The Massanutten Ring

I first heard about The Massanutten Ring shortly after moving to Harrisonburg, VA towards the end of 2015. Among of my goals in moving there were to become a part of the city’s vibrant cycling community, and explore the endless miles of trails in the nearby mountains. Eric Jensen at Bluestone Bike and Run was one of the first people I rode with down here. He took me on my first ride in the nearby area known as Fort Valley, in the Massanutten Mountain Range, about 20 miles north of town. We rode North on the the East Ridge, from Camp Roosevelt to Veech Gap. Coming from Northern NJ, I was both accustomed to and very fond of hard, rocky, technical riding, but this was some next level stuff. It was 100% singletrack...tight, narrow, knife edge ridge line with razor sharp sandstone coming at you non - stop, from all angles and in all shapes and sizes. There were scores of steep chutes, both up and down, some rideable, some not, plus big gnarly climbs and descents to get on and off the ridge. It was both beautiful and brutal...easily the hardest and most challenging terrain I’d ever seen. I absolutely loved it, and I absolutely could not wait to see more. 

Eric informed me that the trail we rode was but a small section of the orange blazed Massanutten Trail, a 70 mile loop that encircles all of Fort Valley, primarily traversing its ridge lines. The full loop has roughly 14,000 vertical feet of climbing. 

Since 2012, a select group of riders have been attempting to ride the loop in its entirety, a feat known as a full pull of The Ring of Fire (Officially called The Massanutten Ring, but known to most simply as “The Ring”). The thought of riding that much gnar all at once seemed completely, bat shit crazy to me. Eric and I had ridden a mere 15 miles of it and it took the better part of 5 hours. My initial thoughts on ever attempting The Ring were something along the lines of ”Well there’s something I have no desire to do in this lifetime, or any other”.

The 5 years that followed brought many riding trips to Fort Valley. I would come to know and love the various classic rides that make up the multiple sections of the Massanutten Trail, from Signal Knob at the North end, to Jawbone at the South. These are long, burly destination rides onto themselves, where local riders go when they really want to test their mettle. The more time I spent riding in the area, the more taken with it I was...and the sharper my technical skills became.  When I’d visit the rocky parks in NJ that used to challenge me, they now felt easy by comparison. Still, attempting a full pull myself seemed like a feat of total madness.

Cut to 2020. It’s March. I do one early season race, the Stokesville 60/40, in which I crash hard, break my face (and my finger). Then COVID 19 hits and the world flips upside down. All my live sound work disappears. I’ve got an excess of time to ride and train, but nothing to train for, as all the remaining races on my calendar are cancelled or postponed indefinitely. As Winter softens into Spring, I suddenly notice a slew of new Ring full pull completions. Friends of mine, peers, people with whom I ride are not only attempting it, but actually succeeding. New FKTs (Fastest Known Times) are being set in rapid succession by Madison, then Sam, then Abe then Jeremiah. A germ of a thought begins to grow: I do need of some sort of goal to salvage my virtual non season, and I do like pushing my own limits. I can’t believe I’m actually considering this, yet somehow I am. 

Attempting The Ring is not something you just wake up one morning and decide to roll out out and do. It takes research, planning and preparation to pull it off, not to mention the training. As I began to go down that swirling vortex of information, I quickly realized that, for a variety of reasons, it would be about 5 months before I could attempt The Ring. To begin with, there are two relatively short windows per year in which to do it: one in the Spring, one in the Fall. You don’t want to try it in the winter — too cold to be on the bike for that long and not enough daylight. Summer might be even worse: way too hot and humid, plus some sections get badly overgrown. The Spring window is longer and you have more daylight, but by the time I’d mentally committed to it that window was essentially closed...no way I could get in Ring shape that fast. So I started planning for the Fall. It’s a shorter window because the temps stay high and the brush stays brushy through September. But by November you are slipping surfing through rock-obscuring leaves. So that left October, which presented a few challenges of its own. While the cool, dry weather is ideal, the days are shorter, which meant that I’d need lights for both the beginning and ending hours of the ride. Ok then, challenge accepted, insanity confirmed. I had roughly four months to prepare.

According to the official Facebook page “Ride the Massanutten Ring”, there are 3 classifications of Ring attempts: 1) Supported: you have a support team meet you at various road crossings along the route to resupply you and provide encouragement. Despite numerous offers of support from friends, I wrote this option off knowing I wanted sole ownership my success or failure. 2) Unsupported: you must carry all your food, water and supplies, and when you run out of water you replenish it by filtering it from streams. This would add an extra layer of brutality to an endeavor that's supremely brutal already. Hard pass.

3) Self Supported: you strategically pack and stash your own resupply bags/coolers with food, water and supplies along the course right before your ride, but accept no outside help. Option 3 fit the bill for me, and so the preparation began.

There are two are fronts on which you need to prepare for the Ring; training and logistics. Let’s start with the latter. There was A LOT of thought that went into this. First, I needed to set a realistic time goal for myself so I could figure out how much food, water, lighting etc. I’d need, and where I should stash my resupply drops. I looked at the times of my Ring finishing peers like Madison Blake and Lindsay Carpenter and figured that without any unforeseen problems I could do it in somewhere between 16 and 17 hours. Badass former World Champion cyclocross racer Libby Sheldon, who I’ve raced multiple Tours de Burg alongside, completed a supported full pull in 16:31. If I could come close to that time on my self-supported effort, I’d be very happy.

After considering weather and sunrise/sunset times, I picked the third week in Oct for my target date. I would need a day with perfect weather...no chance of rain, with highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s. At that time of year I’d have roughly 12 hours of daylight from 7am to 7pm. I’d need to start with one set of lights and a backup at 4am, with the goal of finishing with a second stash of lights by 9pm. Next was hydration. The plan was to ride with a 3 liter Camelback with plain water and 1 bottle on the bike with Skratch Labs energy drink. I’d need to carry enough fluids to make it to each resupply point, but no more that necessary...extra weight on my back could be a killer on a ride this long. My first drop point would be Camp Roosevelt at mile 23 and the second at Edinburgh Gap at mile 46. This allowed me to think about planning my route in thirds. Each drop would have water to partially fill my pack, a fresh bottle of Skratch and a bottle of Pedialyte to drink with my lunches while I was stopped. Speaking of food, my plan was to stick with my standard for long races: GU and Honey Stinger gels or Clif Shot blocks every hour (I'd set an alarm on my Garmin to remind me to eat) then Peanut Butter and Nutella sandwiches on multigrain bread for my breakfast and lunch stops. All foods I knew would keep my energy levels consistent without upsetting my stomach. The drops would also contain more gels/blocks, spare tubes, CO2, chain lube and, oh so importantly...chamois cream. Allowing my nether regions to get chaffed could be the difference between enjoyment and outright misery. 

When it came to training for The Ring, the foundation was similar to what I’d do to prep for a season of endurance racing, with a few key differences and areas of focus. Knowing how long I’d be on the bike, naturally I focused on doing lots of long training rides of 5, 7, and eventually up to 10 hours. I mixed these up...some on gravel, and some on very hard technical trails, including parts of the Ring route itself. I also used this as an opportunity to scout the few sections of the route that I hadn’t ridden recreationally before, which were Duncan Hollow, The Waterfall Mountain HAB (Hike a Bike), and the brief section between Jawbone Gap and Short Mountain. I also did some shorter, high intensity riding, but without any real structure...no timed intervals on the trainer or the road. 

Knowing that the route had countless sections where I would need to walk, push or portage my bike, I did quite a bit of hiking to prepare. Some of these were just plain hikes, and some were arduous rides with HABs mixed in. Not exactly fun, but necessary. Another component of my training was core and upper body strength work...abs, shoulders, back, triceps etc...I do some of this anyway, but I definitely stepped it up a few notches for The Ring. The final component was yoga. I knew that between constantly being on and off the bike, hiking on jagged rocks and carrying a heavy pack all day, I’d need to be as loose and limber as possible.

The final decision was which bike to ride. This really wasn’t that tough a choice, my 100mm Trek Top Fuel was too racey and my 150mm Santa Cruz Hightower was too heavy at around 31lbs. This left My 2016 Trek Fuel EX With 120mm of front and rear suspension travel, slightly relaxed geometry and a weight of about 27lbs. It would be the perfect choice for an all-day adventure. To get it Ring ready, I upgraded to a new Shimano XT 12 speed drivetrain with a 32t chainring up front and a 10-51 cassette in the back, which would be crucial for spinning up the climbs without pushing myself into the red. The other key factor was tires. The Ring can destroy a set of light race tires within a few miles, so I opted for some nice, fresh, burly rubber...set up tubeless of course.

Throughout the entire summer of training I continued to question the sanity of what I was committing myself to. There was always a shadow of doubt as to whether I’d actually go through with it. To ensure that I wouldn’t back out, I leaked my plans to just enough of my riding friends to hold me to account. Fortunately, by late September, something had clicked: I was feeling 100% healthy and really strong on the bike; I knocked out several. 10+ hour rides with 10k’ of vert without cramping or lower back issues (to which I tend to be susceptible). To the extent that anyone every really is, I was ready for The Ring. 

After a 3-day weekend of riding in West Virginia with friends (longish days, but pretty chill) the plan was to come home, rest and ride easy for a few days, then go for it on Thursday or Friday. But the weather had different ideas; When I returned to Harrisonburg on Saturday, I checked the 5 day forecast. It called for highs near 80 toward the end of the week...way too hot. That left Wednesday Oct. 14th, with a low of 45, a high of 70 and a 5% chance of rain; pretty close to perfection. This had to be the day! That still gave me 3 full days of rest and recovery. Hopefully it would be enough.

Sunday it poured as expected. I spent the day making lists of everything that needed to go in my coolers, drop bags, Camelback and handlebar feed bag. Monday was devoted to prepping and packing: I charged my lights and my Garmin GPS, putting it in battery saver mode so it would last the whole ride. I laid out and packed my nutrition, hydration, tools, clothing and gear. I also inserted a hand written note in each of my drop bags, imploring any humans who found them not to tamper with their contents (Not sure how effective this would be for bears and raccoons though). Tuesday I started pre-hydrating, did a mellow ride in the morning, and got ready to head up to PoeTown Music, the recording studio where I work (conveniently located just 2 miles from Elizabeth Furnace, my start point for The Ring). I would stage at the studio and spend the night. As I was leaving home I had a moment of panic when I realized I only had one backup light, and that I might need another for the end of the ride. I stopped by Bluestone and picked up a handlebar mounted Nite Rider to ease my anxiety. I grabbed 2 foot-long subs from Sub Station, one for dinner and one for when the Ring was complete. I drove into Fort Valley and carefully hid my drop bags and coolers in the woods at the two locations that I’d previously scouted. I got to the studio, had my dinner and charged my new backup light. 

I crawled into my sleeping bag and managed a couple hours of sleep before the day’s hydration forced me awake at 2:30 am. I donned my bibs, jersey, knee and arm warmers, wind vest, tall socks, shoes and helmet and drove the 7 minutes to the Signal Knob trailhead. I reminded myself of the mantras I’d chosen to repeat throughout the ride: “slow is fast, conserve your matches!” In other words, never attempt to ride something that would send my heart rate into the red zone. Even if I knew I was capable of doing so...just get off and walk.

I stepped out into the crisp, clear 45-degree morning and saw my breath on the air. I looked up to Orion for some cosmic inspiration, checked my lights and the time. 4am sharp. Time to rock and roll.

It starts with a quick, mandatory up and down on the bottom of Bear Wallow to warm things up, then across the road and up the beastly first climb of Shawl Gap. It climbs gradually, but gets increasing steep and gnarly. Around halfway I’m mostly off and walking through rock gardens and up stone staircases. Now I’m really warmed up; the arm warmers come down and I dial my lights back to a low setting, not needing much for my crawl up the mountain. After the final boulder field on Shawl I reach the ridge and keep on climbing. My legs feel good. I ride a couple sweet miles of rocky ridge when I notice the spectacular crescent moon through the trees. I sacrifice a little time to take a few photos.

My Garmin lets me know an hour has passed and I down my first energy gel. A few more HABs and I’m near the summit, when my gears start to skip. Not good. I also notice that my rear brake seems to be fading. Did I hit a rock and not realize it? I stop and look. Nothing looks bent, nothing stuck in my cassette. I keep rolling and start the super chunky descent down to Veach Gap. It pitches up in a few places and my gears feel ok. Weird. When the descent mellows out and gets fast, I brake and my rear lever goes right to the handlebar. WTF!? I stop again. This time I flex the wheel and I see that the rear axle has fully backed out of the thread on the drive side of the frame. Holy @#$&! I rethread the skewer, tighten the hell out of it and roll on with a huge sigh of relief; trying not to dwell on just how badly that could have ended.

 I rip the rest of the descent then start the doubletrack climb up the other side of Veach. I imagined myself staying on the bike for the whole thing, but it’s not to be. It’s surface is so loose that I spin out a couple times and have to hoof it. Back on the ridge it’s another nice, undulating couple miles of pedaling before the trail drops sharply to the eastern shoulder. Here I’m faced with big, off-camber rock moves that if misjudged could easily result in a long tumble down the hill. Repeating my mantras, I’m off the bike again. Now almost 3 hours in; the sun start to rise over the Blue Ridge Mountains. It’s orange glow causing the peak leaf colors to explode atop the ridge. The scenery is stunning. Time be damned; I’m already walking so I pull out my phone and snap some more pics. 

From there, the ridge becomes a narrow tightrope with jagged, angular rocks and steep ups and downs. I ride what I can, and walk when I should, keeping my heart rate out of the red.  Now fully light, I remove my helmet light and stash it in my pack. I never needed the backup light. At an overlook I peer off to the west to find a stunning lake of mist sitting in Fort Valley. More pics are taken. I’m feeling strong, the bike is now flawless and the beauty of my surroundings propel me forward. I finish the East Ridge without incident; despite a few rock strikes on my derailleur, it continued to shift perfectly. I nail the highly technical descent into Camp Roosevelt, cleaning it for the first time...always good for morale.

Twenty-three miles in and I’ve reached my first drop point at 9:30 am. I pull my cooler from its hiding place and go through my mental checklist of things I need to do. First, eat! The PB & N sammy goes down easy, chased with a bottle of Pedialyte. I drop my lights, refill my Camelback, grab a new bottle of Skratch, replenish my gels and blocks and return my cooler to its hiding tree. It all takes longer that I was expecting, but I’m still where I should be in terms of timing. I send my friend (and studio manager) Kevin a quick text, to let him know where and when I was. He lives nearby and has agreed to be my safety net should I get hurt.

 Back on the bike, I tackle the 5-mile, mostly gradual climb up Duncan Hollow. It starts with some fun singletrack then quickly devolves into loose, wet doubletrack. It’s an hour long death march and I can’t really say I’m enjoying it, but at least I’m treated to some more great views near the top.

I descend the fun and fast run into the next valley, to the base of the infamous Waterfall Mountain. Several other Ring finishers I’d spoken to site Waterfall as their least favorite part of the route, with good reason. It’s an absolute wall; a full half hour plus HAB straight up a mountainside, with pitches of up to 50%. I walk all of it, with the exception of two tiny sections where it levels out slightly. I pedal for a few yards just to give my calves a break. It was brutal, but I’d pre-ridden (well, pre HAB’d) this section a few weeks before so I knew full well what I was in for. I grit my teeth and just get it over with. 

When I finally crest the ridge and pedal the short section before Jawbone, my legs feel surprisingly strong and fresh. I cross Crissman Hollow Road and zip up the short little climb to the overlook. I stop for a quick bite to eat. As I gaze out over the Shenandoah Valley to the West, I send Kevin another text updating him on my whereabouts...I’m now roughly halfway through The Ring

 I set off on Jawbone; the fall leaves blazing red and orange as the midday sun warms the ridge to a perfect 65 degrees. Mile for mile, Jawbone (aka Kern Mountain) is one of the two most technical sections of The Ring. I find a nice groove here, riding a lot of the gnar but always getting off when it gets too crazy. I have one scary moment when I whack my derailleur on a blade of rock. It jams into my wheel, with one of spokes getting stuck in the lower pulley. Not good. I stop and VERY carefully work the wheel backwards. The spoke pops out of the pulley and the derailleur springs back into place. I breath another huge sigh of relief when I shift through the gears without issue. Whew! I finish off the ridge, bomb down the Jawbone descent, and cross a gnarly traverse with portage through a boulder field. I reach the crossing at Moreland Gap; another quick gel stop and another update text.

The ascent of Short Mountain is painful. It’s too steep and rocky to ride without having put out a massive effort, so I walk almost all of it. This climb is nearly as long as Waterfall, and even more unpleasant. Once on the ridge, Short doesn’t get much easier. This nasty, 6 mile stretch of gnar dips steeply up and down the ridge ad infinitum...forcing me on and off the bike over and over again. I suffer through each undulation thinking every new dip off the ridge is the start of the final descent, but it never seems to come. I am fully in the No Flow Zone, which is a pretty demoralizing place to be.

Then at the height of my frustration, disaster: on one of the more drastic grade reversals, I foolishly try to upshift too many gears at once and my derailleur jams in my rear wheel. Again. This time it looks really bad, with chain twisted up in a way I can’t physically comprehend. No matter how I try I can’t seem to unravel it. I attempt to remove the wheel but it’s being held in place by the twisted mess of metal. My heart sinks. This feels like the end of my Ring attempt. After about ten minutes, I give the wheel one last desperate, brute force pull. It comes free. I untie the chain from the derailleur and it pops back into place, but it has to be badly bent, right??? I remount the wheel and shift through the cassette. Shockingly, It doesn’t seem to be skipping, but riding the bike would be another matter. I start peddling and again, to my astonishment, the bike shifts perfectly, without so much as a minor adjustment! I soldier on with a mixture of joy and disbelief. This XT 12 speed stuff is friggin’ bulletproof! Without further incident, I bomb the chunky but fully rideable descent off Short Mountain to my second refueling point at Edinburg Gap.

I pretty much repeat my ritual from the first rest stop: downing some real food and Pedialyte, restocking water, Skratch and gels, chain lube and chamoise cream etc. I mount up my fresh primary and backup lights to the bike and send my update text. It’s 5pm, and I estimate that I have about 3.5 hours to go if nothing else goes horribly wrong.

I’m off. I’ve lost some time on Short, but I’m thrilled to still be in the game. My legs feel strong and my mindset is positive. I knew I had some of the day’s most enjoyable sections coming up, but first I had to scale the brutish climb up to Wanoaze Peak. With the exception of one rock garden, the bottom half is all rideable.  But the top, in Ring context, is another 15 or 20 minutes of HAB. As I’m trudging up the mountain I come upon a photographer with his camera on a tripod (only the second human I would see on trail all day), no doubt capturing the golden hour magic of the valley. He speaks some words of encouragement and snaps a few shots of me as I push past. I ponder the fact that somewhere out there would be images of my suffering that I would likely never see.

I crest Wanoaze and begin the rocky yet ripping-fast West Ridge; a super fun, hour-long pedal that trends gradually downhill for nearly 10 miles to Woodstock Tower, with almost no dismounts. This is easily my favorite section of the route. After a quick snack and text stop at Woodstock Tower, the ridge flattens out. The stretch from here to Mudhole Gap is more fun, rideable ridgeline. I’m moving well and really enjoying myself, but the specter of the final climb and descent are never far out of mind. I milk the sun’s final rays for all I can, but I need to ignite my lights near the top of Mudhole.

 I finish the ridge and the steep little plunge down to the fire road in darkness. I make a quick final stop at the natural spring to top off my bottle and send my last update. After a few miles of gradual gravel, and a short but mandatory singletrack around the reservoir, I hit the dreaded final wall up to Signal Knob...400 vertical feet of loose gravel at about 20% grade. Somehow, my legs are up to it, and I stay on the bike until the little singletrack detour at the radio tower. I down one last gel as the fire road gives way to the last climbing section of the day: the boney Signal Knob trail ascent up the shoulder of Meneka Peak. I summit with only one dismount, just as my Garmin beeps it’s hourly reminder. It’s 8pm. I have a full hour to meet my goal of under 17 hours. Only the 4 mile Signal Knob descent stands between me and a successful Ring attempt. But getting down off that mountain is no easy feat...the trail is insanely technical with the middle section essentially a mile-long boulder field.

A highly skilled rider with fresh legs MIGHT be able to fully ride it all if they were lucky. I stay on as long as I can, but eventually I’m off and walking. It’s so gnarly that remounting is very difficult, especially in the dark. I keep reminding myself not to try anything stupid. Even so, I have one scary moment when I stuff my wheel into a rock and almost fly over the bars. Somehow I manage to bring the bike down sideways and land on my feet. That was too close. 

After the boulder fields, the tech level eases up a bit, and knowing I’m so close is a much needed shot of adrenaline. I rip the last mile with only two dismounts that I probably could have ridden, but at this point I’m taking no chances. I round a corner and see the silver moonlight glinting off my car. Rolling into the parking lot, I drop my bike to the ground, emitting a primal scream that no one is around to hear. There may or may not have been some some tears shed at this moment, I really can’t remember. My bike and body had held together for 16 hours and 34 minutes...making me only the 18th person to complete a full pull of The Massanutten Ring. I had joined the fellowship! It was hands down the hardest, and without question the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done on a bike.

As I was shedding my helmet and pack, my elation was joined by deep, full body fatigue, which had been kind enough to hold off until I’d finished. I felt a little dizzy, and my legs were pulsating; almost as if they were still trying to turn in circles. Without changing out of my bike clothes, I somehow drove back to the studio without cascading off the road, arriving just as Kevin and owner Donnie Poe were finishing up a band rehearsal. I mumbled some incoherent greetings, they offered congratulations. I hit the shower, barely able to lift my still pulsating legs. Once clean, I devoured my sub, some salty chips and chocolates, along with several bottles of iced tea, while making sure that my ride had accurately saved and uploaded. I crawled into my sleeping bag and reflected on what I’d just put myself through. Closing my eyes, all I could see were endless grey slabs of sandstone...for about 20 seconds. What followed was perhaps the soundest and deepest sleep of my entire life.

Stats and data dork info:

Ring ride type: self supported

Start/end point: Signal Knob Trailhead, Elizabeth Furnace.

Date of ride: 10/14/2020

(According to my Garmin 503. YMMV, literally))

Total time:16:34:17

Total mileage: 67

Elevation gain: 13,442‘

Average heart rate: 136

Max heart rate:163

Average speed: ~5mph

% of singletrack: 96

% of doubletrack: 2

% of garvel: 2 

% of pavement: 0

Estimated time spent HABing ~2 hours

Estimated time stopped for mechanicals: ~15 minutes

Estimated time stopped at drop points ~20 minutes

Estimated time stopped for natural breaks, photos, texts, snacks and other minutiae: 

~10 minutes

Current Fastest Known Time (FKT) as of 1/1/21: 11:23 - Abe Kaufman 

Relevant bike geek stuff:

 

Bike: 2016 Trek Fuel EX 9.9 120mm

Fork: Fox Float Factory 120mm

Wheels: Stan’s Arch S1

Tires: Bontrager SE5 2.3 Team Issue @ 18psi (rear). Maxxis Minion DHR EXO 2.4 @ 17psi (Front) Both tubeless w/ Stan’s sealant.

Drivetrain: Shimano XT 32t chainring/10-51t cassette

Brakes: Shimano XT, 180mm(front ) / 160mm(rear) rotors

Pedals: Shimano XT SPD

Saddle: Bontrager Evoke Ti

Drooper post: PNW Cascade w/ Loam lever

Other nerdy gear of note:

Shoes: Five Ten Kestrel Pro Boa

Lights: On the start:- Cygolight 1300XL, helmet mounted

            At the end: - Outbound Lighting Trail edition, Handlebar mounted Light and Motion 700, handlebar mounted (final descent only)

Gloves: Specialized Body Geometry dual gel (w/ chamoise cream inside to prevent blisters)

Foodstuffs consumed: 1 Clif Bar, ~12 assorted Gu and Honey Stinger energy gels, 3 packs of Clif Bloks, 2.5 peanut butter and Nutella sammys on organic multigrain bread.

Drinks drank: ~ 6 liters of H2O, 48oz Skratch Labs, 40oz Pedialyte

Other cool Ring stuff:

The “Ride the Massanutten Ring” Facebook page has lots more info and recaps by other Ring finishers.

An excellent recap with lots of video footage by then Ring FKT holder Jeremiah Bishop:

https://youtu.be/viwVBaB5NWk

The Stoopid 50 2013

So what’s so stoopid about the Stoopid 50 anyway? It seems a silly name for a bike race. Rumor has it the race got its moniker when promoter Chris Scott first proposed the idea of a 50 mile backcountry mountain bike race in the majestic mountains of Rothrock State Forest. A friend bluntly told him: “There is no way I’m doing your stupid 50 mile bike race”. Who can blame him really…racing a bike for 50 miles over some of PA’s tallest ridges, on its rockiest trails is not most folks’ idea of intelligent activity.

 As I’ve mentioned before, races can be hard for different reasons. What makes this one so Stoopid is the climbing; there’s almost 7000 feet of it…long, soul crushing fire road grinds that never seem to end. While the Bearscat 50 punishes your entire body, the Stoopid focuses the pain primarily on the legs. This is not to say that it doesn’t present technical challenges; there are still 25 miles of rocky east coast singletrack to contend with.

Last year I rode this race exactly as the name would imply; Stoopidly. I wasn’t sufficiently recovered from Bearscat, which, like this year, was two weeks earlier…I made the mistake of trying to train through it. Then I went too hard on the start in a vain effort to avoid the bottleneck going into the first singletrack.  By the halfway point I was cooked. The cooper's Gap singletrack had put a hurting on my lower back (I had ridden my hard tail last year) and I limped home in full survival mode; finishing outside the top 10 in the Masters. Not good! This year I trained harder, smarter and was better rested…I was out for revenge on a course that had wounded me both physically and mentally. This time around it was Daniel, RogieRog, TJ, and yours truly on the start line representing Team BTR/EMP/VTC. Rog & TJ also had revenge on their minds, having been forced to DNF last year for mechanical reasons. Meanwhile, Bill was frolicking in VT with the FAM, Monte was recovering from Lumberjack, and Kris was busy chasing supermodels around Europe.

 The weather was questionable at best…there were some major thunderstorms on the radar, but they looked spotty and it was unclear just how bad we’d get hit. Everyone knew that if it rained hard the course would be a muddy, scary mess. The race began ominously, with the skies opening up on the first climb up Bear Meadows Road…but it stopped as quickly as it started and the famed Tussey Ridge singletrack was not as treacherous as expected. I held back a bit on the start, thinking of my previous errors, and let the fastest guys get into the ST ahead of me. I got stuck in a conga line of riders who had trouble with the techy stuff on Tussey, but I resisted the temptation to try passing them in the narrow ST. It was mildly frustrating, but I knew holding back now would pay off later. It actually gave me a chance to enjoy some of the spectacular views from the ridge.

A bike's eye view of Tussey Ridge

 As usual, Jesse Kelly was ahead of me, as was IIya Canter from MTBNJ and Joe Johnston from Black Bear. On the rocky descent off Tussey Mountain, the conga line was got smaller as riders bobbled, crashed or suffered flat tires. I saw Joe J. pulled off the side of the trail with some sort of bike problem…as I said this is a rough course...and by the time I reached the bottom of the descent, there was only one rider left from the parade, Chris M from NJ.

After a short flat section, big-ass climb #1 began: Thickhead Mountain. It starts gradually on a gravel road but after about 10 minutes. it turns to dirt and points sharply upward to about a 15% grade. I settled in to my easiest gear and locked my heart rate in at around 170, making sure I wasn’t burning any real matches. Despite the cool, 70ish degree weather, I was drenched with sweat by the time a reached the summit. The downhill off Thickhead is a fast, big ring fire road that lets you hit speeds of almost 35 mph. Somewhere on my way down I noticed a problem with my rear shifting. The rear derailleur was making strange noises and I couldn’t backpedal without jamming the chain. At the bottom it became worse, and I was forced to stop to investigate. A rock must have struck my derailleur on the descent, because the back half of the cage (the part that holds the chain on the bottom pulley) was completely gone. As Chris flew by, I put my chain back on, crossed my fingers and rode on. Having plenty of gels and fluids with me, I didn’t stop at the first aid station.

After a couple miles of paved road, it was back into the singletrack of Coopers Gap, and right away I knew I was in trouble, my chain jumped off the now exposed lower pulley and jammed on the first steep technical climb. I jumped off, swearing, and reseated the chain. It was clear this was going to be an issue, but how much of one I had no clue. The next 10 miles were some of the most gorgeous technical singletrack I’ve ever ridden. As rocky as it was, it still managed to flow beautifully, as it changed microcosms from low brush, to deep deciduous forest, to pine forest, to open fields…just amazing.

Sweet Stoopid Singletrack. Note the custom designed number plate.

It was so good that I stopped counting all the times I had to stop and fix my chain. I was losing time, but I felt good, and no one seemed to be catching me. I suspected that once the constant pounding from the singletrack was over, my chain issues would be as well.

I climbed the long paved road back to the aid station, where I knew I had to stop to replace my now dwindling fluid supplies. On the smooth surface I suffered no further chain woes, but when I got there, they couldn’t find my drop bag with my water bottles. 30 seconds ticked by, then another…I was starting to get freaked out. I popped some Endurolytes to ward off the first twinges of leg cramps that I was starting to feel. another minute passed, still no bag…I finally realized they were calling out the wrong number  (“4-OH 9, not 4-EIGHT-9!!!”), and when I corrected them they found it right away, filled my bottles and I was on my way.

The course now climbed back up Thickhead Mountain the way we’d come down…a long slow death march in this direction. It took a good 20 minutes to reach the top, where it split and bombed down into the valley on the Detwiler Trail which is a strait screaming dirt road drop. Halfway down, in one of those rare magical moments, two huge deer ran out from the woods and scrambled down the trail in front of me. With a sheer drop to the left and impenetrable steep woods to the right, they had no choice but to mammal-pace me almost all the way down. Very cool!

 My two furry friends dropped me near the bottom, and yet again I was climbing….another thousand-foot behemoth that started as a gravel road then changed over to a rocky fire break with indistinct lines. Although I had passed a few open-class riders in the last 2 hours, I had been mostly alone since the first aid station, so it was a welcome sight to see a racer grinding his was up the climb ahead of me. It was nice to have a (human) carrot to chase. It took me a while to catch him and when I did we chatted a bit. He said his name was Matt and this was his 1^st MTB race, but he did Ironman triathalons and that he knew the course. I told him he picked a Hell of an initiation and he agreed. At the top of the climb he lifted the pace and got a gap on me. Matt wasn’t in my age group and there was still another climb left, so I wasn’t willing to give chase. We flew down the last gravel road descent and I got back on his wheel for the final 500 foot climb to the fire tower.  I was glad I’d been a little conservative on the start because Matt was really pushing hard now and I used up any matches I had left to stay with him on the last push to the summit. My HR was at 176….I was working just hard enough to cause my right quad to cramp just before the last crazy downhill.  Matt asked how my descending skills were and I said “pretty good”. He said “ok then, you go first”…knowing what we were about to encounter.

The last 2 miles of trail is another reason this race is Stoopid.  It’s an insanely steep singletrack that plunges strait down to the finish. It’s scary even to riders with good technical skills, and the fact that I was now cramping made it that much sketchier. I bit my tongue and headed down, fighting through the pain of my cramping quad. A little bobble in a mine field of rocks caused me to dab and almost crash, but the cramp slowly subsided and I rode the rest of descent cleanly, including the gnarly rock garden before the 3 bridges that thwarted me last year. Right near the end I came up of Chris M, who I hadn’t seen since Aid 1; he let me by and I came though finish with a time of 4:45 and change.

Rog was at the finish, having come through several minutes earlier. We gave each other that look that said “Holy shit, was that unreal” It would prove to be a good day for everyone on the team, with Daniel and TJ both finishing strongly. As I suspected Jesse and Ilya and bested me, but I wasn’t sure how many others in the Master’s field had. Later I learned that I had gotten 5^th place, with Jim Mathews taking the win and Paul Simoes in third. 5^th was good enough for a podium spot and free entry to next year’s race…which I will doubtlessly be attending. I was happy. It was far from a perfect day, with my derailleur issues and that very long aid stop. I wondered if not for those issues if I might have moved up a spot…maybe, maybe not….who cares really. I’d beaten my previous year’s time buy 25 minutes and had a blast taking revenge on an extremely challenging race. And that, as they say, is really what it’s all about.

Bearscat 50 Suffer - Fest 2013

Expectations are a funny thing, others have them of you, and you have them of yourself as well. Either way, they can certainly apply a great deal of unwelcome pressure.  But let’s face it; mountain bike racing is not popular enough (at least in this country) for too many people other than the competitors and their friends and families to really care about it one way or another. So up until now, any pressure I’ve ever felt about achieving a specific result in a race has come from within.

But on Sunday morning as I was gearing up for the 2013 edition of the Bearscat 50, a strange thing happened…other racers I spoke to, especially those who were not local, kept saying the same thing: “Well this is your home course, so you should do really well today”. This is the sort of thing I usually just brush off, but after hearing it about a dozen times in the period of an hour, it starts to sink in. Plus, if I’m being honest, that’s exactly how I already felt. It’s true that Waywayonda State Park, which lies on the NJ/NY border, is only 10 minutes from where I lived for 5 years. It’s also true that I have ridden (and helped build and maintain) it’s gnarly, super technical trails often enough to know each rock by name. So you see, the pressure do well was palpable.

On the start line at 9am, it was clear that it was going to be a tough day. It was 77 degrees; not yet hot, but we knew it was going to get there before too long. There were roughly 40 other racers in the Master’s category; at least 5 of which I knew could give me problems. Jesse Kelly, who had clobbered me at French Creek 2 weeks earlier, was in attendance.  Luckily Jesse was crazy enough to race the Mohican 100 in Ohio the previous day, then he drove 10 hours through the night to do the Bearscat. So knew I had a chance against him in his weakened condition. It was a fast start…too fast in fact. I was sixth going into the first singletrack on Pumphouse. As expected, we caught the back of the Open Men’s field in about half a mile, right before the long rock bridge. This amounted to a walk/run/ride repeat through a massive amount of human traffic in one of the course’s most technical sections. One of the Masters leaders crashed hard in front of me and I passed another on a short rocky climb. Last year’s winner Ken Welch was off the front and out of sight…lost in the traffic. I was right behind Joe Johnston who looked very strong, and James “Willy” Wilbur was glued right to my back wheel.

The next 4 miles were a stressful series of hard, above-threshold efforts, as I darted past more Open racers in sketchy sections of some of the East Coast’s most technically difficult singletrack. It felt like I was going much too hard and my that heart rate was way too high. Somewhere on Tombstone I realized Willy was no longer on my wheel, but I was too focused on staying with Joe to look back to see how big the gap was. He kept putting time into me on the short stretches of fire road and I’d close it back down in the rocky singletrack. He gapped me on Cabin, and I caught him on Blueberry… gap on Old Coal, back together on Hemlock, gap on Cherry Ridge, closed down on Sitting Bear. And so it went until the half lap aid station, where Joe stopped for water and I rode straight through. I spent the rest of the lap with one eye over my shoulder, waiting for Joe to catch me. On Porcupine I caught my team mate TJ who was racing in the Open class. He confirmed that I was in second and that Ken had a sizeable lead on me.  It was good to have some company… we rode together for a mile or two through Plymouth Lane and into Hofferine. By the time I reached the one and only paved mile of the course I was alone again. I rolled into the feed zone at the end of the lap took 2 fresh bottles of energy drink and some Sportlegs. I had consumed a full 50oz Camelback and one water bottle on the first lap, which meant that my 2 fresh bottles would not get me through to the end of the race…I would need to stop.

As I started lap 2, a quick glance at my Garmin revealed an average heart rate of 169….yikes. I knew I couldn’t keep that up for another 25 miles, so I backed off the pace significantly. I was now feeling the effects of the effort, the terrain and the temperature; which had climbed into the high 80’s. This was going to be a long and painful last lap. I soldiered on through the technically fearsome foursome of Pumphouse, Lookout, Pickle and Rattlesnake; walking several sections that I almost always ride easily. I had some serious hot spots going on my feet and my hands were getting pummeled as well. I was in full on survival mode from this point on. I rolled into the aid station and filled my bottles. TJ was there looking dejected. He had stopped to give assistance to RogieRog when he flatted and unwittingly gave him his CO2 nozzle, so when TJ flatted himself, he had no way to re-inflate it. What a bummer…this would be his third consecutive DNF at Bearscat.

I pressed on, and as I climbed the steep pitch on Red Dot, I was amazed that although it felt like I was crawling along; my average HR had only dropped to 166, which I attribute to the heat and humidity. More amazing still…no one had caught me. It occurred to me then that whatever pain I was feeling must have been as bad or worse for my pursuers, which was a slightly reassuring notion at that point. I rode alone for the rest of the race, passing only the occasional Open class racer. Slight cramps began appearing in my left tricep and right calf. I took some Endurolytes was able to push through them. The twinges continued but they never got so bad that I needed to stop and stretch them out.  As I pulled onto Hofferline, I cursed it aloud, knowing that it’s relentless, zero flow rockiness was all that that stood between me and the sweet relief of pavement. I somehow managed to clean the last climb (which I had mentally resigned to walking) and scorched down Black Eagle to the park road.  As I came to the last rise on the road I got out of the saddle and burned my very last match to cross the finish line.

I was so relieved to be finished…this one really hurt. After a quick cool down I rode straight down to the lake and jumped in with my full kit on. Few things in life have ever felt so good. I can’t speak for the expectations of others, but I had certainly met my own…I checked the results and confirmed that I had locked up second place in the Masters Field, and 11^th overall. Ken rode a very fast race and defended his crown, beating me by a good 10 minutes. Well done! Willy held on for 3^rd, Joe battled some bad stomach issues but clawed his way to 4^th, and Jesse survived numerous crashes and rounded out the Master’s podium in 5^th. Those guys are all tough as nails!

As more results were posted, the toll that Bearscat had taken on the racers became clear: A total of 240 had started, and only 114 had finished the entire 2 lap course. That boys and girls is the definition of a brutal race. In fact, I’ll go on record by saying it’s the hardest  one-day endurance mountain bike race in the East. That of course is debatable, as one could make the argument for Michaux, Dragon’s Tale, or one of the NUE 100’s, but this is my blog so what I say goes.

I’ll be back in 2 weeks with another Stoopid race report. Till then, ride hard and have fun,

-G

Wildcat Epic 100

Lippmann Park Loop

So where do I begin? This is my first blog of the year and if it seems to be arriving a little late, it’s for good reason. A lot has happened, very little of it has had to do with mountain bike racing, at least not directly, hence my silence. I should have been on my 5^th race report by now, but for one reason or another, I didn’t make it to any of the races on my calendar until last weekend. These excu…er, um…reasons include weather related cancelation (Patapsco), scheduling (Patapsco rain date), laziness (Marysville relay), injury (Dragon’s tale), and one big fat American wedding (Iron Hill/Michaux Maximus/Douthat). And so here I was in mid May, with no racing under my belt, staring down the barrel of my first 100 miler on what was shaping up to be one of the Spring’s worst weather days…oh joy.

Late in 2012, when I was planning out my season, I decided I’d cross two significant events off my Fuckit list ( A Fuckit list is a lot like a bucket list only much more off handed, as in "Oh fuck it, why not?"): A mountain bike stage race, and an NUE hundred miler. I’d decided to take on the Trans-Sylvania Epic in PA as a Duo Team with my friend Rob Campbell, and the Wildcat 100 solo in the company of my Eleven Madison Park/Bicycle Tech Racing team mates. The latter fell just 2 weeks before the former on the calendar, so the plan was to train right up through Wildcat, and then rest/taper for TSEpic. But as chaos theory will tell us, there are almost too many variables for things to ever go exactly according to plan. Without getting into too much detail, my training for TSE was going great until I crashed in on a training ride, suffering a patellar contusion (fancy name for a bruised knee). This kept me off the bike completely for almost 3 weeks, and while I lost remarkably little fitness , I didn’t gain any either…at a critical time when I should have been making key improvements necessary to be competitive in such a grand an undertaking as a 7 day stage race. Trust me when I tell you, I’ve never felt less like myself than I did during these weeks. It was miserable not being able to ride; I was depressed and I felt like a stranger in my own skin. Not fun. Meanwhile Rob had gotten very fast, and for a Duo team to work, and not to be an exercise in frustration, both parties need to be at least close in fitness.  It is for primarily this reason that I decided to bow out of TSEpic and re-focus on other races.

This brings us to the Wildcat 100. With TSEpic out of the picture I began to look at Wildcat as more than just something I wanted to survive. Even though I only had a few weeks left to train, I wanted to give myself a measurable goal. Wildcat is part of the National Ultra Endurance series (NUE) and in the NUE, the Masters (old fart) category is 50 and over. Since I’m still just a kid at 46, I had to race in the OPEN category…against some of the country’s fastest endurance racers, who chase points by doing most of this nationwide series…so the goal I set for myself needed to be somewhat modest, yet lofty enough to keep me motivated. With over 100 racers registered in my class., I decide to shoot for the top 25, while telling myself that I’d be perfectly happy if I cracked the top half. After all, I was in uncharted waters here.

Fast forward to race day...it’s a total shit sandwich…one horrible rain soaked day in the middle of multiple days of gorgeous sunny spring weather. Waking up in a cheap motel room at 4:30 am to the sound of rain hitting the window is not a great motivator when doing your first hundred miler. If 5 out of my 6 team mates weren’t there to share the pain with me, I might very well have rolled over and gone back to sleep. But awaken I did and at 6:45 I was on my bike with 300 other fools in the little town of Rosendale, NY. A minute later were racing. Daniel, Kris, TJ and I tried to stay together through the slick and jagged Williams Lake single track that began only a mile into the race. Needless to say it was a total bottleneck as the whole race funneled down to a narrow ribbon of slippery roots and sharp shale. It worked for a short while until TJ lost his glasses and had to stop and grab them. Daniel, (who was doing the metric 100 (66 miles) and I remained together through the Williams, the ridge top trails behind Rosendale and up the first long road climb to the rocky goodness of the Larson loop. We were joined on the climb by a familiar face; Kirt Mills from MTBNJ. There was still quite a bit of traffic in the Larsen singletrack at this point and I figured that Kris and TJ would catch us at any moment, but to my surprise, when we popped out on the rail trail a few miles later, not only didn’t I see them but Daniel was gone too.  I sat up for bit, but they never made contact again, and when the small pack I was with started to pull away, I had no choice but to jump on with them or be stranded in no man’s land. So much for the team dynamic.

Aside from one nearly missed turn, a big climb to the top of the Mohonk ridge and some beautiful epic fog, the next 15 miles were pretty uneventful. I was in a revolving pack of riders that grew and shrank...hovering at around 7. Kirt was still with me and was riding well. I remarked to him at one point about how the rain was holding off and the conditions were actually surprisingly good. Of course, no sooner did I open my mouth that it started to rain….hard. The gravely carriage roads of Mohonk  became soaked with standing water, and even though I had put fenders on my bike for the occasion, the spray from the pack’s tires had me soaked though in no time. The small pack stayed together until the first aid station at mile 26. For the moment, the rain had abated. We stopped, re-fueled and were on our way…plunging down a long, fast 1500 vertical foot road descent on the other side of the Shawangunk ridge. This led us to the Lippman Park trails, a 10 mile loop of flowy singletrack that turned harder and more technical the higher we climbed. The conditions got worse too, as the skies opened up again and hard steady rain was falling once more. I was watching my heart rate closely; trying making sure I never pushed myself too hard, knowing that the race hadn’t really even begun yet. By the time we were done with the seemingly endless switchback descent in Lippman, the road was a welcome reprieve. What wasn’t so welcoming was the fact that we had to now ascend the massive ridge we’d just come down.

So up we went, headed back towards the aid station. My HR was running a little high so I fell back from Kirt and the pack and just rode my pace…losing a couple of football fields in the process.  By the time I reached the aid station, the pack had splintered, but Kirt was there changing into some dry clothes. I decided to wait for him…we were riding well together and the thought of heading into the last 50 miles of the race solo was pretty unappealing. The aid station was only the top of the road portion of the climb. From there the climb went on for another half hour, culminating with a steep wall at the end which had me grinding it out in my easiest gear. This brought us to beautiful Lake Awosting and the top of Minnewaska State Park. It was now raining heavily again and we were soaked through to the bone;  just in time for the massive 35mph fire road plummet to the valley below. Had it been colder this could have been miserable, but it never got below 60 so we were able to bomb the myriad switchbacks and grin with idiot glee at the bottom.

Those smiles faded quickly, as the next 20 miles were as close to Hell on Earth as I could imagine, but then my of idea of Hell involves mud and rain as opposed to smoke and ash. There were stretches of singletrack with ankle deep muck that were nearly impossible to ride when travelling in a flat strait line, let alone going up or when it got technical or twisty. There were endless sections of open fields in the apple orchards that you could ride, but it was like having fly paper stuck to your tires. My one consolation was that I was still feeling pretty strong, and while a bit mentally taxed, I never felt the urge to quit.

It seemed these orchards went on forever, and I’ve never been so happy to be riding a flat, boring rail trail as when we finally popped out on The Wallkill and headed back towards Rosendale. Of course, I could have used a little less than 10 miles of rail trail…the monotony of which gave both Kirt and me ample time to ponder the fact that we still had to repeat the Larson Singletrack, ridge trail, and the Williams Lake loop. We stopped at the final aid station in New Paltz and I had my first solid food (if a granola bar counts as solid food) of the day, and some Heed that tasted like the big toe of a cadaver*. In 4 miles we finally hit the turn into to Larsen, and climbed up to that most excellent piece of trail, making good time on it as it was still in surprisingly good shape. We bombed down the road back into Rosendale, then climbed back up to the ridge trail. It was a mud bath…as bad or worse than the orchards and almost impossible to ride. It was like completely re-learning how to steer the bike. After slogging through that torturous mile of muck, we had reached the access road to Williams Lake and came through the finish area preparing for what was certainly going to be a miserable final 3 miles…and just as I rolled through I heard people yelling that we were done. Apparently the trail conditions had gotten so bad that the organizers deemed them unsafe to ride. Though I did feel a tinge of disappointment for not being able to complete the course and the full 100 miles, don’t think I’ve ever been happier to be finished with a race as I was in that moment.

It was over. My first hundred miler was in the books. I congratulated Kirt and thanked him for being such great company for such a brutal event. For someone who claims not to be an endurance guy, he rode one hell of a strong race. After the tedious process of changing out of my mud soaked clothes and hosing off my mud caked bike, I limped over to the finish tent get some real food (I’d eaten nothing but gels, chews and bananas during the race; a strategy that worked well, but left me famished) and check results. RogieRog and Monte were there; they had come in 20^th in open and 3^rd in Single speed respectively. Well done! Daniel had finished his metric century hours earlier and had gone home, and Kris and TJ were still out on course. Eventually Kris rolled in looking relatively fresh, and I got a text from TJ saying he was at the last aid station, barfing on the side of the trail, but that he was not giving up (he’d been battling a stomach virus all week). About an hour later he kept his promise and rolled through the finish, asking us if we were in the mood to go out and do some hill repeats. After getting the results straightened out, I learned I had finished in exactly 25^th place in the open class, in a time of 9 hours and 16 minutes. I’d met my goal…if just barely. I rode a pretty smart, if somewhat conservative race; in that I kept a close watch on my heart rate, making sure I never burned too many matches, timed my hydration and gel intake very carefully, and didn’t take any unnecessary risks on the bike. More importantly I’d learned some valuable lessons: yes, with an average heart rate of 151, I probably could have pushed harder in places, and my aid station stops could have been much faster and more efficient, which is something I will look at carefully before my next NUE (Yup, I’ve got the bug!). But more importantly, it was a reminder of just what we are capable of when we set our minds to it. I was asked a few years ago if I thought I’d ever do one of these and my reply was an emphatic “No fucking way!!!” If I can survive this, what can life throw me that I can’t overcome? It’s not always easy taking lessons learned on the bike and applying them to the rest of your life, but I’m sure as hell going to try.

Until next time, happy trails!

-G

*I stole that line from Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer"