitrary races as the national championships of a given discipline.  Though it's cool to have the championship events travel every couple of years, wouldn't it make sense to have them at the end of the season?  How can you have the 24-hour Championships in mid-June, let alone Marathon in early-July?  That's barely in time to come out of hibernation, let alone build the fitness to be a national champ.)

In any case, it was a fantastic weekend--gorgeous camping, mind-blowing riding, good friends.  The only downer was that Erica and Rue couldn't be there, or so I thought...

After a July 4th race course pre-ride, we spent Friday "resting up" for the big event.  (Lounging around, sitting in hot springs, tinkering with our bikes...)  It's been a long time since I felt this caught up on sleep before a race.  Not necessarily well-rested--I was still feeling fatigue in the legs from the Tatanka 100--but well-slept.

Photo: Evan Simms

And the singlespeed division didn't launch onto the course until 8:30--how civilized!  After watching the Pro's tear around the "parade loop" and out onto the course, we were called up after the Men's 35-39 division.  I had butterflies bouncing around my belly standing at the line with Carey Smith, Josh Krattiger, Tom Flynn...  Carey beat me by almost 17 minutes last year; was I strong enough to take him?  How strong were the boys from Boise this year?  Then the gun went off and it all went away; I was just racing with a crowd of singlespeeders, and loving it.

We were all in a pack for the parade loop and about a mile on the bike path--a peloton of 12 dudes with one gear each, frantically spinning our legs to get the hell off the asphalt.  Then Carey and I led the first lap up Cold Springs--dirt road to gravel service road to lovely singletrack, a sustained 2500' climb to the top of Baldy.  Carey even let me lead some of it before passing and leaving me to spend the rest of the race chasing his skinny rear-end.

I had him in view all the way up the first climb, with optimism about catching him, and then he was gone!  Course knowledge?  Bigger balls for the big descent?  Who knows--I never saw him again.

But I had a great race.  No cramping this time, just the joyous discomfort of a solid effort.  The second climb up Cold Springs actually felt better than the first--I was finally warmed up.  Riding downhill felt awesome and fun, including the weird man-made "rock-garden" just above the finish.  The riding in Sun Valley really is phenomenal, which translates to really phenomenal racing.

And I know I've been gushing about the LESter, but this thing blows my mind--such a fun, playful bike!  Super light, climbs like a goat, and it's totally changed my comfort with racing downhill.  Amazing on the long, fast descent of Warm Springs.

The icing on the cake was when I rode through the finish and Erica and the Ruester were standing there cheering me in!  At first my brain couldn't process who they were or how they came to be there, but then Erica was kissing me and it didn't matter.  She rallied for an early drive to Ketchum after driving home from Lander the night before--unbelievable!

A creek-soak recovery felt pretty good on a hot, sunny day.

In the end, Carey came across the line 5:43 ahead of me to take home the singlespeed Stars-And-Stripes jersey again this year.  Of course it would have been awesome to be on the top step, but I felt happy with my race despite being fatigued from the prior weekend's racing.  Last year Carey beat me by 16:41; I'm closing the gap!  Now I have another goal to shoot for next year...