2010 MTB: Return on the Jedi Weekend Race Report

2010 MTB: Return on the Jedi Weekend, Merlin, Oregon, June 5-6, 2010.

by Elaine Bothe

In which Elaine learns the meaning of the word “EPIC.”

Saturday morning: Short Track! Yay, my favorite, the first of my season. I rode very hard, and very well. I got faster as the laps progressed. I win! (I'm the only Category 1 woman, oh well...)

1 mile course, at elevation (approx 3000 feet) talk about huffing and puffing. 8 laps, as I got lapped by the pro men, I got to follow for a little bit through the trickier sections, taking notes. What a great experience. 



Saturday afternoon: Super D!!!! Wheee! The scariest part was the ride to the top of Onion Mountain, on the back of a stake-side flatbed truck, holding my bike with 19 other people. Moooo. On a winding, bumpy road with steep dropoffs.

The ride: 9 miles down, well, mostly down, with some climbing on the gravel road and a rolling, super fun Jedi trail back into camp. I debate about whether to take my new 29er or my old Klein... since I'm trying to get as much time on my new bike, and after a quick spin around camp on my old bike... eeek... I go for my new one.

What a confidence builder, (with the Specialized Captain tires now mounted up), what fun. Oh yeah, I win ; )



Sunday, XC. I was nervous all weekend, I know this is a hard, hilly and long Pro/Cat 1 course. I looked at the map, 30 miles, lots and lots of elevation gain, I planned for 4-4.5 hours and who knows what they are referring to as "technical"... sometimes they mean it, sometimes they don't... well this time, they meant it. I rode up AND DOWN some of the most amazing long rocky stairsteps I have ever seen, let alone ridden! But I crashed later on some stupid stuff... oops... like trying to ride through a fast moving creek, a root I stared at a picosecond too long.... bike's fine!!

Oh yes, then there was the wrong turns... apparently somebody removed a bunch of the course markers. This isn't the first time this year that the courses have been sabotaged by people against mountain biking. I think they have no idea how badly somebody could get lost and if they got hurt out there... I didn't think of this part until the drive home.

 The unfortunate part is, since I was the last of the Pro/Cat 1 riders going through, and some of those guys made the same mistakes... I followed the wrong road that had a lot of bike tire tracks! Three or four guys, plus doubling back make for 6-8 SETS of tire tracks, which could be considered the pack!!! Total additional miles, approx. 2. plus some climbing.



I did get overwhelmed emotionally, this was by far the toughest ride or athletic pursuit I have ever mustered. But I did not give up, at one point I considered it while I was actually on the correct trail, but not having seen any markers for miles, I stopped at a crest in the middle of this stunning forest, alongside a gorgeous creek, thinking to myself, if I'm lost, this looks like a typical creekside hiking/biking trail, they always end up someplace with cars... I contemplated a bit, got back on my bike, and not even 150 feet later, I pop out on a road at an aid station. What a morale booster that was.

Still, I had 9 miles to go, with half the climbing yet to do. 

I knew I had the endurance to last a long time, and since I wasn't actually racing anyone but myself, I wanted it to be good practice for a 50 mile endurance ride later this month... for food, pacing myself, truly riding my own ride on a challenging course (though it won't be as technically challenging). But getting lost beats you up mentally more than I knew, I don't recommend it.

My 1st place trophy is more of a proud certificate of completion than a prize, but I'm still proud of it. A race--well, ride-- I'll be talking about for years, thus, qualifying as the very definition of "EPIC." Plus I won $50 for having the lowest combined total time of the Cat 1 women (just me, a small but mostly friendly field) and earning the title "Jedi Master!" It was all great fun, a truly wonderful venue and weekend.

Maybe next year it won't rain...


Photo courtesy of Shane Young, Oregon Velo. Thanks!

2010 MTB: Mudslinger Race Reports

2010 Mudslinger Weekend Race Report: Super D and XC

May 1-2, 2010, Womens Category 1

by Elaine Bothe

Two races in one weekend. Countless learning opportunities.

The Super D, a mountain bike downhill race but with some uphill action to keep the hardcore downhillers from stealing the show, took place on Saturday. We get two runs on a 6 or 7 mile course, half of which is uphill on gravel roads. No previews whatsoever. The final time is cumulative of the two runs.

I collect my number plates and I rope my nemesis/friend Michelle Hannaford from Team Dirt into it. Her team’s hosting and helping the organizers with the weekend. She’s running registration and didn’t think she had the time to do the race.

Lesson #1. Make friends but don’t invite them to compete against you...



First Run. I’m flying but held back by the fact that this is a preview run (and I didn’t get much warmup) even though it counts. I sail over logs, around the corners and the steep rooty downhill sections no prob. Feeling good, and confident in the double track I’m cutting track to track to decrease the arcs, saving as much time as I can. This is my kind of time trial! Even though it’s downhill, my heart rate is as high, if not higher, than my Cherry Blossom TT.



Lesson #2. Be careful when you’re flying.



I start across the double track and notice, too late, hidden by the tall grass, there’s a 4 inch height difference than the tire track part... my front wheel catches and down I go, a repeat performance of my CB fireworks! same side and all.

Except this time, I was going faster. And, I had on pads! so I wasn’t hurt except for a bruise and rash on my hip and a hole in my almost new leg warmers and sleeve.

 I still finish first out of the 4 women. yay!



Second Run. We’re seeded according to finish, I’m 6th or 7th out of 20 or so, including all the guys! Off I go even faster than the first run because now I know where the corners are. Clear and clean over the first log. the second, too. 



Lesson #3. Bring tools and tubes to ALL races no matter what. Even if you run tubeless!



My front wheel lands not exactly the way I expected then POP!sssssflapflapflapflap. No crash, just extreme disappointment. I do NOT want a DNF (“Did Not Finish”) for a race I entered for fun and practice. Especially one I had a good chance to win! I weigh the options, and start running down the hill. Stop. Michelle and several others race by, one guy, Josh from Peak Sports bike shop in Corvallis stops, he has a tube but the wrong pump.

Oh well, thanks anyway. 

Cars are closer at the top of the hill, it’ll be shorter to head back up. So I go up. At the top, maybe ten yards from the start (only about a half mile) somebody has a spare tube! and a pump, we undo my wheel, yank out the tubeless valve and shove in the new tube. I didn’t see any rips or punctures, I still didn’t know what I hit... I think I just landed hard on another stump or branch and popped the bead.



Lesson #4. Ask for a restart. Sometimes this is possible. I did not know this.



The tube seems to hold air, I put everything back together, thanking everyone profusely for the impromptu emergency tubeless clinic (it’s not hard despite all the rumors) and I head back down the hill, though more conservatively. A finish would still mean second place in the Cat 1’s.



Lesson #5. If you even think you might need new tires for whatever reason, you probably do. Change them.



I try different lines, just previewing the course for tomorrow’s race. I still don’t have full confidence in my tires though, they’re old, they’re not gripping like they did last year and I still didn’t know what killed the front.



Lesson #6. Don’t stop racing. Ever. Well except to render aid....



There’s a kid on the gravel road, standing over his bike, head on his hands on the handlebars. He’s just really tired, we're only about a quarter mile out but it’s all up hill. I slow way down, checking on him and shouting encouragement. He remounts and starts riding. “Pretend there’s a rope attached to my bike and I’m towing you up the hill!” I yell, that seems to help him a lot and he makes his way up the hill.



Finish line. Michelle is there. “I just got here!” she says. whaaaaa? !?? “I took a wrong turn and rode an extra four or five miles!” No way, we are both laughing. What a race.

 She edges me out by a little and wins the Cat 1. I came in second.

But, the best part is that the winner of the men and the winner of the women each get $75. There were two other women, both Cat 3, Jackie from team Dirt who broke her collarbone at the Cherry Pie road race earlier this year and is just now getting back on her bike, and Melissa, queen of the masters! Jackie gets the money, Melissa came in 2nd overall, Michelle, 3rd, and me, 4th!! What fun!



I win a tire in the raffle, to the cheers of everyone who all know the story. And Michelle invites myself and Teammate Sarah, who drove up after the Eugene Roubaix, to stay at her house. We were planning on camping up there but were thrilled abut the offer. And a shower.



Lesson #7. Double check tire sizes.



Since I won a new tire, a Specialized The Captain, my favorite mud tire, I figure I’ll drive back into town to see if the wizards at Peak Sports a) have another matching tire and b) can mount them both up for me. Yep and yep. Double-yay!



I drive to Michelle’s house and take my bike for a quick spin in her driveway to help spread around the sealing goo. Wow, said Morgan, Michelle’s boyfriend, those are big tires! I look again, and, sure enough, they are the 2.2’s not the 2.0’s I originally had. Same tread, different sizes. Well, I said, they should be good in the mud. Spoiler alert: they are.



XC on Sunday. Sarah and I warm up on the gravel road, coating ourselves with mud splatters before the race even started. Eventually, we start. Michelle chases the pros up the hill, I’m in back. My legs feel like lead, even though I had a good warmup. I stalk Brooke from Bicycle Atty’s up the hill for a while but can’t hold on. Solo ride through the beautiful coast range mists and mud. I’m last. 



Dead leg last. 



Oh well, I enjoy the scenery, get a good training ride in, I’m still tired from Cherry Blossom and used up whatever I had in the Super D race. oops. Plus, these bigger tires are bigger, heavier, collected way more mud than I could imagine (but still had great traction—don’t ask me how!) I stopped a couple of times to clear out my front deraillieur and around the brakes (non-disks). Mud tires, they are, faithful though it is, mud bike, it’s not.



I keep my heart rate as high as I can (which isn't very high today, it turned into a nice endurance ride) and attack the obstacles and technical sections with glee. I’m still riding as hard as I can--oh, wait, I really have to pee. So I neutralize myself for a pee break.



Otherwise, I’m still racing as best I can. I’m remembering Lesson #6, Don’t Stop Racing. I still come in last, (6th I think) but CONTROVERSY! Michelle doesn't think some of the women listed ahead of her ever passed her. There was a tricky cutoff where the cat 2’s go one way and the Cat1/Pro/Singlespeeders go another... Melissa from Team Dirt did that, fessed up and took her DNF. (She had pedal problems at the start, too!) I don’t know one way or the other, so I can’t advise, but maybe it’ll all get sorted out. who knows.



That cutoff, by the way, led to some glorious and spectacularly twisty, muddy, rooty descents, Sandy Ridge x 8 or so! I went down them all, though not with grace. This makes Cat 1 so fun, the “secret” trails even if I’m not on the podium. It’s still a fabulous challenge.



Lesson #8. Rescind Lesson #1. It’s great fun racing against friends and being supportive, teammates or not. Especially when they don’t ride well when they usually do, and same with you, so you get a great story out of it!



Sarah did great, for her first mtb race in a while, 3rd one ever... 4th in the masters Cat 2!! Yay! It was fun playing and I’m thrilled that she had a good time too.



Fun time, memorable weekend. And, if you need a bike shop in Corvallis, I highly recommend Peak Sports!

Photo credits: Oregon Velo.

2010 MTB: Hornings Hustle Race Report

Race report

Hornings Hustle, April 11, 2010

Women’s Category 1, 6th place

by Elaine Bothe

Helmet, shoes, gloves, bike, I can ride. Race food, water. Check. Checklist: check. 45 minute drive, check. I’m so amped up for the race I have to set the cruise control to keep the car from flying. I already saw a couple of cops out on Hwy 26 just waiting…. A traffic stop is NOT on the checklist.

Car parked. Check. Potties nearby, yay.

One of my race goals today is to stay organized and focus on my pre-race routine. See, I made a checklist. But I didn’t add “find people you know and chat with them” to my pre-race schedule…

Michelle and her husband Morgan pull up and park right next to me. We chat.

OK, registration. I see more people in line I know. Chat! Martin! Hi! A big part of racing is to hang out with people you like all doing something really fun.

Teammate Sage and Steve show up, so does Teammate Eileen and her hubby John. Beth Burns came out to play. Fun! Sue Butler. Lots more people I know!

Anyway… checklist blown.

I previewed the course the day before. Stunning conditions, warm, sunny, a lot like last year’s race. I questioned my tire choice… I had switched back to my trusty Specialized The Captains thinking it would be wet and muddy. Crap. They did come in handy on a couple of steep pop-ups that most people walked up. So, I’ll stick with them rather than pulling heroic favors from the bike shops at 5:00 Saturday afternoon.

I worked one super tricky steep section of single track until I figured out the line and gearing. I set my tire pressure to work on that 10-yard section out of the whole 5 mile course… disturbingly low even for tubeless! 17 or 18 psi front, 20 rear!! Good thing I’m light and the course isn’t rocky, because I skittered right up that hill. Risk vs. reward.

The rest of the course looked great, dry, solid and fun. The tires felt surprisingly fast considering the tire pressure. Check. I packed it up, went home, ate a nice dinner with Hubby Mark and relaxed.

Oh yeah, back to race day. It rained overnight!! Wow. Can you believe the luck! I eyeball my trainer, an old wheel mounted with a slick tire thinking I’d check off my warm up. I look across the parking lot where the course cuts up a little hill.

I look at my watch. I look at the trail. I hear an announcement “RIDERS MEETING AT 10:30.” I look at my checklist. A riders meeting wasn’t on it. Crap. I think about what I had left to do. Swap out wheels (twice), changing clothes, pack my food and decide to screw the checklist and I warm up in my racing kit, I couldn’t waste a perfectly good trail.

With the rain, the course looks nothing like what I saw yesterday. It’s muddy. It’s slick and sloppy. Tires: Check!! It didn’t rain that much at my house, must have rained a lot more here. The fun descents are now slip-and-slides and the pop-ups turned into squish-fests. My confidence swells with having the right tires and my adrenaline is shooting off the charts.

It’s easy to get my heart rate going warming up on the course. I work it as long as I can until the riders meeting. We meet. I pee. Again. I find the staging line for the Pro/Cat 1 women and stay there, staking out my place on the front row. No repeats of the last race where I end up in the back of the starting grid. Today’s start is staged by category so it’s a lot easier.

But it’s still 20 minutes away from start time, so everybody moves away, some riding in circles, others on course, some working a good hill on the gravel road. OK. I ride down the road, do a partial loop on course for about ten minutes and sprint up the hill. I’m now at the line, sweating and huffing and puffing. Perfect. Michelle gives me a funny look, part of my heart rate is due to sheer adrenaline.

I’m determined to get a good start. Plus I want to see how Sue Butler starts. 30 seconds. We roll forward to the official start line. Go! Sue blasts off and I follow. Giggling I stick to her wheel for 200 yards and up the hill. There’s a good gap behind me, photographic evidence is below. That picture is not photoshopped!

But my heart rate spikes sky high, I flame out and the field passes me up the big hill. Oh well. I’m still making the pedals turn. Michelle shows me a wheel, I look at her, nod and eke out a couple more rotations per minute which keeps me in front of her .

The trail levels out across a bumpy field and we head downhill. Feeling better, I hammer down the hill, around a sweeping left hander then things get squishy. Yee-ha! Loose on the handlebars, the back tire slides side to side. Rock across some water ditches. I will the bike onto a reasonable line, catching up to a couple of women. I get around them through some switchbacks and try to open a gap.

Well Kristin is stronger than me on the flats, so she comes back around me with a vengeance after Mark yells that I’m in 4th place. OK, 5th now.

I hear somebody else breathing down my neck. I rush an uphill section and run wide into the bushes and another woman passes me. 6th. I push my bike uphill trying to find an opening in the steady train of traffic coming past. Finally I hop back on and hammer, now chasing everyone but Michelle.

I settle into a nice rhythm, working hard but clean the rest of the race. I pass Teammate Karleta in her first-ever cross country race! Yay! Go Karleta! Good Job! Through the trees again, across the creek and I really think there are more uphills on this course than down. That little single track popup I worked on the preview always had traffic on it so I never got to ride up it, darn. Once I even yelled “I’m riding it!” but the slow guy still attacked it in front of me… on foot. Denied.

I saw Michelle a couple of times through the trees, she calls out in greeting, but she’s still behind me by a ways. I pass another woman, (yay!) and Mark says there’s two more about 30 seconds in front of me who are fading. I’m not setting land speed records, but I’m not fading, I have another lap and there’s a fun technical section just past the start/finish line where I can make a move. This gives me some hope and I keep my eyes peeled.

Creek crossing. Fun, clean, up the sloppy bank I ride right through it like I have all race. Uh oh, the spectactators are packing it up and walking up the hill. Hey, the race isn’t over! Get back down there and watch! I crest the hill, somebody’s yelling at me “Don’t let that guy catch you!” so I didn’t.

There’s a lot of people milling about, hmmm… I keep it pegged until officials block my path, wide stance, hand out cop-style telling me to slow down. Nooooo! I’m not done, after only 3 laps! They take my tag anyway, I’m done.

Mark miscounted somehow, he including the Pro women I think. I end up 6th in the Cat 1s (we all only got 3 laps) with two behind me. Progress! My fitness is good, I’m faster, I easily rode things this year that I couldn’t last year even though they were a lot slipperier. Even though I’m the oldest in the category by far, I’m getting comfortable and feeling confident. I’m still improving and it’s fun getting to know everyone.

A hugely fun but hard race, I won a beer and some coffee in the raffle and I had a blast. Thanks for Mark for his support and expert spotting, Wenzel Coaches Anne Linton and Martin Baker for upping my fitness and skills (there were logs on the course? didn't notice!), my Sorella Forte teammates and training buddies, and all our sponsors. Also, the promoters and Oregon Bike Shop for putting on a spectacular event. I’m really looking forward to the next round.

Photo credits: Oregon Velo and Mark Bothe. Thanks! Great work.

2010 MTB: Echo Red to Red Race Report

Race Report

Echo Red to Red, March 6, 2010

Category 1 Women, 9th place!

by Elaine Bothe

The first mtb race of the year, with Sage and myself representing the Sorellas in some amazing weather way out in Eastern Oregon. Not a trace of mud anywhere, but lots and lots of bumpy singletrack.

And it’s my cross-country debut as a Cat 1. I’m nervous. After discounting some serious mistakes I made at the start (like being late for staging, oops!) therefore having to start toward the back of the mass start for what musta’ been 100 Pros/Cat 1/Singlespeed men and women, I am pleased with my effort yet there is always room for improvement.

Proud I didn’t get dropped in the neutral 2 mile roll-out, I see Michelle Hannaford’s braids up ahead—she was my nemesis and buddy from Cat 2 Masters last year, she upgraded too! But I couldn't really work my way up much, there were so many people. And it was supposed to be neutral.

Once I got going on the singletrack I started to fly. I picked off some singlespeeders and other riders, including a couple of women. We all have red tags, Pros and Cat 1s, so I’m racing everybody with a ponytail and scoring can sort it out later. Sue Butler (our local hero who is ranked in the top 20 of the world in cyclocross), Michelle, and a bunch of others, however, are long gone.

We’re all strung out like Christmas lights along the serpentine trails. You can see for miles... uphills, downhills, nothing too sustained one way or the other. Bump-y! hardpack greeted my hardtail, thus making my own tail, well, sore. I start to think to myself, hmmm, an extra spring in the back (of my bike!) sure might be nice about now. Turns out everyone suffered, suspension or no.

But I’m enjoying the weather, riding as hard as I can, my HR monitor pooped out but I’m sure I spent the whole time near if not in the hard interval zone... a woman up ahead, I’m closing in, slowly but surely. By now the leaders of the Cat 2 Men’s race, which started a full 15 minutes after my group, were catching us back-markers. Polite passing, I never had to stop, we just chatted and made it all work. I tried to hang onto those wheels as long as I could. One guy passed me, and, hearing a rider coming up, the woman I was stalking pulled off the trail to let him by!! Well, that was too good of an opportunity to pass up, so I rode past her too.

The Pros/Cat 1s shared the first 21 miles with everybody else, and I was finding markers all over the place from last year’s race. I remembered a lot of the hills, creek beds and turns, the rocky stretch where I flatted last year, a cool bridge to ride over then under later, but I couldn’t find the scary parts. I looked really hard, but the treacherous traverses and other scary stuff I remembered just weren’t there. Fortunately, not because they changed the course any, but because my skills grew over last year!

Just when I was about ready to head on into the barn with the Cat 2s and 3s, no! let's see where this other trail goes. 7 or 8 more miles’ worth of entertainment, even though my legs were already screaming full volume. Down a hill, to a really swoopy and swampy orchard full of logs to pop over, bridges, banks and obstacles. FUN!!

A big creek, 30 feet across and a big ol’ log. Cool! I'll ride it, even though it’s 6 feet over fast running water! ERKK! Nope, running it will be just fine, I do NOT want to fall. Cyclocross remount and off I go again. I look across a field to a cliff with ants crawling across it in a diagonal pattern. Ohhhh, that’s the trail, those are bicyclists! and they're walking! uh oh! I attack the hill, having to run a couple of parts but mostly riding it to the cheers of some men I passed as they walked! (OK, most were single speeders, but not all. I checked to make sure.)

A warm cup of HEED at the aid station, the last bits of uphill and sandy traverse to the top of a magnificent ridge overlooking the valley and the Columbia River in the distance, up past the vineyards back onto the gravel road toward the finish. Ahhh, said my butt. Smooth. I down my last two Clif blocks just in case I need a last ditch burst of speed for any reason.

It’s all headwind home, I get into the best tuck a mt bike can provide. TT it, I tell myself. I look back to make sure no one’s coming, head down and pedal. Tire sounds. Ready. oh, a guy. He’s really moving. back to business. More tires. A girl. “Great race!” she said as she passes. “Yeah!” I replied to her. But I thought to myself, who’s done racing? not me!

As I look over to her, I notice she’s on a 29er. Now that’s a mighty inviting wheel if I ever saw one. About a half mile out, too! I can’t believe she made the pass so I glom on. It’s not hard to hang on, and I’m glad I’m out of the wind. Well, I got my bit of recovery, and about a hundred yards out from the finish I stood up and hammered. No warning, no shifting gears, no looking back I just attacked. It worked! I doubt she’ll ever make that mistake again.

What a day. A great race, a burrito with Sage (who finished 4th in the Cat 2 Masters) and my sister Julia and a few other people we knew, sitting in the sun and not winning raffle prizes.

I finished 9th… Michelle finished a spectacular 3rd in the Cat 1s. Wow! Looks like I have some more work to do this year.

Photo courtesy of Oregon Velo.