Love and Hate for el Oso Grande

We came. We saw. We didn't rock the house, but we did OK, especially considering the shear insanity associated with 24 hours of racing on rigid singlespeeds.

I arrived Thursday before anyone else from the team. With a little help from a one of the Grand Masters riders from "Off the Porch" , I got the tent (AKA The Gaylord) erected and treated myself to a sub and a beer. Friday morning was slow. I enjoyed some breakfast tacos and tried to get pumped for a pre-ride. Eventually Bry and I pulled out for a lap with Solo-Bob. The lap felt good. This SS/Rigid thing will be OK, I was telling myself. I will always remember passing mile 5 that day. Why? This is where the hate starts...because it is the last time I saw my beloved Garmin Edge. Somewhere around mile 5, I flatted (one of the hazards of running rigid with comfortable air pressure in a tubed wheel in rocky terrain). So I flip the bike, yank the wheel and go to work. Bob and Bry catch up and laugh at my efforts to get a 26" tube on my 29" rim. Eventually, we get rolling. I start to hammer up a hill and realize I forgot to turn the Garmin back on. I reach down hit start. It wasn't there. WTF? So I head back down the hill and search the spot where I changed the tire. No Garmin. I back track. No Garmin. I head back up the hill. No Garmin. Unbelievable. Maybe a flippin racoon ran off with it. Bob and Bry had gone ahead. I rolled out sad and slow, having just made a hefty donation to the mountain.

I don't remember much else about Friday, except selling a rear x9 shifter to a guy for $50 (the start of the new Garmin fund), and Laird's repeated warnings over the PA that we were about to get rocked by the storm of the century. We got some rain and wind, but luckily nothing too bad. The course took it well.

Saturday came fast. Always does. Captains meeting...nothing new. The run would be shorter and the "parade lap" would be longer. I knew that meant a bunch of gearies flying by me, spinning out in 32x19. Whatever. I had the usual case of nerves leading up to noon accompanied by a few trips to the port-o-can. Noon comes, the cannon booms and we are off. I lead the run all the way around this year. That felt good. Grabbed the bike and headed out. As expected, quite a few guys blew by, but only one SSer in a tall gear, but he had suspension, so I knew he wasn't in my class. Off into the woods and the race was on.

I finished lap 1 in decent time. Trail was good. Body held up well. I did get passed on the last climb by another rigid SSer who proceeded to disappear. He ended up taking me by 45 seconds or so. So we had a race on our hands. As it turned out, we really didn't, at least not with those guys. The boys from Baltimore came ready this year, churning out some rather impressive lap teams. Well done.

I fully expected to rock lap two. Without the run and parade lap, surely I'd rock a 1:15, right? Nope. 1:19. Same as lap 1. Oh well. Maybe if I had my Garmin I would have known I was sucking and stepped it up a bit. Lap 3: More hate. A full night lap, starting at 11:00. Mile 5. pssssss. Flats suck. Flats at night really suck. So I pull the rear wheel, yank the tube, replace it w/ another 26er tube and go to town with the mini pump (note: maybe I should start carrying CO2 again). I get the tire to a pretty decent pressure, decide to throw in a few more pumps and then pssssssss. I ripped the valve stem half off. Deflate, remove tube, put in another (luckily, I had two). I got that one pumped up without much to-do and I got rolling. Oh, I nearly forgot to mention the moths...the Wild West Virginian Mountain Moths. Holy S. They swarmed my head lamp, adding to the joy of changing the tubes. So I ran a 1:48. The team's slowest lap. Much dissappointment there.

My Lap 4 started at 5:30, later than expected. Daybreak was starting to crack. Still needed lights for 1/2, maybe 3/4 of the lap. I never got the "ah, the sun is coming up, I can rock it now" feeling, and the lap time shows it. 1:33. It was abundantly clear that 1st place was out of reach, probably long before this point. Dirt Church had caught up quite a bit after my flat lap, and we really wanted to hold second. Luckily, we were consistent enough to pull it off.

Around 11:30, we weren't even really sure if I needed to go out for a 5th to hold onto 2nd place. I had no idea how long Dirt Church had been out on their lap, only that D-Unit would be in soon and I needed to make a decision. Secretly, I really wanted to go out. I wanted to lay down a decent lap time to make up for my lackluster performance. I also didn't want us to have missed 1st by a full lap (we weren't far from that). So out I went in traditional Kevin last-lap form. It wasn't super fast, but it was the team's fastest lap, @ 1:16:60 (edit: that's what granny gear says, and it looks better than 1:17, right?). In the end, I had three of the top ten fastest laps in SS/Rigid. Davek had one, so Huevos netted 4 all together. D-Unit and Bry had the 12th and 13th fastest. Not bad. (none of us where anywhere near the top 20 overall fastest). Huevos took 2nd Place in SS/Rigid. 28th overall.


I think 4 Men's Sport teams beat us. Hopefully they got the same ration of shit that we got last year. I wish them all luck with their decision on what class to race next year.