Photos: Lily Felgenhauer

If you live in the Inland NW and ride a mountain bike, there is only one place for you to spend your Memorial Day Weekend: Round and Round Production’s 24-hour mountain bike race at Riverside State Park in Spokane, WA.  2011 marked the 12^th running of the endurance mountain bike race with more than 850 riders.  Racers compete solo or in teams of 2, 5, or 10 members.  The race starts at noon on Saturday and riders can start their final lap at 11:59 a.m. on Sunday.

The race starts with a Le Mans style 600 meter run to spread the pack out before the first lap.

And They’re Off

Rain had made the course very soggy the week leading up to the race. However, it held off for the weekend, making a well compacted and very fast race course.  The approximately 15-mile course covers a good mix of technical rock garden infested single track, fast smooth single track, and fire roads with a ¾-mile section of pavement thrown-in to bypass the flooded “little Vietnam” section that the course normally runs on.

As the fatigue of lack of sleep and ever-increasing mileage built, riders began to fully understand the local names for different sections; Marakesh Express, Purple Haze, Devil’s Up, and Devil’s Down.

Devil’s Down claims another victim.

Let Not the Pain Stop

Due to the fact that there are so many categories and one has no idea what lap everyone else is on, competitions are pretty much internal or arbitrary.  I found myself in a top gear sprint to the finish at 11:45 a.m. on Sunday, against a rider from EMDE Sports, a local development team.  I beat him to the line only to realize two disappointing facts: my team did not have another rider lined up for the final lap and if your team finishes before noon on Sunday you are marked down as a DNF.

“292 going out again” I gasped to the timing folks as I scanned my chip.  I darted off course to our tents and gulped down four partially empty water bottles that belonged to other team mates and the dog and got back on course for the final time.

It was eerily quiet on the final lap.  Giving encouragement to nearly unconscious solo riders was almost the only distraction from the numbness that was spreading up-limb from my toes and fingers.  Fatigue got the best of a Badlands Cycling Team member on the final section of pavement.  When I passed, medics had him back boarded and were sucking teeth out of his airway as he had eaten pavement while trying to grab a power gel before the last 5 miles.

Before the race I had asked my brother for any last minute advice.  He said to develop a mantra.  For most of the race, mine had been “keep pressing,” but it changed to “don’t crash” on that trying final lap.  I decided to stop and loosen my shoes lest I join the count of bodies next to the trail, because at that time I was numb up to my knees.

Parting Thoughts

Our team finished last in the Police, Fire, and Military category.  Yet it was our first year, and most of the team has already asked if we are going to do it again next year … and besides, we were only one lap down from the Olympia FD that won.  Like most endurance sports events, it was kind of fun, kind of painful, makes for great stories, and is very addicting.

Join us at Spokane’s Riverside State Park next year to find out for yourself!

For more info

www.roundandround.com

www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/may/29/geared-up-for-spin-cycle/

© 2011 Big Mountain Riding

Dr. Kevin Peterson is associate professor of mathematics and coordinator of Lynchburg College’s 2010-11 Year of Sustainability. He is also a work-a-day cyclist, pedaling 32-miles daily for his commute to and from work. I’ve had the chance to ride with him, and I’ve seen him on the trails around the Hill City.

Not surprisingly, Dr. Peterson possesses a significant amount of facts to make one consider our unsustainable national lifestyles. He shares them because they were what persuaded him to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle, which along with commuting by bike, includes using solar power and eating local food.

Read the whole story here.

The new mountain bike film, The Potential Inside, premiered in Lynchburg, Virginia on March 10, 2011. Liberty University’s Tower Theater hosted the premier of this inspirational film, and several hundred attended the red carpet event and the showing.

The singletrack of Candler's / Liberty Mountain played a pivotal role in the film. PHOTO: REDCLOUD PRODUCTIONS

The film is well produced, and shows off the Blue Ridge Mountains and Central Virginia’s trails and twisty mountain roads. For a local rider who built my riding skills in these hills, it was a joy to see how good The Potential Inside made this area look on the big screen.

The film has a strong faith-based message, and is a Christian film as much as it is a mountain bike film. Director Scotty Curlee, who also wrote the script and stars in the film, does a good job of showing (not telling), and the serious messages conveyed in the movie are not meted out with a heavy hand. I’d summarize it as being a movie about the challenges and ups and downs of both cycling and life, and how we can overcome.

Most who have spent a significant time aboard bikes know that there is a spiritual component to our pursuit – it’s one of the elements that warrant our obsession. The lessons learned striving for hard-to-achieve goals, suffering setbacks and overcoming trials mirror life and our spiritual journeys.

Rookie Jake gets lectured by veteran Chris. PHOTO: REDCLOUD PRODUCTIONS

The Potential Inside is also a cycling film, and features mountain and road riding, with extensive race scenes and in-depth physical performance testing with Hunter Allen.

The dynamic between Jake (Michael Cuddire), who is not young although he is a racing rookie, and Chris (Scotty Curlee), the veteran who is at a loss in how to handle a deep personal loss, is what makes this film standout. As Chris shares from his expertise to help Jake realize his full potential as a mountain bike racer, Jake is able to help Chris come to terms with his deep loss and move forward with his life. Jake’s age – which almost made Chris refuse to coach him – is what makes him believable as someone who has experienced and overcome tragedy in his own life. The dynamic is a well-executed example of Proverbs 27:17, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”

The bridges of Blackwater Creek Trail PHOTO: REDCLOUD PRODUCTIONS

I enjoyed watching The Potential Inside. While some of my enjoyment stemmed from seeing someone from my earliest days of mountain biking succeed in achieving their vision (Scotty Curlee was instrumental in LU’s mountain bike club when I attended), and from seeing the trails I know and love on the big screen, I also enjoyed The Potential Inside for its quality storytelling, production and mountain bike scenes. I’ll be picking up several copies of the film for those on my gift list when it goes on sale on April 19, 2011.

© 2011 Big Mountain Riding

After over 18 years of providing the mountain bike industry with high quality OEM and aftermarket components, Race Face is officially being liquidated. This Canadian manufacturer has been a staple in the industry almost since the mainstream adoption of mountain biking. Read the story on BIKE198.

A familiar sight for riders from the Hill City - The Blackwater Creek Tunnel

Several years in the making, a film by one of our own about the sport we love and what drives us, premiers in Lynchburg, VA on Thursday, March 10 at 6 p.m. on Liberty University’s north campus, at the new Tower Theater. Filmed in part in Lynchburg, The Potential Inside features the terrain that define East Coast cycling – whether off-road or on.

The plot is one familiar in sports stories. A veteran, out of the sport, is brought back to the competition by personal tragedy and a budding rookie. A rocky coaching relationship follows.

Using cutting edge technology and scientific training methods, the retired racer Chris transforms Jake, the young prodigy, into a top contending cyclist; however, he struggles to teach Jake the most important lesson prominent in all champions, finding the true POTENTIAL INSIDE. The movie also features a big mountain riding star – Jeremiah Bishop.

Put on your red carpet duds, get a chauffeur to pilot the tandem and drop you off curbside, it’s Hollywood time in our little hill town. Learn more about the film, the premier and how to get tickets by visiting the premier site on Facebook. For those who cannot make it to the event, Big Mountain Riding will post a review following the premier. Read the review!

© 2011 Big Mountain Riding

Dumb Decisions, Unforgettable Memories

Unsafe Ace is back to regale us all with harrowing tales of two-wheeled stupidity.  Another reason to love Unsafe Ace: the dumbest decisions often lead to unforgettable memories. Example: 127 hours

Photo: Photographers Direct

On our second trip to Moab,  my brother Dig and I decided to put on the lights and ride the slickrock trail at night. Brilliant!

The pale sandstone gleamed in the moonlight, and we had the world-famous Slickrock Trail all to ourselves. We tooled along on silvery ribbons of rock, between inkwells of pitch black that might have been mere hollows in the rock or could be the 200-foot deep Colorado River gorge.

The falling temperatures turned us around eventually, and we headed back for the Sand Flats parking area.

Between where the practice loop branches off and the main trail turns into a loop is a technical section with a steep climb and a side hill off-camber section. In my memory it skirted a 30-foot deep canyon. As we approached its depths were obscured by darkness.

I lost too much momentum on the climb up to the side hill section, and I had to pedal to cross it. My bulky Shimano DH pedals clipped the high side, pushing my bike out toward the abyss. Fear spiked through my frozen brain. Was this it? Surely THIS could not be IT?

The bike and I pitched over, falling toward the inkwell below. I came down on top of my bike, and immediately slammed every part of my body I could against the steep stone. My helmet, hands, forearms, feet, knees, etc. all pressed against the rock, over and around the frame and wheels of my bike. I could feel myself sliding. I dug in with my helmet visor and finger tips.

I stopped sliding. Unbelievable but true.

Dig had to help me back up, pulling the bike and me back up the hill. It turned out that the canyon was only about 15-feet deep, and not the 30-feet I had thought. I didn’t care. Unsafe Ace had lived to do more dumb things, trumping the theory of survival of the fittest yet again …

©2010 Big Mountain Riding

Several things inspired the creation of this blog:

1. I was one of those kids who secretly thought Unsafe Ace was kinda cool. I mean, he has “Ace” in his name, right? And it is kind of funny when it happens to somebody else. Unsafe Ace is the Wiley Coyote of safety courses. Sometimes you cheer for him.

2. Danville, VA – my new town – had a poster of this kid who had crashed on pavement without a helmet. It reminded me of those long-ago safety courses. Photo coming soon.

3. My new town has a very visible representation of Unsafe Ace archetypal characters.

It was as I pedaled down the greenway and saw two old men riding toward me on cruiser bikes that the inspiration struck. They were both a bit paunchy,  dressed in blue jeans and unbuttoned short sleeve shirts and mesh-backed trucker hats.  The one guy was lighting his cigarette from the glowing end of his previous smoke – while wobbling his bike along the bike path. Ah yes, Unsafe Ace trumps the theory of survival of the fittest yet again …

© 2010 Big Mountain Riding

Riding the ramp out of Bartletts Wash

On the way out, after several hours of hopping and hucking (Dig dropped a few 6-8 footers), I suggested we tag Baby Steps loop. It was only a few miles from Bartlett’s, at the Klondike Bluffs trailhead. We reserved a Porcupine Rim shuttle for the next day and headed back into the scrub on another dirt road. Dig was feeling fatigued from the many jumps and heart-pumping slickrock climbs at Bartlett’s … however, he was a good sport and went along on the second ride. He came to regret that later, after two crashes that left no one more surprised than he. I missed seeing his massive endo on a six inch gap in the rocks. I only heard the clash of metal and the dull thud of a side of beef hitting the rock.

Baby Steps loop is the new Moab singletrack style, more contour lines and twitchy weaving through loose rocks and under obstacles, with small (for this area) exposure on many turns. A fun advanced intermediate tech trail.

Bar M proved disappointing, a fireroad, mostly. Rockin’ A was weavy but easy. We rode the O on Circle O, a tight 25 foot diameter clay banked circle. Bar B has a fun first half. It climbs up a small hill and then winds down through the rocky and sandy desert. Along with lots of rock riding, it features a sidehill countour line trail too. We rested at the entry of the Killer B to have a Clif Bar.

The rest of Bar B was another fire road and boring. After breaking a chain and fixing it, we rode the rest of Bar B and back on the first leg of it again back to Killer B.

Killer B is gnarly. It drops 650 feet in less than a mile. The trail is very narrow and has its share of exposure. Rock stair steps drop into tight switchbacks edged by 30-foot deep rock choked canyons. We managed most of it … though I did hug a rock and send the bike down the trail. Killer B got the heart going with several of sketchy descents into switchbacks.

The ride back ended on a paved bike path. With the exception of the first 1/2 of Bar B and Killer B, these trails are blase. If I was Moab, I’d want my name back.

We splashed into town under a glowering gray dawn, pelted by the heavy rain and winds that had driven us from the warmth of our mummies dossed down in the high desert NW of Green River. Inspiration proved hard to find, as did joy. Breakfast at the Jailbreak Diner. Things looking up with hot bacon and more coffee. Rain slowing. Tried early check-in at Moab Rim Camp Park. No dice. Car steaming up from wet gear, we rolled back down hill to Chile Pepper Bike Shop to pick up my squeeze: A Giant Reign.

Chile Pepper folks needed some humor, though the sky was gray. They lectured me on how much I’d owe if I lost the bike, and told me that “crashes are not normal.” Uh, huh.

Rain stopped, wind stayed. We drove up Kane Creek Road to Amasa Back to tackle the Amasa Back/Rockstacker/Jackson loop. We had only ridden the Amasa back part before. Dig started off strong, dropping in on the initial ledge not 200 yards into the ride. Acorss the creek, it was a rocky slog up the climb. We sweated it, except when we rounded an outropping or the trail turned and we met the wind. Then we shivered and chilled as it raked our sweaty jerseys.

They have put up new signs. Basically, that’s how you know you’re at a junction. We peeled off the Amasa route to head out to pothole arch. After that Rockstacker awaited, a trail described on the signs as “ultra-technical,” with “edgy ledges” and “tight, exposed switchbacks.” So true … A Rockstacker debrief will follow. 100 yards in, the trail dropped over a 6 foot high rock. Things were getting hairy.