Dakota Five-O

Clayton, Lona, Kim, Sean and myself made the trip to Spearfish for the five-0. We stopped at our friends farm for Thursday night and spent a lot of Friday driving across South Dakota. On the way back from the movies late Friday night we ran into Mr. Fleck just arriving with a van of QBP and 1on1 peeps. We made plans to recon the course Saturday and went back to sleep at our camp at the city campground. Saturday we had a lazy morning and then piled into a van with 10 other people. After entirely too much driving, we piled out and rode the last 10-15 miles of the course. We started with a steep climb that brought us to the famed Tinton downhill course. It definitly woke me up after the long van ride with super steep inclines, very loose pea gravel, massive crevases and some big rock drops thrown in. After nearly loosing it several times I stopped at the bottom and watched Sean fall over in one of the ditches. The rest of the pre-ride was a blast: super fast and mostly downhill.
view from the back of the van

Saturday night ended with the pre-registration event. I received race number 71 and considered it a good omen as it corrosponded with the year I was born. A large spaghetti dinner topped things off back at the camp and Sean and Clayton downed some steak. I preped my bike and fuel bottles and hit the sack around 10:30pm.
Up at 5am , we downed some oatmeal and prepared to ride
.It was actually a bit cold warming up as you can see from what we are wearing in this photo.

The race went like this: The first three miles were on paved and gravel roads with a couple rollers in town and then a steady climb out of the valley to the trailhead. We started at a decent clip and accelerated up each hill. At the top of one of the first hills I found myself at the front with some guy on a Bianchi with worldcup colors. I could tell he was one to watch(found out later he was some hotshot snow boarder who ended up getting 2nd). After a couple miles I found myself being shelled out the back of the front group of about 15 or so people. I looked behind and didn't see anyone close behind. I knew it was a long race and that the roadies would have advantage on this section so I paced myself up the hill eventually catching a couple guys. We worked together until the singletrack was in sight. At this point I thought I was possibly in the top 20. I passed a couple people in the first single track including a Grandstay guy(roadie) who went down in the tight twisty stuff. After a bit we had a group of five and I got a bit of recovery time. Eventually we drifting apart. At some point I started catching people. Most of the passing was on some really steep climbs some of which I had to hike-a-bike. My pedal stopped working properly so that every time I unclipped my right foot in order to get back in I would have to stop and orient the pedal just right with my hand so that I could clip back in. The pain was building but I wanted to test my limits on this ride.
The single track in the five-o is unbelievably awe inspiring. At one point when I must have been near the top I looked to my right and peered down into a deep canyon with beautiful cliffs and lush forest.
I kept hydrated and fueled at regular intervals and let the pain levels build. I think I was at the second checkpoint when I asked a spectator what position I was in. Not hearing what she said I yelled back "thirteenth?" and she responded :"no , 3rd". Hearing that gave me some extra motivation and I pushed on. From about mile 25 to mile 35 I though I had seriously misjudged how hard I could push myself and had serious doubts about finishing the race. Somehow I pushed on. I had been riding alone for quite a while when I started to hear someone catching me. There was a ripping downhill section on doubletrack when he caught me. I could tell he knew the trail so I let him lead the way. We had some friendly words and rode a couple miles together until we hit the climb to Hobo Camp. He slowly pulled away up the climb as I felt like my legs might fall off. At Hobo camp I declined the offer of beer and then could not wait to see the downhill that I described in the pre-ride. That last part of the climb was the most brutal experience of my racing career. When I reached the top I knew I could finish the race. The last 15 miles was riding as fast as possible without crashing, mostly downhill with only a few shorter climbs to break it up. After cruising down into town the last little hill brought out the serious leg cramp. Thankfully there was noone in sight to catch me in my molasses pace. The final 500 meters were nice and flat and I spun in for 4th overall and 3rd in the 39andunder category, with a time of 4:02. Sean and Clayton rolled in at about 21st and 25th respectively.Fleck rolled in sometime later...
Ice cold river water cools my cooked legs