The Traverse

I finally did The Traverse, a long mountain bike race in the Santa Ana mountains in Orange County. The traverse road follows the ridge of the mountains which demarcates the two counties of Orange and San Bernardino in Southern California. It climbs over 8000 feet, and those climbs are relentless.
This year the fastest time was 3:58; The slowest time was 8:31. My time was 7:30, at least I wasn't the last one! Although my main goal was to finish. My step-brother Darren finished in 6:01. He is a much better rider, especially downhill.

BlackStar road to the first cutoff
The weather started out really cool. Probably 50 degrees, due to cloud cover. Of course at the starting line I had to go to the portapotty for a lengthy stop. Darren is outside telling me to hurry up and I was trying man. What bad timing. I got out just in time to start, didn't even get my sunglasses on; they were in my pack. I wanted to keep up with Darren for the first mile or so and I did manage to do that. But there was climbing and climbing and climbing. Soon Darren pulled away with the faster riders and I wouldn't see him until 8 or so hours later.
As we climbed the hill, we rose above the cloud cover.

I started out pretty strong. I knew that I had to keep my heart rate down and thus stay below my Lactate Threshold in order to prevent bonking. I did keep up with Darren for a while, but my heart rate was climbing too rapidly. It was hovering around 160.
My max heart rate for my age by the common calculation is 220 - 47 = 173. So 160 represents 92% of max for me which is really high. I was tracking my heart rate on a Garmin Edge 305. I noticed that the Garmin Edge 305 was the most common electronic gizmo in the race. A few people had the 705 which is much more expensive, but the most common was the 305.

Look at the graph, the red line is my heart rate, it wasn't synced up correctly for the first hour, but you can see that it was really high during the first half of the race. The second half I was fatigued and couldn't get anything out of my engine to even raise my heart rate enough. Although I didn't bonk, I really had a hard time keeping up with the pack. I met a lot of riders and they were all pretty friendly. One guy, Dennis, told me that we should be ok to pass the first checkpoint. The first checkpoint had to be reached by 11:00AM. I made it at 10:45.

One excuse I have is the fact that my chain broke and it took me at least 20 minutes to fix it. Not only did it break, but it threw an 8 link segment onto the trail. The chain had really only broke in one spot, but the action of the break caused the masterlink to unhook as well. Then I weaved the chain wrong through the derailleur so I had to take it off and re-do it again. So that blew about 20 minutes off my time.

The rest of the race...
After that first checkpoint I really started to fade. Amazingly I didn't cramp and I didn't bonk, I just didn't have the energy to go fast. So a putted along like a turtle. At some point an older guy named Doug was passing me on all the climbs, but I was passing him on the downhills. He was riding a Niner Air, the scandium version of my Niner EMD. It is about a half pound lighter. I asked him how old he was, "65" he said. We traded positions for the rest of the race. I was ahead of him coming down Trabuco, but I made a wrong turn on an unmarked fork in the trail. I went left, which led me to a cliff edge. By the time I made it back to the fork, 4 riders had passed by, one of them was Doug. At the bottom of trabuco, I saw Doug getting his flats repaired. If it wasn't for that, he would have finished before me. Hats off to that guy.

Here's some video I shot during the race...


At the finish I hung out with Doug for about an hour trying to figure out where Darren was, I had no idea what time he finished, but I knew it was about 2 hours before I finished, later I found out it was actually an hour and a half. I finally decided that he might have taken the shuttle back to Blackstar, which was the original plan. "Oh no", I thought, " he is probably waiting for me there." So I hopped in the shuttle and went to Blackstar. He wasn't there. So I took a nap in the dirt on the side of the road. Later, a van showed up looking for me. Darren had sent the shuttle back for me, because he had driven back to O'Neil park for the awards.

Some interesting things I noticed about this race.
The Fastest guy, finished 3:58 and the next guy didn't come in until 22 minutes later. That's quite a gap. That first place finish was by a 27 year-old, the next guy to come in was 40 years old. Old guys do well in this race; the biggest age group was 31-45.
There were over 20 riders that did not finish.

What I learned...
Unlike the RAWROD ride two weeks earlier, I didn't dehydrate or cramp. But my time was slow and my body seemed to slow down starting at the 2nd hour. So I think the longer rides really fatigue me. It must be the training. My training rarely goes over two hours, so really how can my body be expected to perform better than it has. But who has time for those long training sessions? I wonder what the least amount of training I would have to do in order to put in a more respectable time of say 6 hours? And would that be worth the time away from my family. There has to be a balance and I sure would like to find out where that balance is.

Rawrod 09

Finally the weekend for Ride Around White Rim trail in One Day arrived! It was very scenic and fun to meet new riders.

This video has a few scenes along the trail.




If you watched the video, you can hear the wind. The wind was relentless for the first 85 miles or so. The last 20 miles the wind let up and we either had no wind or wind at our backs.

I went down with Phil and Glen, who I had just met a few minutes before we left and they were gracious enough to let me ride down with them. Brad drove his truck with his son and Conrad, and Jilene.


We found the campsite late, like 9:30, it was at the top of horse thief. We planned to leave at 7AM and go away from horse thief in the clockwise direction.

The bratwurst at the campsite was delicious. We got there after dark, fortunately there were a few brats left. Most of us slept in tents, except for Phil, he slept under the stars on a cot.

At 5:45, I got up and packed my stuff, opened a can of peaches and ate those for breakfast. That was Erin's idea and it was a great idea, lots of carbs for the ride and they tasted good.


At 7AM we were off, moving away from the white rim trail, out to the road and the clockwise entrance. The road was actually hard to ride because of the wind factor. I hooked on to the tail of a peloton and that helped a lot. I was surprised at the number of singlespeed riders. Hats off to them for having that skill.

I felt pretty good for the first two hours. We arrived at Muscleman arch in pretty good shape, the group was pretty tight, not too spread out. After I left Muscleman, I started noticing that I was fatiguing quite a bit. Later I would realize that I had dehydrated.




A rider taking a picture between Muscleman Arch and Shafer trail
By the time I hit the Shafer trail I was dehydrated. How did I know?

I really didn't until a couple of hours later. The Shafer trail is downhill and the trail is pretty flat for a while after that.






The Shafer Trail Decends

So I didn't really notice that I had too much of a problem, except that my heart rate was about 90% of max on a relatively flat trail.





after the Shafer, the trail is fairly flat for a while



Later when more intense climbing and wind fighting became challenging I started to cramp, bad cramps. So bad that when I tried to walk or just stand it was very painful while my legs tried to implode from the muscle contractions.






This is one climb where my legs cramped up really bad, Kanyon Kris was able to clean this one.



I wasn't thirsty. I didn't feel dehydrated. But I realized I was dehydrated. Mostly because I hadn't peed in over four hours and I didn't feel like I needed to at all. So I pushed on painfully and when I reached the top of Murphys Hogsback I set a new goal: To Pee!

Yes my new goal was to drink so much water that I would have to go to the bathroom. So I started downing as much as I could. Man, it made me nausious and that is part of my problem. I don't really like to drink water when I work out. I will drink about 16 ounces an hour in most 1 -2 hour rides, that works in the short term, but long term I need at least twice that amount.







Hanging out at an overlook




The fact that it was so windy didn't help. I didn't feel thirsty, but the wind sucks the moisture out of your body leaving it like a withered plant in the desert.

After I drank water nonstop for two hours I felt the hydration coming on. I really had to force the water down, making a concious effort to drink as much as I could. I soon was hydrated and had to make a stop. Then I was able to finish the last 6 hours without cramping. That was awesome.

The climb up horsethief was painful, but at least I didn't cramp up, having drank a total of 150 ounces on the last part of the ride. I finally arrived at the campsite at 7:30, Twelve and a half hours after I had started.

Was it worth it. Yes. I loved the scenery, the camaraderie and the challenge. I also hope to do it again next year and hope to not dehydrate this time.

I thought I would never cramp because I was using an old trick that John Robinson taught me. He once gave me 3 magnesium pills and 3 potassium pills before a half marathon. The magnesium pills were 250mg. and the potassium were 125mg. I think the potassium is less important because you get potassium from a lot of foods. But the magnesium is harder to get from a normal diet and can really help in cramp prevention.

Finally, here is a video from fat cyclist I show up for two seconds in the video at 7:05 with a green Sobe jersey on my black frame Niner bike with the white Fox fork. Yeah. 2 seconds of fame as everyone passes me going up horse thief :)

Tooth Brake or Braking with your Tooth

Author after using his “tooth brake”

Tuesday I finally had some time to ride, so I thought I would try area 51. I rode up Dry Canyon Drive (paved) to access the BST southbound.
For a great map look here
From the BST I went to the WaterTankRoad And then up Roller Coaster, up Betty to the GWT and Area 51.

I like the first ascent up Roller Coaster from the water tank Road.

Riding up RollerCoaster

The Roller Coaster trail was looking really Sweeeet! All the way from the start on up to the Rock Pile. Last fall after the deer hunt, horse traffic had really chewed up the trail and there were tons of loose rock and big piles of manure. So it was chewed up and stinky. So it was great to see what condition it was in this day.


I arrived at the Rock Pile and hadn't encountered any snow. The trail looked like it was in pretty good shape. That mean't I should go on up to Area 51, my favorite way to get over to Dry Canyon.
Me at the Rockpile (photo by Rockpile, i.e. self timer with camera perched on the Rockpile


Area 51 was completely snowbound, but I didn't know for how far so I trudged and I trudged and I trudged. Each time I went over a ridge, hoping that the snow ended, my hopes were met with disappointment.
Area 51 Snowbound

The whole trail was snowbound until it comes out at Lament. That added about a half hour to my ride, making me late for my son's Doctor's appointment. So the quickest way down is of course Dry Canyon, which I love. So down I went. The trail was in great shape, a little moist which means great traction and great speed along with no dust.

The Pipeline

A successful pipeline ride (Dec.2008, filmed by Paul Hillyard)


When I got down to the pipeline I of course rode it.


You shave off at least two minutes riding that tightrope. I made it down the pipe fine, but I had too much speed because as soon as I got off the ledge my back tire began fish tailing. I did brake, but only enough to prepare me for the oncoming trail which is straight but then gets rocky and I needed to be sub-rocket speed.
Well, the fishtailing began to aim me off the left side, a steep embankment. So I corrected, well, I overcorrected and slammed my rear wheel into the side of the mountain and I went down on my face and tried skidding on that part of my body.

My face is no good at that. It really sucks. Maybe if I had a big beard that could get some grip on the dirt and rocks but my smooth face just wasn't providing enough friction.

My front tooth decided to dig in and brake my speed. Thank you tooth, but that was really dumb. You are not that strong my white friend and that is why you broke. I now had only half a front tooth, but I did stop so all was not lost.

First Ride to The Altar (Rock Pile?)

Some call it the Rockpile, others call it the Altar. I like to call it the Altar because it is the biggest rock pile I've seen around the Timpanogos trails and I always feel like giving a prayer of thanks once I've made it there.

The Altar Rockpile on March 21,2009, 12:15PM

Spin Classes Helped
I start the ride to the Altar from my house, about two miles of asphalt and I am on singletrack. Usually the climb to the dirt takes me 16-18 minutes, but today I was elated to make it in 13 minutes. I have to give credit to Audra and Kristin's early morning spin classes that I went to during the winter at the Orem Fitness Center. That has really helped me to keep in shape during this winter.

Up to the Altar
I took Oly's shortcut up to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail and then over to the watertank road and then Rollercoaster to Betty's to the Altar. The trail network was clear of snow and mostly in good shape. There are more loose rocks than I remember on the first ascent up rollercoaster but that is not unusual for early spring. Horses sure can take a toll on the trails but I didn't see too much damage on this section.

That first ascent up rollercoaster is a real challenge. I hardly thought it was possible to clean until Steve Anderson rode with me one weekend and to borrow from climbing vernacular, he on-sighted it. That means he climbed it first time without dabbing. Ever since then I've been able to climb it most of the time without dabbing.

Me, just after the first rollercoaster summit

I saw Chris Cockrell at the Altar he was on a single speed 29er this time. Last time I rode with him he was on a Gary Fisher geared 29er. He is responsible for getting me interested in 29ers. I'm really happy with my Niner EMD, I don't think I'll ever be able to handle a single speed bike, but I respect those that graduate to that level.

Chris climbing up past the altar


Since Lament was still snowed over, I backtracked down the way I came. On the BST I ran into Jilene and Bry with a group of bikers. Those two are great mountain bikers, some day they may actually invite me on one of their epic rides.

Riding To Work

Riding Traverse to Wasatch
I work downtown, Salt Lake City. I live in Orem, so that makes for a pretty big commute on the bike. But I thought it would be great training for the RAWROD and maybe next year's Leadville 100.
There are two principle ways to get downtown. One is going around the point of the mountain on the frontage road. To do that, you need to go north on State Street to Pleasant Grove, then head up to the Alpine Highway. From there you can find the frontage road. It is the turn to the north right before the Freeway. Then you eventually go to State Street in SLC and follow that to the Downtown area. That has the least amount of climbing.

I thought I wanted to do some climbing so I went for the other route. The other route takes you over Traverse Ridge and then along Wasatch Blvd. That is really cool because you can follow Wasatch all the way to some new pedestrian/cycle bridges over I80. Two bridges are involved to get you to Foothill Blvd.

The image above is a map that came from my Garmin 305, complete with heart rates.


Not That Easy
In practice, this route was not that easy. I thought I could do the 50 miles in 2 or 3 hours max. Boy was I wrong. Just about a week ago I rode West Mountain in 2 hours. That was 45 miles or so.

But this had a lot of climbing, a total of 3550 ft. of climbing. That is because not only is Traverse a pretty long climb, but Wasatch Boulevard undulates quite a bit adding even more to the climbing aspect. So yeah it took me 4 hours. Although the Garmin total is 3:33, because it pauses when I stop and I missed quite a few turns and stopped a lot to look at the map and figure out where I was.

Climbing Traverse Mountain
Traverse Mountain was a great climb, long, persistent and steady. I wish I had another gear or two that would let me spin a little more, but it is what it is. I saw a herd of deer, and the weather was just great, about 50 degrees. There was just a little traffic, and the bike lane was sufficient.

Finding Turns
I missed too many turns. I missed quite a few turns trying to find Highland Drive in Highland, which is the road on the south side of Traverse Mountain. Then I missed a critical turn on Wasatch Boulevard which took me down to 6200 S. where I-215 crosses. Wasatch actually makes a full turn at a Stoplight. You can't follow the gradual turn to stay on it, you have to make the right turn. That was a bit of a climb to get back up to Wasatch.

Watch for Falling Water Bottles
So I was screaming down the north side of Traverse Mountain and my Water Bottle flew off. I heard it and so I started to brake, and the stupid water bottle passed me. I stopped and gathered the pieces. It was still Ok, it had just disassembled on its way down.


Still A Great Ride
It was a great training ride. No wrecks or flats, and lots of time in the saddle. According to Chris Carmichael (Lance's coach) you should measure your rides by the time you spend in the saddle, not the distance. So this ride is almost twice the training ride as the one I did around West Mountain. That makes me feel better.

RAWROD

Bryant sent me some info on the RAWROD. I hope to do it. I've never ridden that far so I'll have to do some rides to decrease my chances of bonking

West Mountain Winter Ride

In spin class I heard that there would be a group ride around West Mountain on Saturday. I showed up to join in.

My first mistake was the helmet, or lack thereof. Yeah, I forgot to bring it. For all the other equipment that a brought; toe warmers, arm warmers, windproof hat, ear warming headband, ski socks, garmin gps, premixed cytomax, etc, I still managed to forget the very essential helmet.
So I stopped off to buy a helmet at Walmart. Otherwise I would have commited the egregious violation of riding without a helmet.
Did you ever notice how slow people are when you are in a hurry? The first line at Walmart that I committed to was a bad choice. I like old people, heaven knows that I am evolving into one. But they need to get rid of their checkbooks. It is easier to use a debit or credit card, why do they still slowly pull out the checkbook and create the equivalent of a freeway wreck at the checkstand. Consumer traffic stops and watches the wreck as the dear oldster scrawls the amount and then balances their finances right on the spot.
Ok so I speed out of Walmart and I actually make it only 10 minutes late and people are still there with their bikes. I met some cool people. One of them gave me a knife to remove the huge zipties from my helmet. Then I noticed that some had toe warmers and I made my mistake.
"Do you think you'll need the toe warmers?"
"Yeah, it's a little cold."
"Ok, I'm going to go put mine on..."
So I go off to put the toe warmers on, after I do this I look up... everybody is gone!

Ok, where are they? I know the area, I used to live in Palmyra, which is the first area on the road to West Mountain. I started west down highway 77 having faith that I could maybe catch up. I looked down the road and off in the distance I can barely make out what looked like teeny colorful dots. Look at the graph and you'll see my heart rate was above 160 and sometimes over 170 yet my speed was only 20-22 mph. I slowly was catching up to the peloton that was our group, but I was really working hard, too hard for the start of a long ride. I did finally catch up and you can tell where I caught up too, just from the graph. It's where my speed only dropped slightly but my heart rate dropped dramatically. That was at minute 20.
So I really learned a bit about drafting. Whenever I drafted I gained a lot of efficiency. Although I didn't draft too much, when I did, it was great.
Towards the end of the ride, Bryant and Russ started us on a Rotating Paceline which is described nicely here:
Rotating Paceline
Here is a cool slideshow that describes drafting. Cool Slideshow
My Garmin Edge 305 somehow stopped working when we got to Benjamin, so I didn't get the end of the ride, I'll have to watch that closer. I was too busy doing the paceline to really watch it. The Garmin missed the last 8.2 miles, the total miles should have been 44.8.
My sweet trek 1000
The fastest riders were on Tandems. That was surprizing to me, but it does make sense, the riders were really strong plus they had two engines (two pairs of legs) pushing two tires and one wind resistance. They seemed to be able to hold 24 mph consistently, while the other riders seemed to hold at 20-22 mph.
In conclusion, I really liked the road biking, it was a lot of fun. Although I did have the heaviest, ugliest bike.