"Ride The Bull", Indeed

The Stats:

• ~100 Miles
• ~12,000' of elevation gain
• 1st-Place Singlespeed, 2nd-Place Overall
• 8:16:13 to the finish
• # of Wrecks: 0(!) Maybe I'm getting better at this?!

The Tatanka 100 took place on Saturday--miles and miles of SICK riding in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  I loved this race.  Not every minute of it; there were some dark times, for sure.  (The Mickelson Rail Trail, for instance...)  But I loved it.

It was steep; it was loose; it was rocky, gnarly, and amazing--on the up and the down--just like home.  "Natural" trail riding.  So fun.

For the first half, anyway.  The second was mostly (blessedly) smoother and faster, featuring a long rail-trail climb and a mix of forest-service and ATV roads.

We launched shortly after dawn (5am!) with a brief, police-escorted neutral roll-out and then the pace picked up for 5 miles of gravel road to shake things out before turning onto singletrack.  I knew I had to stick with Gerry Pflug and Trevor Rockwell in the singlespeed field, so I was keeping a close eye on those guys as the lead group shifted and morphed, and hammered to get in position for the exit off the road.  Then we left the road with a quick little power move over a cattle guard and were cruising lovely trail through fields and into the woods.

This was my favorite part of the day--racing over fast, rolling singletrack through the forest at sunrise.  Jim Meyer (the day's champion) disappeared shortly after we got into the forest and never came back.  I rode with Gerry for close to 10 miles of fun forest racing, working our way up to Kip Biese in second-place overall, until we hit a steep, sustained, loose, rocky bastard of a climb where Gerry slowed and I was able to crank past and just keep my shit together enough to keep turning my wheels to the top.

Coming into the Dalton Lake Aide Station.  Lovely.
Photo: Tom Linnell

My heartrate was through the roof, but what was I going to do--get off and walk? One of my favorite parts of singlespeeding is that there's just a minimum speed you can go (based on your gearing); there's no granny gear but if you can keep your balance and manage to keep the cranks turning you can keep going, probably faster than you would with gears. And yes, it sends your heartrate to the redline and past, but that feels kind of good too.

I rode with Kip for a few miles after that but eventually realized that I needed to be riding faster if I was going to stay ahead of Gerry--he was riding strong, and I knew there was no room to relax. Kip was the last racer I saw; after passing him I was alone for the next 80 miles to the finish.

Thanks Mom!
Photo: Tom Linnell

The Ultimate Support Crew was out there for me, handing fresh bottles and Camelbaks at the aide stations, and keeping me stoked up to keep cranking. I kept getting reports that I was 2 minutes back from Jim, then 2.5 minutes back, and had hope that I might be able to catch him. I felt good, and knew that even though my 34x18 gearing hurt on the steeper climbs it would pay off on the low-angle stuff later in the race.

Photo: Tom Linnell

And then we hit the Mickelson Rail-Trail grade. Damn, that thing was long.  So long.

"The Mick" was a 109-mile long railway from Deadwood to Edgemont; now it's been turned into a gorgeously-graded 109-mile gravel bike path with 4 tunnels and over 100 bridges. We rode a little over 20 miles of it, with most of those miles being an uphill spin/grind.

That was my dark place, for sure. I would have happily had another racer there to help get through the headwind and over the top. My gearing felt just right--it was going to hurt to spin it out, but within the bounds of reason and kept me moving at a decent pace.

The other feature of the Mick is that because it's so wide there isn't much shade, so it was bright and hot. Though sitting and spinning was a great way to cover miles, my fatigued body struggled to stay in one position for long--shifting hand positions, stretching my shoulders and arms, blinking away blurry vision from the bright sunlight, all while the legs kept rolling.

Cruising the MTB aero-position through the final aide station at the tiny town of Galena.
Photo: Tom Linnell

After finally cresting the top and rolling a gentle downhill to the Englewood aide station I learned that Jim was able to shift up and open the gap to 7 minutes, which he held to the end. Try as I might, spinning my legs as fast as they could go in my mountain bike aero position, I could really only sustain about 21mph. That wasn't going to catch a racer with bigger gears and a derailleur.
So I focused on keeping my pace hot and maintaining my lead over Gerry and Kip. Though the course profile suggests that the last 20 mile of the race is downhill, there were actually a number of rude climbs thrown in for spite. There was also some really fun, loose descents on ATV trails, rocketing around corners and trusting that forward momentum would keep the wheels upright as they skittered around.

Done!  Relaxing in the shade with Gerry.
Photo: Tom Linnell

It felt so good to race down the concrete aqueduct through town and over the sweet pallet-bridge to the finish around the track at Woodle Field, knowing that I had secured my first NUE win of the season.  Kip and Gerry rolled over the line in 3rd and 4th not much later, putting two singlespeeders in the top 5--sick!  Strong performances all around.

I'll definitely be back for the Tatanka 100 next year; it was really fun racing and a particularly well-run event.  Kevin and the crew from Dakota Endurance totally styled it.

For now, I'm stoked to be starting into a couple of solid months of racing; I feel strong, and it's good to see the springtime training paying off.

Photo: Tom Linnell