Rage in the Sage

This weekend we made the trip up to Ephrata, WA for the Rage in the Sage mountain bike 'festival'. First things first: it was a great little event. It's out in the middle of nowhere, and while the fields weren't huge, there were enough people there to be respectable. But more importantly, it was a blast. They had a fun short track Saturday evening, followed by a BBQ with free beer, and then a stupid hard XC race on Sunday morning (the Beezley Burn), followed by more free beer and tons of prizes (about $5k worth) for a raffle. It's absolutely worth doing if you're ever in the PNW in April.

The short track was as advertised -- a short track. It wound around a small park, including one stretch past a bunch of people fishing in the pond (at least two guys had encounters with back casts). It was about a 2.5 minute lap, and we raced for 30 minutes + 2 laps. About 25 guys line up for the Pro/Open/Expert category. I squeeze into a 2nd row start, but I appear to be the only one who realized that the course immediately turns left. I line up that way, and make it to 3rd wheel with relative ease. We enter a short section of singletrack and then head for the first 'obstacle' of the course -- a 180 degree turn around a tree.

I suppose I should mention at this point that I'm on my new GT, and this will be my first turn 'in anger' since I got it.

I hit a root and go down (in my defense, it was one of those nasty, slick, off camber roots that always seem to be at the apex of 180s around trees). I'm down so fast that I can't unclip first, so my foot is caught under the bike and I'm sitting there as most of the field goes by. By the time I'm rolling again, the lead seven guys are about 20 meters ahead, and that's the last time I'm in contact. Right behind me is the one other guy I know in the race (he's from Moscow), so we ride together until he fades a bit at the end. After 30 minutes, I'm about 30 seconds down on the second group, and the two leaders are now 20 seconds behind me and entering their final lap. There's no way I'll let them catch me, but the guy decides to pull me anyway. I don't take that too well, but we smooth things out later. Out of 25 guys, 18 are pulled and I end up 8th. Without my temporary idiocy, I might hang onto that second group, or I might not, so 8th is probably about right.

(photo from the short track)

We chill at the BBQ, drink some beer, chase frogs and a turtle at the pond for a bit (the monkey experiences his first 'wild' frog), and then head to our hotel for the night.

9am starts suck. I'm up at 6am trying to shove food in my mouth. I'm not a morning person. But I get enough food in, find some coffee, and get to the park where the race is at 7:45. There's not much to say about this race, except that it really hurt. There are 12 guys in the "pro" field. I hit the singletrack in 5th. One guy passes me, then two guys flat, then another guy passes me, then I suffer a lot, then one of the guys who flatted passes me, and 2.5 hours later, I finish in 6th.

I'm not sure I can describe how brutal this course was. There are some photos linked from the race website, but they don't show much of the rough stuff (for the XC race, I'm in photos 59, 88, 106, 124 and 180). There's a lot of new trail, and a lot of rocks, and a lot of braking bumps, and a lot more rocks (including sections that were all rock -- just thousands of softball sized pieces of basalt). I didn't think my back, arms, hands, or arse would survive. I didn't have my headband on tight enough, so it bounced down over my eyes (which you can see here). It was the roughest and longest XC race I've ever done.

But that said, I had a lot of fun and I raced much better than I expected. I was 11 minutes off the winner, about 5 minutes off third, and maybe 2 minutes back of 4th and 5th. Given the length of the race, I'm happy with those gaps. With some more consistent training, I think 3rd would have been reachable.

Oh yeah, the race paid out $2,000, divided among the top 5 for the combined short track and XC. I finished 6th overall, 2 minutes out of $100 (the winner took home $800).

I suppose I should say, although it was my first time on a hard tail in 16 years, and perhaps the worst course ever for that re-initiation, the bike performed wonderfully. It took a lap to get used to it, but then I started having a lot of fun. It handles wonderfully, and climbs and accelerates like no other mountain bike I've ridden. And although I got beat up pretty good, I didn't have to lay down for 30 minutes after the race, which has happened before on much smoother and shorter courses.

Awesome race. Good beer. And I got beat by a guy who is 45 years old, so I can't make excuses for another decade at least.