Budu #4: Cookin in the Kettles, Ft. Ebey State Park

While Olympia was enduring yet another spring deluge, sun crept through the trees at Ft. Ebey State Park. Shadowed from the nasty March weather by the Olympic mountains to the west, the Cookin in the Kettles race is the high point of the spring racing season; it's longer, technically and physically demanding, scenic, sometimes ridiculously fun, sometimes demoralizing, and for last three years, completely rain and mud-free.  Too bad the same couldn't be said for the Sandy Ridge Spring Brake SD, where Lee, Todd, Derik, and Luke (and their bikes) were getting mud-baths.

Rachel, Dave, Brian, Ann, and Mike, along with fellow Cap riders Nancy and Lito headed up on Friday to nab three primo campsites, and get an early start on the beer.  I showed up midafternoon Saturday to find the campsites deserted.  I figured everyone must be out pre-riding so I hopped on my new Norco Faze 1 and hoped to catch them on the trail.  Unfortunately, the course wasn't marked, so I ended up tooling around on random trails and hoping that at some point that I'd run into course markings, which I never did. Once I gave up trying to find the course and everyone else, I settled back and enjoyed the mercifully dry trails.  I met up with everyone else back at camp; they had a printed map of the course and managed to pre-ride most of it.  Luckily I had raced this course twice before so I had an idea of the pain that would be in store for me the following morning.

Race day was rain free but cold and windy, a discomfort that was quickly alleviated about five minutes into the race.  I told myself to shoot for a good position at the start but not to push it, as there was 14 miles and around 3000 feet of climbing to do.  The course started with a fast downhill plunge and then a short steep rooty climb; this was a sample of what the rest of the course would be like.  The first third was sections of root-filled climbs, some sections of fast double-track descents and a few sharp switchback singletrack descents.  Keeping one eye on the upcoming trail was crucial, as many of these descents abruptly ended in steep climbs that could easily catch riders in the wrong gear.  The middle section of the course twisted through some dense salal and alter and then turned back into the forest for the first section of switchback climbs.  The second section of switchback climbs was what I had been dreading the entire race; it switchbacked up a sandy bluff that sapped my energy in the previous races, but this year I climbed up it relatively painlessly.  I don't know if it was improved fitness, better conditions, or less Elijah Craig the night before, but I was pretty stoked!  I didn't to loose position the first lap and on my second lap I managed to reel in two women I had been chasing most of the first lap.  Come to find out they weren't even in my age category, but that didn't stop my from grinning ear to ear once I crossed the finish line, quite unlike my barrage of profanity after the Black Diamond race.

After the race, we headed over to Port Townsend for some delicious happy hour beer and food and took the scenic way back along Highway 101.  What a great weekend of sick racing and good friends!

Results:
Beginner Women 30-39
Dani Vergara, 4th

Sport Women 30-39
Erin Roe, 3rd
Courtney Anderson, DNF (mechanical)

Sport Men 30-39
Brian Mitchell, 12th
Edward Vergara, ??? (no time posted)

Sport Men 50+
Dave Snyder, 9th

Clydesdale Men
Mike Scholl, 7th

OOA Sisters
Ann Mitchell, 2nd, Sport Women 30-39, Karen Metcalfe, 3rd, Sport Women 50+

Sandy Ridge Spring Brake Super D #1

Results

Cat 2 Men 19-39
Lee Peterson, 9th

Cat 2 Women 35+
Rachel Delateur, 1st

Olydirt brothers
Matt Jagger, 2nd Pro Men
Jim Graham, 5th Cat 1 Men 19-39

Budu #3: Soaring Eagle

I decided to make Soaring Eagle my first race of the year, and my first competitive race since the Capitol Forest 50.  I race in the Men's Sport 30-39 category and as usual, there was a very large field for Sport racers.  There were around 100 Sport racers on the course and we were separated by about a minute, it was a bit chaotic.

 

When our group was released the pace was very fast, the course started with a very gradual climb in thick, slick mud where everyone was gunning for the hole shot onto the single track. A break of 8-10 riders quickly formed in front of me and a large gap was behind me.  I was feeling really good, which surprised me since I haven't really ridden much since September, so I decided to bridge the gap and stay with the leaders.  My goal originally was just to ride hard and do my best but now, with my new found confidence I changed my goal to a top 10 finish.  I bridged to the leaders quite easily and we quickly caught the 40+ group which started a minute ahead of us.  The course was not really technical, there were a few log crossings and a fair share of roots but mostly it was just tight, flowing and winding single track with lots of mud.  Passing was a problem and the flow of the race quickly changed once we caught the group ahead of us.  We were passing three sometimes four wide which meant breaking trail, lots of bar banging and some crashing.  The race quickly went from fast and consistent to anaerobic repeats in order to stay in contact with the leaders.  Around 2/3rds of the first lap the lights went out for me, I was done.  The starting and stopping, sprinting and crashing had taken its toll.  The rest of the race was very uneventful, I was getting passed on the fast straight aways and passing back on the single track, this went on for the remaining 2 laps, I was slowly losing ground and just racing to hang on.  At the end of the race I finished in 20th place which I was not happy about but also not really disappointed either since I had no real expectations.  I now know what my fitness level is and what I need to do.  I look forward to Cookin in the Kettles next weekend!

-Brian M.

 

Results:

Beginner (W) 30-39 Dani Vergara 3rd

Sport (W) 30-39 Theresa Nation 6th

Sport (M) 19-29 Reuben Andrews 7th

Sport (M) 30-39 Brian Mitchell 20th

Sport (M) 30-39 Edward Vergara 28th

 

Our OOA Brothers and Sisters

Expert (W) 40-49 Jennifer Burtner 2nd

Sport (W) 30-39 Ann Mitchell 1st

Budu #2: Black Diamond

I'd been to the Black Diamond area twice.  The first time, as a novice mountain biker, I slipped on a wet root and broke the master cylinder on my right brake after thirty minutes.  The second time, for the Budu race two years ago, it was snowing, turning the course into a muddy, slushy mess.  I finished DFL.  Last year, I skipped it and was planning on doing the same thing this year until I found out I was going to miss the Soaring Eagle race in two weeks.  I still wanted my series points, so off to Black Diamond I went, hoping that the new course would leave me with a better taste in my mouth.

Upon arriving, we sought out some beta about the course.  Switchbacks.  Slow.  Narrow.  Twisty.  Tight.  No open spots.  No room to pass.  These responses were not heartening.  But worse than the course reports was the pain in my tailbone from my epic sock-slide fall last week.  I hadn't ridden all week, so I wasn't really sure how riding would feel, but I popped some painkillers at the first aid tent and hoped for the best.

The painkillers did eventually kick in, but not until my second lap and by then, the damage had been done.  Unlike Dash Point, this time the race started on a wide gravel road before plunging into the singletrack.  I had a fairly good start and held my position well for the first half of the course.  But then, the tight turns and twisting course got under my skin.  I made some stupid mistakes and got passed by a few people.  Made more and was passed by a few more people.  In all that tight terrain, I couldn't find my groove and began to get frustrated.  The pain in my tailbone still hadn't gone away, so every time I had to manuever over a root or around a turn (which was every three seconds) pain would shoot up my back.  And this on the first lap.  As I crossed the lap transition, I honestly didn't know if I could make it through a second lap.  Aerobically I was doing fine, as there were no real climbs and no place to really push your speed, but mentally I was loosing it, my butt really hurt, and I did not want to pedal another four miles of tedious twisting.  Thankfully, the painkillers finally kicked in and I felt much better the second lap.

Luckily, the other GL6 racers didn't share my luck!  Luke Brechwald won 2nd place in the Expert Men's 19-29, an excellent mountain bike season opener, and Courtney took 1st place honors in Sport Women's 30-39.  Dani, Edward, John, and Kyle also raced, and we were joined by fellow Capitol Forest riders Nancy, Lito, and David, as well as OOA racer Karen Metcalfe.  Though the course chewed me up, the conditions were perfect!  The trails were muddy but super tacky, which was very helpful in negotiating those tight turns, there were only a few tire-sucking bogs.  Much improved from the snow I rode in last time, but humbling all the same.


Results

Beginner Women 30-39
Dani Vergara, 6th

Sport Women 30-39
Courtney Anderson, 1st
Erin Roe, 5th

Sport Men 30-39
Edward Vergara 20th

Sport Men 50+
John Curtin, 9th

Expert 20-29
Luke Brechwald, 2nd

Single Speed
Kyle Curtin, 6th

Budu #1: Dash Point

Sunrise broke over the manicured lawns and four-car garages of Norpoint Way, a wealthy neighborhood in Tacoma whose upper-most houses enjoyed a 360 view of the snow-capped North Cascades, Mt. Rainier, the Puget Sound and the Olympics.  This was not a neighborhood used to seeing a solid line dirt-smeared Subarus and aging Vanagons lining it's sidewalks, especially on a Sunday morning.  Yet on the morning of February 20th, that was the scene; dirty cars, spandex, and lots of mountain bikes.  Like last year, the weather was clear and sunny, a rare February gem, and with the good weather came mountain bikers anxious to blow the dust of their legs for the 2011 racing season.

GL6 had a good showing (both of racers and dirty cars): Edward, Dani, Lee, Erica, Mike, Dave, Erin, Courtney, Kyle, and John all raced, with Kerry and Brian shouting out encouragement and good-natured heckling from the most spectator-friendly part of the course (i.e. the wood bridge rooty mud bog)  Joining the ranks from the Olympia Orthopedics team were Ann Mitchell, who took 1st place honors in the Sport Women 30-39 category, Karen Metcalfe, and Stephanie Werts.

Due to construction in the park, the race was staged from a roadside trailhead (hence the line of dirty cars along pristine neighborhood streets) instead of from the campground like last year.  Every other category was started according to age, but not the women.  Usually all women start together because the age categories were so small, but today there were twenty four total women and were were all released together.  There was no place to spread out, no hole-shot, just straight into the singletrack from the start.  By that time, what had been frosty hard-pack for the beginners and experts had melted into muddy mush, which we were used to after riding all winter in CF, but combine racers of varying technical ability packed all together onto the singletrack and you get confused carnage.  Luckily I started in the middle of the pack so I was able to make it through the first few miles of swearing (not just from me), run-arounds and near-pileups without loosing too much time.  Unfortunately, Courtney started near the back of the pack and was stuck at the end of the line of slipping tires, nervous dismounts, and slow climbers, which take much time and energy to get around.  After racers sorted themselves out, the course twisted and turned, dove and climbed through the park.  The most challenging components of the course (other than managing energy) were roots made slippery by all the mud, keeping good speed and flow through the turns, and a few narrow wooden bridges over especially muddy spots.  There were several spots I had to jump over logs too big to ride over, or run up a particularly tough climb.  The course ended with a muddy, root-filled drop into a bog which was covered by one of the wire bridges.  I heard from Dave that he went down hard in that section and since there were so many spectators there,  I didn't even bother trying to ride it.

Though I had ridden all winter long, this first race drained me.  Riding all-out for an hour and twenty minutes was much different then cruising through the woods on the Rita.   Though I really enjoyed the course, I was thankful to cross the finish line and be done and even more thankful for the happy hour beer at the nearby Harmon Brewery.

Results

Beginner Women 30-39

Dani Vergara, 3rd

Sport Women 30-39

Erin Roe, 4th

Courtney Anderson, 7th

Sport Men 30-39

Edward Vergara, 18th

Sport Men 50+

John Curtin, 8th

Clydesdale

Mike Scholl, 8th

Singlespeed Women

Erica Keller, 1st

Singlespeed Men

Kyle Curtin, 7th

Lee Peterson, 12th

Dave Snyder 19th