Wait, what about the Gnar Weasels you ask. Great course, great race, it reminded me just how much I miss the Fort Rock Revenge. We need more races like this. I think everything else has already been said. Don't believe me, check out
Dirtwire.
Now where was I, oh yeah, the 12 Hrs of Millstone. Where to begin with this one? Lets try the Monday before. That's when I noticed the rear suspension seemed just a wee bit on the plush side. a quick post ride inspection revealed I had yet another broken frame. Let me see this not the one, two, yup third time I've broken an Orbea aluminum frame. all three times it was the chain stay, but this was the first time it was the non-drive side. This is also the 2nd time I've broken one just before one of Casco Bay Sports' 12 hour races. The first time I broke my frame it was just before the 12Hrs of Bradbury. I ended up racing that on my Redline single speed that I use for commuting. Unfortunately, that bike was ridden hard and put away wet a few too times this past winter and was in no condition to be ridden in the woods. I stripped everything off the bike and ran the frame down to
Providence Bicycle so they could handle the warranty. I was literally walking out the door chatting with one of the guys from the shop when it came up that I had a race that weekend. He said if I needed it they probably had a demo bike I could borrow for the weekend. At first I was just thinking, nah, I'll just borrow Russ' Redline (my loner bike the last time I broke a frame), but curiosity got the better of me and I asked them what they had. While most of their demo bike were had the Warrick location, they just so happened to have a Stumpjumper Expert(carbon) in size large at the Providence store. I suppose that would work. I filled out some more paperwork and found myself driving home with one of them plastic bikes on top of the car.
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| Big Thanks to Providence Bicycle for the sweet loaner. It looks fast, don't it? |
I put my wheels and saddle on it and got out for a ride mid week, but didn't feel comfortable on it. It wasn't until I swapped in my stem and bar which gave me a little over an inch more of reach that I started to feel good on it. I just have to remember to put all their stuff back on it before I return it.
Thursday rolls around and I got a few moans from my kids when they found out daddy was going to be away for the weekend. That is, until I told them they could come. They didn't even hesitate. Now, I've got my routine down for these things, but planning for the kids, especially their food, definitely added a little bit of angst to the trip preparations.
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| Sorry, Wiley, you've got to stay home and keep Traci company |
We rolled out Friday afternoon and got up Millstone a little before 7:00. Time to set-up camp and pre-ride the first half of the course before taking the kids up the hill to one of the quarries.
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| No, you cannot climb down there. |
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| OK, you guys can climb on the rock pile |
We got back down to the field as the sun was setting.
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| It seems like every year we get one of these. |
We made some dinner, hung out by the camp fire for a bit, and went to bed. A relatively uneventful night. Well... until I got woken up by our neighbor's kid (somewhere in the 1-2 year old range) who was throwing a tantrum because, well, I don't even know why. I could faintly make out the father doing his best good parenting job trying to be rational with the child explaining how crying does not get you what you want. Let me tell you. When it's 3 am on race day and you're camping with 100+ other people good parenting goes out the window and crying definitely gets you what you want. Just saying. Fortunately, unlike the Stoopid 50 I didn't have ribs that felt like they were ripping out of my chest and I was able to get back to sleep once things settled down.
6:00 am still came pretty early. Got up, made some coffee and enough oatmeal for me and the kids. Modigity was doing the first lap again, so I wasn't in that big of a rush. I still had to make sure the kids got taken care of before I essentially left them to fend for themselves for 12 hrs. Let me say right now, the kids were fantastic the entire weekend. At no point did anyone go MIA, I don't think they were a burden to anyone else and, most importantly, no trips to the ER. Before I knew it it was 9:00. everyone lined up and the race was on.
Oh, did I mention Dan Vallaincourt (So get this, I posted a race status to facebook and spelled his name Vallencourt. I felt kind of stupid to later look up his name in the registration and see it spelled Vallancourt. I almost used that spelling here until I tried to look up some of his past results and found it spelled Vallaincourt. Go figure) was also on a 2 person team (Birthday Boys) with a buddy of his (who apparently can't spell Dan's name) from ME. We had know idea who his partner was or how fast he would be, but Dan and pretty much anybody is a competitive team. Dan quickly proved the point by gapping Jon and Chris by the midway point and building a 2 1/2 minute lead on the first lap. On top of that he was turning a double to start the race. Determined to minimize the early damage I was in full on TT mode for lap one. Unfortunately, this resulted in some early flailing from trying to hard and an over inflated rear tire. By the end of my lap Dan had put another 3 minutes into us and just like that we were 5+ minutes in the whole.
I didn't see Dan at all while I was waiting for Modig to finish lap 3 so I figured his partner, Jared Goodness, was starting out with a double. I had know idea what he looked like though so I didn't know our place when Jon came in. My second lap was much better. I'd let a little air out of the rear between laps and had settled down a bit. It was still TT pace, just a lot smoother. When I came in to pass back to Jon, Dan was there waiting, so somewhere in one of our laps, Jon and I had taken over 1st pl. I wouldn't know until a few laps later, but apparently Jared is not as fast as Dan. Jon had made the pass on his lap and I put another 7 minutes into him. Of course, Dan was now back on course devouring that time gap.
When I started our 6th lap (my 3rd) I had know idea what the lead was. I just knew he was out there stalking. The beginning of the lap was going well and I was easily getting through traffic. Then I picked up a stick and had to stop quickly to get it out of the derailleur. In the process letting a couple people I had just passed go by in some tight single track. I was quickly back on, and got by the first guy fairly easily. I made it to rider #2 just as we were coming to a spot with an 'A' line over the rock and 'B' line to the right of the rock. The rider to the 'B' line and offered me the 'A' line for the pass. I took, but the little voice in my head was telling me it was a bad idea. Although the backside of the rock is not a huge drop, maybe a foot and a half, it's not a smoother roll off either. As I was coming off it, I could feel my rib injury from the Stoopid 50 getting re-aggravated. Unlike, then, this wasn't a pre-ride and I had to deal with it on the bike. Most of the remainder of the lap consisted of half breathing as I tried to minimize the stabbing pain in my chest if I tried to take a deep breath. The only thing that took my mind off of it was a glimpse on Dan not all the far behind me as we made out way down Switchback. I managed to hold him off but we were virtually tied after 6 laps with Dan right on my heals as Jon took off.
You know that feeling after a hard XC race on a hot day? When even the thought of food makes you want to throw up and you just want to curl up in a ball and die... I mean go to sleep? That's how I felt in the mid day heat between laps. I just sat on the ground having my kids hand me ice cubes trying to cool down and get my whits about me. My one solace was that Jared would probably be out there on my next lap. I wouldn't have Dan hunting me and could maybe dial it back just a touch and get stuff under control.
I don't remember many details from my 4th lap other than it didn't suck nearly as bad as the previous one. By the time I had finished, we had built a solid 14 min lead over the Birthday Boys. Unless we had a mechanical or Dan started turning triple laps we had 1st pl in our group well in hand. Of course, this is about the time my kids informed me that the Birthday Boys weren't in 2nd anymore and that there was another team just a couple minutes behind us. Now, I had known there was a duo-single team lurking back there since my first lap, but I hadn't given them much thought given the battle within our group. Now that we seemed to have that under control, attention turned to maintaining our 1st pl overall standing and our lead was only in the 2-3 minute range.
My 5th lap started out well enough but quickly turned into cramp management for the 2nd half after the climb to the quarry. At least it was starting to cool off a bit and the leg cramps were the only thing that was bothering me at this time. I also lost a little time with a nice mid lap endo when a rider unexpectedly decided to stop on a down hill corner to let me pass. I was right on their tail and had nowhere to go but OTB. Fortunately it was one of those magical endos where you eject off the front, land on your feet and catch your bike before it goes bouncing off down the hill. They were very apologetic as I politely tried to reinforce the idea that stopping in the trail is bad while I tried to get the chain back on. After 10 laps we had a modest 2 1/2 min lead over Sock & Buskin (Adin Maynard & Adrian Husemoller). I might have it backwards, but I'm pretty sure it was Adrian who was on my lap. By the end I was pretty sure I'd be having nightmares about the white shirted singlespeeder who was hounding me.
Through all of this, Jon just kept cranking out consistent laps anywhere from a 1/2 minute to 1 1/2 minutes faster than mine. It must be nice to be young. I know there was a reason I made him go first.
My 6th lap went down hill fast. Seated climbing and the hamstrings wanted to cramp. If I stood up at all the quads would cramp. It all came to a climax on the last switchback climb. I got off my line on the 2nd turn and ran into a little tree (at around 1/2 a mile per hour). Just enough to cause the legs to tense and bring on full leg lock. I did my best Frankenstein as I tried to dismount straight legged and continue making forward progress up the hill. I managed to get the legs to bend and remounted once I got to the top. By the time I finished the lap our lead over Sock and Buskin was down to just 18 seconds. I looked at the time, did the math and concluded I only had one more lap to go. If Modig can just hold him off I can rally for one more lap. My kids thought I just wasn't going hard enough and needed to go haahdah.
Modig came through in first place and it was back on me to maintain it. I had already decided I was going to preemptively dismount and run/walk the three steep hills on course. Not that this would prevent me from cramping. In fact, I knew I would cramp the instant my feet hit the ground. That idea was that I would avoid tensing up and inducing another full on leg lock. That and I've found cramps from walking work themselves out faster once you get back on the bike than the cramps you get when riding. I'd occasionally get a glimpse of the white shirted hunter on a trail I had just been on. I had know idea what the gap was, only that he was back there waiting to pounce. My strategy worked on the last hill and I avoided the complete leg lock of the previous lap. As an added bonus I had worked the cramps out by the top and was able to drill the last mile or so of the lap. I came in and sent Modig out on the last lap. The other guy in the SS duo, Adian I think, asked about is teammate. I told him I though he was maybe 30 seconds back. 2 1/2 minutes later he rolled in and sent him out to chase Modig down. I guess we still had a little something left to put some time back into the 18 second lead we had just 2 laps ago.
I had gotten word that there was a quarry just down the road with easy access for soaking/swimming. I quickly grabbed some clothes and head down to clean up.
Honestly, this would have felt so much better if the water was 20 deg colder. Don't get me wrong, it was still nice. It's just not like sitting in the river in Pittsfield, VT.
All cleaned up, I grabbed some food and waited for Modig to finish. Jon had been a horse all day long and consistently faster than his counterpart. As long as he avoided catastrophe he should be able to bring home the W. In the end Jon added almost 3 minutes to the lead and we finished with 15 laps in 11:21:54.
Official results are
here. If you think Our race was close, check out the solo singlespeeders. 1st and 2nd were just 21 seconds apart. Then again, it appears neither one went out for a final lap. Probably just some weirdness in the timing and they both came in after the 11 hr cuttoff.
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| Guy in a kilt, must be the singlespeed podium |
Oh, did I mention Chris Gagnon won the men's solo again? Yeah, that happened too.
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| Men's Solo |
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| Women's Solo |
I finally got around to feeding the kids at 10:00 pm. Surprisingly, they chose going to bed over hanging out at the campfire afterwards. I stayed up 'til about 12:30 before calling it a night.
The next morning was a quick breakfast, cleanup, pack and hit the road. Last year, Jon and I had sandwiched a ride at the
Green Mountain Trails in between a couple of breakfasts at the Pittsfield General Store the following day (hence this year's name 2nd Breakfast). That wasn't happening this year. I think both me and the kids, just wanted to get home. We did do a little detour over to the Quechee Gorge and grabbed another breakfast at a place right next to it (don't worry, Jon, the breakfast wasn't that good. You didn't miss anything)
For all the success of the weekend, the real highlight was on the way home as I listened to my kids trying to figure out who they could get to do a 4-person junior team for next year. Maybe I'll just pit for them next year.
I can't say thank you enough to Pat and everyone else at Casco Bay Sports for everything they do to make this race happen. What an awesome weekend. Thanks for having me.
