SO, let’s talk about my first Mountain Bike race… As has already been described, I love riding my mountain bike. I love the freedom (places and views), the technical side of it, and, of course, the bumps. I also love racing. I’m not a completely competitive nut, but I do love to compete and push myself and see how I compare to others. My mantra has always been, “I race to ride,” but, it is also true that riding while racing is more fun than simply riding most days. So, when I heard from a local race organizer that he was putting on an endurance mountain bike race in my favorite SoCal location, of Big Bear, I didn’t even think twice before registering…almost 9 months before the event.
It is a complete understatement to say that I went into this race completely ‘blind.’ I knew practically nothing about the race, the series/genre that this race was a part of. All I did know was that it was an endurance race, on a mountain bike, in Big Bear, and that it was part of a series that might attract some hard-core racers. Other than that, I knew nothing…including anything about the course.
Speaking of the course, I did try to recon the race a month or two before the day of the race. I looked at the race website and found the results of last year’s race. I knew I wasn’t going to be with the front pack completing in 5hrs (or less), but I felt pretty certain, based on my fitness, that I could easily ‘compete,’ ride at my own skill level, and finish the race in approximately 7hours. Easy. But, that would also assume a lot, including the race profile and features. Would the 1k’ elevation gain come in lots of little climbs, a couple of BIG ONES, or a consistent amount of moderate peaks?
Truthfully, I didn’t really care about the course profile. I was relying so hard on my Tri-fitness and love for the bike that I truly believed that the profile wouldn’t matter. However, after IM St. George, I learned that race profile does matter, no matter how much you love the bike and have fitness. So, I turned to Strava and found the race profile for last year. It looked easy, only involving one big climb. Nothing to it! (Foolish, rookie error.)
But, what about the technical aspects of the course? Road cycling is super easy; all you have to do is worry about curves. Occasionally, you may have to also be concerned about pavement conditions, but it’s rare that you will need to engage technical riding skills in a road or tri race (as evident by the many roadies and triathletes who suffer in group rides and on gravel/dirt. Sorry guys, technical riding is not a major part of our sport.). On the technical aspects, Strava was no use to me, so I turned to good ol’ YouTube. I found the name of a couple of Strava segments that the course employed and searched for some video. Not too much came up of any quality, except for some great local Big Bear race re-caps courtesy of Ben Goyette (check him out!). He made it all look so easy, flat and beautiful…but, this, as I would find out was because of the “GoPro effect,” which flattens the terrain, and the fact that the man is a semi-pro XC/Downhill racer. But, I wouldn’t learn these truths until after I crossed the starting line.
Yes, I did think about, and TRY to, pre-ride the course a couple of times before the Big Day, however, it never worked out. Big Bear is not so close to San Diego that I can just ‘pop in’ whenever I want to. Add to this distance factor that I am also a Dad and Husband, and getting to Big Bear becomes a difficult and expensive task. But, I wasn’t worried. Yes, I knew I was still new to mountain biking and that my skills were still ‘novice,’ but I had bombed a couple of Blue Trails at Snow Summit and my local single-track so I wasn’t too worried. PLUS, this was an endurance race, not a downhill challenge. There was no way that the course could possibly incorporate anything radical when the goal was ‘speed.’ (Again, foolish, rookie error on my part!)
The other big ‘unknown’ was equipment, but I will talk more about this below when I describe my race recap. Prior to the race, I think the only equipment challenge that I did think about was tire width, and even here I quickly disregarded it as a ‘non-factor.’ I simply didn’t know enough about mountain biking and, specifically, cross-country (XC) racing to even contemplate or ask about any equipment questions. This proved to be another big mistake.
I approached this race completely from my Triathlon experience. I had a solid guess on how long it would take me to finish the course, so I built my nutrition plan according to my tri-nutrition needs. Wrong! In triathlon, the bike matters, but only because of aerodynamics. Weight isn’t a problem so long as you can ‘push it’ through the wind. I have a solid FTP and never considered my MTB as ‘heavy,’ so I wasn’t worried about that at all. In fact, I chose to carry a hydro-pack for the big race and would throw all my nutrition and gear inside of it. After all, I wasn’t really going to ‘race’ this event. I truly believed my fitness alone would carry me, and my big backpack, through this course with relative ease. (Idiot.)
Race Day
As stated, getting to Big Bear is not easy for me and my family. It’s close enough to be ‘local,’ but far enough away to require a lot of investment to actually get there. Due to work, the kid’s school and housing costs, I couldn’t arrive in Big Bear until the night before the race. While not ideal, I didn’t think it to be too big of a deal. The pre-race ‘packet pick up’ wasn’t until dinner time and I have heard that its actually ideal to arrive at a higher racing elevation as close to the start time as possible. But none of this actually worked out. I arrived 15mins AFTER the pre-race registration closed, and the change in elevation completely RUINED any chance of getting a good night sleep. I never managed more than an hour of consistent sleep through the night.
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| Nice little Cabin where we stayed. Close enough to ride to the Start Line. |
When 5am rolled around, I was feeling OK, but was firing on complete excitement. In fact, I was so excited that I kept thinking about more things to throw in my backpack! Originally, I was only going to carry water, 5 gels, and a flat kit. Well, what about the GoPro? What about a second GoPro mount? What about that extra multi-tool? All these items were small. How much difference could they make to the weight of my pack?
It was cold that morning, so I threw on my cycling gillett and planned to simply throw it in my hydro-backpack before the race started. (Heck, that thing doesn’t weigh anything.) So, I drank a 20oz black coffee, scarfed down a packet of Pop-Tarts and then road my bike into town to register before the race started. I knew the Pop-Tarts and coffee were not going to be enough, but in my excitement, I failed to do anything about it.
Packet pick up took about 5mins, but left me a little more frustrated than confident going into the event. It turns out that the course would, in fact, have ‘bag drops,’ which enables riders to pre-load a pack with their nutrition, gear, etc. and have it available at feed zones and NOT have to carry said items throughou
There was now about 15mins before the start of the race. I looked around and saw a good mix of people from various genders, backgrounds, age groups, etc. It was not a huge crowd, but still a good size for an endurance MTB race in late September. What I also noticed was the variety in bikes. There were hard-tails, FS, carbon, alloy, big-travel, little-travel, and even some nuts on fixed gears. I was feeling good about all of this and, despite the backpack, still felt like I had a chance of being competitive against this field. I was pumped to get this baby started!
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