Coolest 24 Mudfest

The past few days have been a roller coaster for me. This weekend was 24hrs of Cool, and if your are in N. California you know what the weather was like. Friday it dumped. Period. We picked up Chris at the airport, he flew in from Seattle, where, ironically, it was sunny and 70 degrees, after we met Pete out in Cool where he was establishing the Dirt City compound for the race.

Let me just stop right there and say a few thank yous, cause frankly however many I do say, won't give these people enough props for sticking it out in the miserable weather those 24+ hours:

Marja, Pete, Chris, Sharon, Lou, Scott, Linda!!!! THANKS!!!

Friday may have been the worst feeling I have had before a race. I am usually a little anxious, but I literally felt like I had a 1000lb weight on my shoulders....Marja is usually the one who is freaking out pre-race, but not this weekend. The weather just had me totally in a panic.

I love riding around in the slop for an hour at a CX race, but 24hrs...how in the hell will my body react to this?? As I prepped my clothes and Marja and I prepped the food I had the WORST feeling in my gut.... Now the fact Chris brought everything he had clothes-wise made me feel a ton better, and the fenders....a life saver!

Funny thing was, I slept great Friday night. Greatest thing about his race is its location, 20 minutes from my own bed!!! We woke at 7a.m. I made breakfast for Marja and I, Chris made his own fake sausage with fake eggs (okay they were egg whites, but I have to give him a little grief) and he made the coffee - my coffee maker broke, HUGE emergency. Then we sat. Chris made the call that arriving at 9a.m. like I planned was foolish, we'd stand around in the cold and the rain for 3 hrs before the start. The phone rang and Linda asked if we could pick up hay for the pit area, it was a mess....

Now I was really bummed.....finally on site and with all the gear in the pit:

Pete's setup used 3 EZ ups, one was completely walled in with a generator to run lights, music, a microwave (yes Pete runs one!!) and a charging station for lights. The other key was the propane heater.... Pete had everything he could want for the bikes, food, etc... Pete rocked the pit!!

Now all I had to lament was what the hell to wear. Temps in the mid 50's, raining, riding for 24 hrs... WTF??!?!

The staging for the race was nuts, I stayed in the pit until the last moment, Marja staged before me so I never got a chance to wish her luck. In the middle of the Chaos, me not even on my bike, the race starts. Hey, no dust this year!

After the first few miles of single track things spread out enough. Despite the rain, the course is in decent shape. The first major water crossing is DEEP, hubs...in hind sight, that was shallow!

The first decent down to Knickerbocker Creek was fast, and when we hit the bottom, an over zealous 8hr rider flys over the bars and starts his race soaked. Yes, he completely submerged. Unfortunately, this meant I had to dismount before entering the creek and run through it to avoid he and his bike and his water bottle tumbling along the bottom of the creek. Now I am soaked from the knees down....not like I was going to stay dry very much longer. ("Dry" is a used loosely here...it is a relative term)

I started the day scared as hell, once at the race I was comfortable, once it started I was in to it. I finished lap 1 with no clue where anyone was on single speeds. From the past few years Sean Sullivan (races for Independent Fabrications) has finished just behind me. This year, he was racing well. 2nd at the Old Pueblo. My goal for the start was ride with him for the first lap just for piece of mind. Thanks to the chaos I had no clue where he was on the course....for all I knew he was off the front with Tinker...

No pit, roll out on lap 2. I cross the mud bog and start the climb up toward the school and notice a SS in front. The first thing I notice on the bike (no clue what the bike was as all of our bikes were a reddish-brown thanks to the snot, I mean mud everywhere) was a super skinny tire on the rear, likely a 1.95. Then I see the Independent Fabrication jersey through his rain cape. Instantly my mood jumped up 10 fold. I could ride with Sean on lap 2 just to see how he riding.

Once up to our right hand turn just before the school I realize I am riding comfortably and I am catching him quickly....no reason to change what I am doing. I pass Sean, I asked him how it was going and he sounded upbeat. I topped out a short climb a few minutes later and as I double back at the top he was no where to be seen. Hmmmm.

So the course at Cool isn't easy, but when its dry its a fast course. 12.5 mile laps early would have been about an hour for me (I rode a 1:05 the Monday prior just goofing off). With the mud, each lap was getting more and more difficult as more people rode. Some of the new sections of the course had small climbs that became quite tough the more it rained.

So I drop down to Knickerbocker, soaking wet, rip through the creek crossing and start my hike out. On a SS, I hike this climb every lap...with the weather, very few were riding it on geared bikes. The next crazy little downhill I notice the front brakes are gone. So a few Freddy Flintstone corners later I make it to the climb out of Salt Creek. In good weather this is the 2nd of two real extended climbs on the course (Knickerbocker and Salt Creek). The new single track added made the climb a lot more interesting albeit more difficult....now with the rain, after this lap I was hiking/riding/hiking/riding due to the depth of the mud.

Come in the pit for lap 3, tell Pete the front brakes are gone, I change my top layers and head out on the Bianchi... Really should have paid more attention to details on my back up bike: rear tire was not good for mud; front tire was not good for mud; running tubes in both wheels, 55psi horrible compared to my tubeless at 35psi; bar ends didn't match my DeSalvo; I could go on.

No worries though....just kept on riding.

Rain keeps coming down for lap 4. At this point, lap 4 that is, I have no clue what time it was, etc. The one great thing Pete and Chris did in the pit was keep my focused on riding. I let them worry about where I was (not that they knew) how many laps I was on, etc. I rode, and when my timer went off every 20 minutes I ate. That was it. Pedal and eat and drink, repeat.

Approaching 7pm, Lou told me Marja was out in front by a few and she looked really good charging out to grab one more lap before her 8hr race ended. I left hoping to not catch her cause I wanted her to get that extra lap...despite Chris meeting me at the top of Knickerbocker telling me Marja was in front of me I never caught her... I was so stoked to hear each lap how good she was doing because the conditions were pathetic looking back on it.

I pitted, changed clothes, ate, got to see Marja in her muddy glory (She took 2nd place!!! Phil was happy she was done too!!!!) and headed back out. This lap the sun had set and it was dark. I had my moab on the bars and a newt on my head. Great lighting setup!

The next great thing happened....it stopped raining! How perfect was this going to be!!?? I'd regret thinking that...

Within one lap of the rain stopping, the course got even more difficult in the trees. The slippery wet mud (though rideable) turned to super clingy-snot-like slime.... Two relatively fast climbs became death marches. Luckily I figured out quickly to climb on the grass just off the trail and was able to climb them still, but the amount of energy I was expending was ridiculous. Now a few sections of the trail without this freakish clay in just the right mixture that made it like wet cement, did get better. The single track climb out of salt creek was not one of them. BRUTAL.

2 laps into the dry weather all I could think is "it better start raining again!!!" I kept that to myself out on the course for fear I might get punched in the mouth!

All the while I saw no SS solo riders on the course. I was really lost. I felt as if I was merely surviving. I felt neither good nor bad about my race at that time. Looking back that was perfect, I wasn't thinking whatsoever. Pete, Chris and now Marja (after her shower at my house, lucky girl) just told me to keep riding because everyone was suffering horribly. I listened, and just kept moving.

Middle of the night. I am cold. Hungry. I pit, take my top layers off and change. I am eating something when Marja asks if I was cold? I look at my right hand and it is shivering pretty badly, oddly I don't remember feeling cold at that point. I finish changing, I get a little of the heater and finish my food. Out again.

Somewhere around 3a.m. the indigestion got really bad, to the point where it was hard to suck down GUs every 20 minutes. Then, on the short paved climb we had, I noticed the moon was shining....whoa, this is gonna end dry at least, how cool is that?!

Looking back I think I see how ready I was for this race, whatever the weather. I never really mentally felt miserable. I would comment on trail conditions or how cold I felt, or heartburn, whatever....but as soon a I said it, it left my mind. I was successful at focusing on that lap, that climb, that moment. Sounds silly, and I guess if you haven't been there you just won't get it. I was there to try my hardest to win and whatever I needed to go through to get there was just part of it. Its a pretty cool feeling to look back on it and realize that now...

Fast forward, sun comes up, lights off, spirits rise!! Okay, you couldn't see the sun, but no more living by HID and LED lights! As I head out on the lap with the sun coming up, just enough light to leave the lights in the pit.....it starts to rain again. NOW, the sections that were improving turned to sh^%, and the horrible sections actually got a small bit better. "Whatever" at this point!

I had been nursing my brakes, taking a lot of chances, trying to make the brake pads last. They were holding up well (rewind, somewhere in the night I lost my rear brake on the DeSalvo and headed out on the Bianchi again....metal on metal). Once the rain returned though, I QUICKLY burned through the pads in a lap. I pitted, soaking wet, needing food so I waited for the DeSalvo to be fixed as I ate and changed from head to toe. Out I go.

Still raining, nothing too bad, but consistent. Nursing the brakes all I can, i.e. not using them, as the entire racing community in Cool, including all the Auburn bike shops, are out of any type of disc brake pads. No worries I just keep on ticking the pedals over. This lap was good, I felt very positive to get 3 more in.

Change my clothes, AGAIN, head out in the rain. Its cold, looking back, the temp probably dropped 6-10 degrees and it was still raining. I had windproof tights on, arm warmers, two base layers and gore waterproof/windproof gloves along with my Mountain Hardwear rain jacket. I can't afford to get cold, not this close to the finish.

I am having a good consistent lap, once out of Knickerbocker it starts to dump. I am laughing at this point. Every decent, every climb is a river of water. As I hike-a-bike to the lake above Salt Creek I am jazzed I will be doing this 2 more times... subtle, but I never thought, "...only," or, "...just two more times." It was oddly emotionless. Again mission accomplished, no thinking allowed!!

I popped out along 49, again laughing at the rain pouring down, and make my way back to the start/finish area and the pits. Fired up for one more change of clothes and busting 2 more laps out. I run down the finishing chute (you are required to dismount and run/walk here), passed the timing tent to our pit.

As I try and hand my bike off to Chris or Marja everyone is standing there (Marja, Chris, Pete, Sharon, Lou)....Chris says his infamous, "Here's the deal Brad..." At this point I am bordering on serious anger because all I want to do is change and get out there. Last year we "tried" to make a tactical decision about when to stop based on data on the rider behind me. Mentally it killed me. After that we decided to race until the clock stopped....period. Now this is all I can think about.

"Here's the deal Brad. The race is ending at 10 (due to the insane weather), and second place is 3 laps behind you"

I look at my watch, probably smiling I think, but can't remember, and see its 8:15.... I look up and say, "...alright I just need to change and I will hit it."

Chris and Marja, "BRAD, you're done. The race ends at 10, you do not need to go out again."

I am still trying to process this. All my brain is going over and over is:

• "12p.m. = stop riding"

I hear a lot of conversation, probably directed at me, but I am attempting to understand. Finally, it sinks in.

Chris: "You can go out if you want...."

Me, immediately: "No, I'm good...."

And for the 2nd time I cried at one of these 24hr races, except this time it wasn't because of the pain I was in, letting myself be consumed by it. It sank in immediately that I had just won... and to do it in these conditions made it all the sweeter.

It didn't hurt that the only person to do more laps than me was a pro on a geared bike named David Juarez, most people know him as "Tinker" Juarez. Tinker had 14, I had 12.

As Pete said afterwards, "That doesn't suck Brad!"

As it turns out, I was 5 laps ahead of 2nd place.

Back to my support....having Pete, Chris, Marja, Sharon and Lou, and Scott and Linda racing out of the pit too, was awesome. They were always positive, always helping me stay focused. I don't think I could have come close to achieving what I did without each of them. To have that many people all focused on helping me, Marja, Scott and Linda succeed is pretty emotional to think about. I thank each one from the bottom of my heart.

Dirt City cleaned up:

• Marja 2nd 8hr Solo women;
• Scott/Linda 2nd 24hr 2person team;
• Me, 1st 24hr Solo Single Speed, 2nd overall male.

I wonder what Bowen might have to say now?

Its now Tuesday, the legs feel pretty good.... the stomach and GI issues are starting to pile up (no pun intended, its actually 180 degrees from that). Doctor doesn't think its Giardia, but he said in a few days I will know for sure so he sent me home with some antibiotics, no need to go on the Scott Clark diet!! Sorry to those I have yet to call, I will catch up tonight! I Promise.

Now get out there and ride!