Last week Jill and I were discussing Shimano freehub implosions, her’s and Kent P’s in almost exactly the same spot in central Wyoming.  I knocked on a Whitebark at the time, but should have known better…

Lesson 1: do not tempt fate.
Lesson 2: do not ride a low-end Shimano hub in a punishing race, especially on a singlespeed.
Lesson 3: do not do sketchy “maintenance” immediately pre-race, that may or may not have made above conditions even worse.
Lesson 4: try your hardest to not be a dumbass when racing bikes.

Yep, I did all three of those things.  My freehub was making some gnarly snapping/popping noises from mile 25 on, and around mile 64ish started to take its sweet time engaging after the numerous short hike-a-bikes.  The next 4 miles were mostly downhill, but the flat dirt road from 68-70 showed me that my race was over.  The hub would pick up, after spinning it like mad for 5-10 seconds.  I could have hiked the ups and coasted the down for the last 30 miles (which I knew were, ahem, rather tough), but didn’t want to suffer in quite that way.  I caught a ride back to the start/finish, cleaned up, and drank a beer.  I got to watch Ed, Alden, Bill, Ross, Simon, and a bunch of others roll in having put together great races.  As Andy Shleck (one of the few humans that looks more dorky without a bike helmet) said, “my stomach is full of anger, and I will have my revenge.”

Unfortunately I need to take revenge upon myself.  The night before last I began that process.  I took the tire, tube, skewer, cog, and spacers off the offending wheel, put on some gloves, and beat the wheel into disfunctionality against the garage floor.  How was this revenge on myself?   My left wrist is still a bit sore (more sore than my legs, sadly).  Cry me a river.

Things started out as per normal Saturday morning.  I took my time on the initial loose ATV track descent, watched a few folks ahead of me spend way too much time with wheels locked sliding, and then got even further behind on the road sections.  I made up a good dozen spots just by rolling through the first aid station, and proceeded to enjoy myself completely on the Nez Perce trail.  A delightfully mild tech climb, in deep forest, fluffy dirt, and plentiful embedded granite rocks.  A trail well worth doing as an out and back at a future time.  The ATV/4×4 trail from the Nez Perce to Pipestone had plenty of climbing (everything unpaved had plenty of climbing), and a few eroded, loose, slice and dice descents that assorted minor flora excepted could have been right outside Prescott.  There was a lot of talk at the finished (and the racer’s meeting Friday night) on how severe these descents were, which by Montana standards is true enough.  By Arizona standards the nasty parts barely make the top twenty.  I walked two sections, but they were easy to walk down, so thus not too bad.  It was just sad to loose all that elevation on widetrack, rather than singletrack. 

The Pipestone section was fast, as it was mostly downhill, and had some enjoyable sand and gravel surfing.  The sometimes frightening lack of caution on the part of some racers was again emphasized, as one guy not far ahead of me biffed a corner and faceplanted into some rocks.  I stopped to make sure he didn’t have a concussion, and tell him he’d probably need stitched on his chin.  I suppose it might be me being cautious, but I don’t consider crashing during an endurance race to be an acceptable practice. 

The big climb up towards the halfway point was also vintage Arizona: hot, windless, sandy/gravelly, and just easy enough to force you to ride almost all of it.  I loaded my jersey pockets and helmet vents with ice at aid 4, and found a good enough pace.  It took a long time to make the halfway aid across the highway from the start/finish, but that was because it was actually at mile 56.  I was feeling it as I filled up on water and ate, but had been pacing myself well enough to keep things rolling for a long time.  I walked plenty of the singletrack climbing in the next 10 miles, but my moving average was still perfectly acceptable.  Then the hub went downhill, and the day became a different type of struggle.

It’s hard to have a mechanical at that crucial point in the race.  Things had just reached the point where I knew how much suffering I’d have to do, and even worse, I knew that my legs had plenty left in them.  Jill and Dave N. noted last night that I was running around cooking dinner way too fluidly for the day after a hard race, evidence that if I had been able to keep it together mentally, I had a strong finish in me.  Whether I would have been able to do so is the question that must go unanswered, and that ambiguity is what really pisses me off right now.  I haven’t officially finished a bike race in two years, and wonder if I still have what it takes.  I’ll have to sort that out at some point in the future.

That impetus for introspection is I suppose why we do this sort of thing in the first place, and so I can’t count the weekend as too much of a failure.  Until next time..