Mt Bike Season 2009: Picket's Charge June 7

Race Report: Pickett’s Charge, Bend Oregon. June 7, 2009

Cat 2 Womens 35+ 7th Place

by Elaine Bothe

The whole weekend started up in the air… juggling plans for a downhill race on Mt Hood, Pickett’s Charge mt bike race in Bend, our friends’ daughter’s high school graduation in Eugene (Congrats Jesse! Valedictorian, too! We are so proud of you!), or just doing stuff around the house. Sometimes you just cannot do it all.

After many phone calls and emails, Mark and I packed up the car (including my bike and after a last-minute online registration) and cruised down to Eugene in time to have a Saturday night graduation party dinner and hang out with our friends. Bedtime was late…

And we got up early. Really early to drive to Bend in time for a quick warm up and the 10:00 am race start. I didn’t sleep much anyway, I was so excited. Friday night I slept well, that will have to be good enough.

Breakfast in the car. Closed road—yikes, we need to go the long way. Negotiate traffic through a road run event in Bend, then finally out to the parking area west of Bend. Check in, make sure they have my waiver and paperwork. Just in case, I manually filled out a “contact in case of emergencies” form… pen’s bad, find a new one, no place for my own name so I scrawl it across the top.

Teammate Colleen shows up after a brisk short ride in from town. She and I ride off down the first part of the course to warm up. I’m consternating over tire pressures, too high or too low… I keep it high to eke out every possible advantage over my competitors over the parts I’m not as fast on (the long straight flats) but not lose too much grip over my specialty, the technical stuff. I (heart) rock gardens!

We make it back to the car, final pee stop, layer change and zip on back to the start. Colleen bravely registered with the Experts, she’s gridded ahead of me. I see my competitors and take a place on the front row. All – well, most – of my buddies (hmm, no Eileen) are there, I’m starting to recognize faces. Michelle and her flying braids, on the other side. Patty, Jenny… and a lot of unfamiliar kits and new faces, must be local heros. It’s a big group, 18 in the Cat 2 35+. Just six in the whippersnapper Cat 2s!

We wait. There are maybe 6 or 7 waves starting before us. There is a hold up of some sort. We wait…

And wait. It’s chilly just standing there… good thing I warmed up. Several people in my grid put down their bikes and run off into the woods. Finally, they start firing people off, we see dust clouds. (Yes, everyone made it back to their bikes in time!)

And off we go. My legs are lead, shoulda used embrocation. Who thinks of that in summer? Oh well, I can’t hang with the pack but do my best to get the blood moving as quickly as possible up the 1.5 mile dirt road.

Finally, my engine is running and I start to pass some people. Now I am moving quite well, the singletrack is hard with a nice layer of duff. It’s faaasssst, and fun. Swoopy half bermed corners through the Central Oregon trees and scrub, not too tight, gotta get the timing right.

What’s fun with the scrub and sage is that you can’t see the trail ahead very far past the next corner. Sometimes you don’t even know which way the trail is going to turn until the last pico-second before you commit. A great mental chess game, I practice some vision skills looking ahead, getting a good rhythm and finding clues to help anticipate the corners. I’m in the zone, flying along, passing people, enjoying the day…

Cut to the parking lot.

Mark is napping in the car. His cell phone rings, it’s the race organizers.

Cue dramatic music.

“Welllll….” (pause.) Not really, they actually talked fast.

“First off, nothing happened…. Everything is OK. Elaine’s registration just isn’t finished.” So Mark helps out, I guess everything was NOT in order. Next time I’ll be doubly sure so Mark doesn’t get phone calls like that!

Back to the race, less drama there. Loads of big grinning fun. I reach some rocky sections and fly through them. Nice stable chucks of basalt, some pointy, most of them are flat. Lots of grip. I choose a line up, onto and across a big flat one, with a little drop at the end. I pass somebody who’s picking their way around the edge.

Narrow gaps, more rocks… I notice a wagon train ahead of me, must be some fun stuff up there. Do I join the lunch line or make some progress? I assess who’s there, some less experienced guys and gals, some struggling overall, some of the faster gals. I pass the stragglers from previous waves as politely as I can but I hunt down the Cat 2 women. We all have blue tags, I can’t card everyone. I can’t tell their age and I’m racing.

Oops, I dropped my precious Hammer flask full of golden energy-laden goodness. Whew, I have a spare.

Another swoopy section. The miles are clicking off quickly. This is no 3 hour slog (unless you are a pro and get to do this loop twice). I’m holding up a local hero who knows these trails like the back of her hand. I let her past and she’s gone.

Another “Slow down-dangerous” sign with arrows pointing down. Oh yeah. A narrow rocky chute that drops 10 or 12 feet. And a crowd at the bottom. I pick my way through, but traffic is slowing my progress. I work through as much as I can, having to walk more than I would like, but, well, safety first when there’s a lot of people.

Clear again for a bit, a bumpy swoopy section, I catch a 3 person wagon train. A woman in a purple shirt I’ve been tracking all day is at the tail end. A guy in the middle then a woman with braids. Michelle! Michelle is the traffic! I can’t believe it!

I’m plotting my move. The purple shirt woman is riding well. I’m guessing a local hero. Unless the terrain is just right, I won’t be able to pass all three while we are on the single track, and then the two women would likely counterattack. I scan ahead, the trail opens up a bit…

…and it’s the last corner onto the dirt road to the finish. Ahhh, rats. Michelle moves out, now free of the single track. Purple shirt gives chase. One more swig of Hammer and I hit the afterburners.

I know I can’t sustain a sprint for a mile and a half, I just hope I studied this part of the road well enough in warm up to remember where the big bumps are and the best lines through the soft parts. I ride very hard, the big chainring. I pass some more people but Michelle is gone.

I’m still riding hard down the gravel road. I notch it back into the finish area, crashing there would be embarrassing. Like a rally car in Mexico, I’d take out too many spectators. I finish right behind the purple shirt, Lorin is her name. From Bend. First mt bike race. Cool! I invite her to more.

Result: 7th place out of 18 competitors. Just 35 or so seconds out of third place. The stats show Michelle at the very end, I don’t know what happened. Maybe she DQed somehow, hope it’s OK. Not the coolest way to beat somebody, but I might have had her if there was another technical section and no long run out to the finish!

Many thanks to all the support and motivation from everyone on our Sorella Forte team, and our sponsors, especially Jeff Tedder, Hammer Nutrition and River City Bicycles—those wheels are still in perfect shape, four races later! And my personal sponsors Acme Moto Wear, Icon Tatoo, Lifeflight Memberships, and the ever-trusty Epic Ride Research Mountain Feed Bags. And introducing my newest sponsor--my dentist friend Dan Stambaugh, who will be making me a race bite plate to help protect my teeth and jaw joints from injury.