Big Empty

Living in Montana has one overarching benefit I think I most enjoy. Space. Big Space, with NO PEOPLE. Couple this with the fact that such space can be reached from my doorstep within about 5 miles.

Yesterday's Ride:
Mtn Bike
1.75 hours
20 miles

This is what I am talking about:


Having this type of stuff available to ride after work from my door, no driving involved, makes me really happy. This stretch of road is about a 30 minute pedal from my door. We may not be able to ride the mountain trails till late May or June this year, but I will get by with rides like this no problem. I saw one car on this road, and two dirtbikers. In two hours. Just wonderful rolling hills with views of the mountains. Did I mention it was also above 60 degrees out for the first time this year! It felt like summer all of a sudden.


This is the view coming back down looking towards town.


A lot of people wonder about living in Livingston vs. Bozeman, and this is the big reason I like it over here better. If it were like Bozeman over here, there would be subdivisions all the way out this road and it would be paved and busy. As it is, it remains ranchland and that's all. Someday it may be different but I hope it stays like this for as long as possible.

Exploring

1 hour today on the mtn bike. 11.1 miles.
Checked out some roads up the Wineglass area south of the highway. Left the house and headed south. Hit dirt in two miles, and then had about a 4 mile climb up a pretty good dirt road. The road dead ended in private property so I had to turn back. It was windy as hell, pretty much the norm around here. Steady 25mph from the west. It was spitting rain too but never really got going. I love checking out new roads! I have a few new areas I am targeting to explore in the next couple weekends. Trying to find as much dirt roads as I can in the vicinity to ride on for the next few months. It will be late May I bet before the high country trails are melted out enough. We have had a big snow year.

Preparation Begins

So two days ago I registered for the 2011 Butte 50 endurance mountain bike race. I have a training plan, with hourly goals by week, leading up to the race at the end of July. I have a big spreadsheet I have built in Google Docs to track my training and planning. Unfortunately it is still quite wintery out there in this neck of the woods, with a few inches of snow falling two nights ago and still remaining on the roads.

Fed Ex brought me a bike scale and some racey tires on Friday. I have all sorts of things to change for this years race after my experience last year. I have decided tires are the number one upgrade for the least amount of money. I was basically on heavy DH oriented tires last year which had the most rolling resistance possible. So I begin with some low profile race tires for starters. I got the scale to see how much my bikes and parts weigh. I am no weight weenie, but my good friend Josh's advice was to race a bike that is "25lbs max." I think my Heckler last year was around 35! I would ultimately like to have a whole new bike built up for endurance racing by the time the race rolls around, but can't quite afford to do that yet. I will be selling some old bikes, and hopefully my dirt bike to fund this project.

Here is my winter training bike setup:


It is heavy and slow, and that's just fine for ramming around on the snowcovered roads. I don't have studded tires, just big 2.4 knobbies. Studs don't seem to be neccessary here on account that it usually stays cold enough that the snow stays snowy and doesn't get super icy.

Training Hours so far this year:
Jan: 22.8
Feb: 20.1

This time has been a mix of running, backcountry splitboarding, and biking. It has been less than I planned, but more than I have done before in this part of the year. March is usually the turning point when you can really get out on the road around here so hopefully I can ramp it up this month. It may still snow, but the daytime temps and sun are usually enough to melt it off within a day or so. My work is located along one of my favorite after-work routes in Bozeman, so that will help this year with mid-week training efforts. Not far also from Hyalite road, which is a good 12 mile climb which I will be doing intervals on plenty often!

The motivation and focus I am feeling for towards this race goal is something different and new for me. I know I am not going to do great at it, but I just want to do good for myself and my abilities. It's making me get out there and be in the outdoors more which at base is really the best thing I can think of for personal well being. Overall I think this is going to make for a fun year!

Getting Things Done by Edwin Bliss

Just picked up a book at the consignment shop for 1 dollar from 1976 called Getting Things Done by Edwin Bliss. This surprised me as I though David Allen's book was original. After a quick glimpse I find a very similar information processing procedure to Mr. Allen's, about 30 years earlier. Hmm.

The Butte 50 Part 5: Race Day

After my terrible night of barely any sleep and many emergency jogs into the woods, I got up, got my junk organized, filled all my bottles and camelback, and went to the start line. Lining up at the start was 112 people for the 50 miler. I could immediately see I had the LEAST appropriate bike in the group. People seemed to be mostly on 26 inch 4” travel full suspension xc bikes.

I had made a critical mistake which was not preriding the course at all. This was to have a big effect on my race. The gun went off and the pack shot up the road to the a short ATV trail climb that had me at max heart rate immediately with tons of skinny dudes in spandex passing me. This is bad. Then there was a downhill right away that was about the scariest thing I have done on a bike due to all the yahoos around me that don’t know how to ride down hills. I thought I was going to be hit by, or run into, someone any second. Bad course design to have a congested downhill 2 minutes into the race. They need to start with a longer climb to sort out the pack.

Right away I noticed the TOTAL LACK of course markings as we rolled down a big dirt road to the flats. And then, I saw a marker that pointed straight ahead, but everyone was turning left!!! What the ....! I followed the group and started a good climb past some houses and into the woods on trail. Again, barely or nonexistent markers. This is the part where you would expect spray paint on the road with arrows. Nope.

Up this first real ascent I labored trying to not go too hard since I knew I had to do this for the next 6-8 hours or so. I saw a few marking flags at one point and figured they were saying I was on the right trail. At the top of this climb I saw a bunch of racers yelling and running around apparently trying to find the race route. No markers. No tire tracks. Three trail options. So much for the awesome course marking I heard about the night before! In the hectic mindset of the race start I followed a group up a trail I KNEW was the wrong way, but I had no way to find the right way. In hindsight, I should have backtracked the way I came up until I found the turn, which was at the flags I had seen earlier. In the heat of the moment I just felt I had to keep moving, and thought that we would get back on track pretty soon based on some comments from some of the group. It was pretty demoralizing to have this happen this early in the race. Anyway, it ended up that we did an extra hour and maybe added 8-10 or so miles to the race course, including a LOT more climbing. When someone had said “We can get back to the road this way” I figured they meant 15 minutes or something, not an hour plus. I was pretty angry at this point.

The misdirect really messed things up in my fueling plan and I didn't bring backup calories for such a contingency. My one bottle of Perpetuem didn't last the 3 hours it took to get to the first aid station. My water just barely lasted. So in the first leg I already was bonked. I refueled at that first station, ate a clif bar, took two Endurolites, drank two bottles of water, refilled my camelback, and mixed another bottle of Perpetuem. The second section was STEEP AS HELL right out of the gate and I was redlining hard. It was also hot as hell out like 95 degrees. It was 3 miles of mostly pushing up a sandy two track. During this section I was thinking I should turn around and quit. I was going SO SLOW and just redlining my system it was really ridiculous. The leaders in the 100 miler started passing me in this section, looking like machines cranking up this stuff that was killing me. Tinker Juarez, a mtn bike racing legend, and local endurance master Bill Martin passed me on the steepest hill of the whole course so far. Tinker was pushing his bike, which gave me a small bit of satisfaction, and close behind him was Bill cranking in the granny gear. "This is brutal...." croaked Bill. I kept pushing till the top of the sand hill/hell and then hit the Continental Divide Trail singletrack which was where things got a little better. Fantastic trail. Not as steep climbing. Somewhere in this part I started getting leg muscle cramps which was a new experience for me. Super painful. Had to get off and walk or pedal super slow. They went away pretty quick but scared me into going slower still. At 5 hours I kind of got a second wind and settled into a rythym for the rest of my race. I also ran out of water and Perpetuem at 5 ish hours. So for the last hour I had no water. Doh! It was rainy by then though and not quite as hot.

I finally made it to the second aid station. I was a little out of it but not too bad. I was cashed for any sort of steep climbing though, and the next section was called the 8 MILES OF HELL. All up. Steeply. I could have kept going but it would have been pretty dumb to push my bike for the next 8 miles at a snails pace. I had already done what I could tell was a TON of climbing with my 200 pound self. I decided to call it good as I had done 33 miles in 6.5 hours. I figure if I hadn't gotten on the wrong trail early and added a bunch of miles (6-10 depending on who you ask) and climbing I may have made it up the next 8 miles and THEN quit...haha!