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