I was a bit concerned about the course, especially since it was up at Big Bear with the altitude (7000-8000 feet). Oh and did I mention, I had not been on my mountain bike on a trail in years? So Jane and I decided to pre-ride the course to see what it was like. Friday night, we rode about 10 miles of it. (Turns out it was a 17 mile course in all.) What we learned was there was a lot of climbing and not a lot of restful down hill.
Here are some views of the course:
And some views of the lake from the course:
A few hours later - it was 8 o'clock and we were ready to go to the car. But we took a wrong turn - and rode 2 miles before we stopped and acknowledged our mistake. I will say that it was long before two miles we realized that we made a wrong turn. But neither one of us wanted to stop, hoping against hope that the car would materialize. But the trail was different, the hills were different - that's because it was a different trail.
But this time we did have a map and we did have headlamps. So we looked at the map, figured out where we made the wrong turn, where we needed to go, turned on our headlamps and started riding in the dark. Hoping to find the car. But it was pretty dark:
We were very happy when we finally did make it to the car. Of course we forgot about the big rock right in front of the car. So we were greeted with a big crunch when we tried to get going. By the time we got back to the house, we were freezing. So it was time for a nice long hot shower and sleep.
Saturday we wanted to pre-ride the rest of the course. We learned two things - both of them were bad. First, you had to ride uphill to the start 2 miles. What kind of race makes you ride uphill before you even start?? Second, once you rode up hill to the start - the first 2.5 miles were all uphill at an 8-9% grade.
Essentially we were riding up to the top of the ski slope - and that was only the beginning.
Here is the ridge. We basically had to climb to the top from the lake, go across (which was more ups and downs) come down, go back up and come down part way again. I think the course had about 1700 feet of climbing - all between 7000 and 8000 foot altitude.
We then checked out some of the single track part of the race - which also had some uphill????? and then some technical downhill
So we headed home for some good food and rest, because Sunday was going to be TOUGH!!!!
Sunday morning we got up - both dreading the race. (I use the word race here loosely - as the goal was completion.) I have to admit that if this was not a required part of the Conquer the Bear series, I would have given serious thought to spending the day drinking wine and lounging. But we got up and ready for the race.
We got there early so that we could ride to the start and give us enough time to rest. After an hour of rest, we were off. Well kind of. I did not go more than 15 feet and someone cut me off. So I had to stop to avoid crashing. So I was now in the wrong gear going uphill -- making it even more difficult to get going.
As I already mentioned, the first 2.5 miles was uphill at a 8-9% grade. I worked as hard as I could to slowly make it to the top. Did I mention, slow? After that, it was a bunch of down and ups. I kept working and it was not too long when I felt I was ready to be done. Only problem was, according to my odometer, I was only 5 miles into a 17 miles course. So I just had to keep going. . . then I finally hit the easy single track down hill and had a slight reprieve.
After a few miles more, I was on the look out for water. I was 9 miles in, with only swig left in my water bottle, and I had not seen any of the "on-course" water they told us about. Ruh-roh! At this point, my mouth was so dry, my tongue was sticking to the roof of my mouth. I was thinking about dehydration and the fact that I did not really want to die on this silly trail. Yes this may seem a bit melodramatic, but I trying to occupy my mind to forget about how my legs felt.
So after a mile or so more, I saw some course volunteers and out of desperation asked them if they had any water. BINGO - they gave me a nice cold bottle of water. So I drank a few gulps and stuck it into my pocket. I was totally rejuvenated. Only about 1/2 mile more there was actually the water station - who knew. So I drank a bit more, topped off my water bottle and was back on my way.
At mile 12, it was a long, steep uphill back up to the top of the mountain (ski slope). I was walking bunches of it (as did many people), knowing if I could just get through this part the worst of it was over.
When I hit the down hill, I rode like the wind. Not because I was racing or even know what I am doing on mountain bike, but because I was just ready to be off my bike. I just wanted off. But then I was on the last two trails-- the only part of the race we had not pre-rode. We assumed by looking at the top of the trail it would be some easy single track. Wrong. More steep, technical single track. But at that time, I could only think that I wanted to ride as fast as I could, preferably without flipping or crashing.
I must have been bouncing around a bit, because at some point I think my odometer stopped working. At what I thought was mile 16.7 ish (based on the map and where I thought I was on the trail), my odometer only said 15 miles. What? Only 15 miles? How could this be? This put me into a slight panic because I did not have 2 more miles in me - and psychologically I was done with this race. But fortunately, after rounding a few bends, I saw the finish line -- where I crossed and promptly dropped my bike. Of course, I still had to ride 2 miles back to the car, but it was downhill and the race was over.
When we got to the restaurant where they were having the after race events, someone asked us how we did. We said we finished . . . We then came to find out that many people did not finish. So we were pretty satisfied with our finish.
But the surprise of the day was that -- I took third in my age division. Who knew?
Jane did the same!
Once we ate and showered we felt much better.
But the reality was we were just relieved to get the hardest event out of the way!
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