Rasputitsa
Burke, Vermont
4/11/15
Well, it’s official. With the sound of a siren at 9 am on Saturday April 11th the 2015 race season began for this guy. Coming off what was a productive 2014 season in which I kept the blog silent it’s hard to know where to begin. For family and friends I will just quickly summarize my 2014 season. (Skip next paragraph to get right to Rasputitsa details…)
I stuck to endurance races, which will continue to be my chosen field of racing. In all, I only competed in 4 races, but 3 of those were new to me and all had their individual challenges. My season started with 6 hours at Burlingame in May. It hurt, I cramped a lot and it was a good eye opening experience to put 40+ miles of trail under my belt early in the season. In June I raced the Wilmington Whiteface XC race in upstate NY. It was a blast. Mostly consisting of gravel roads, the course was beautiful, and I can honestly say that race was a turning point for me. For the first time I really began to feel a love for climbing. Something clicked and I was able to settle into my ride more comfortably than I had been able to in the past. Next up was 24 hours of great glen. This was the planned peak of my season where I was moving into unchartered territory. I teamed up with Derek “Mad Skills” Skillings to compete in the men’s pair division. We rode very well over the 24 hour span and with 24 total laps we took home the podium. It was an incredible experience that I could write about at length (which I tend to do), but I will leave those detailed words for my return to Great Glen in August. Last up in the form of mountain bike racing was the Hampshire 100. This was my 4th time racing the 100 and the course was tougher than ever. With only a week’s rest coming off of Great Glen I wasn’t sure how I’d feel but I ended up having what I consider to be my best overall ride to date. Although the course was tougher than years past, with more elevation gain, I shattered my previous best time at the Hampshire 100 and placed 25th out of almost 250 entrants! After the Hampshire 100 I shifted gears to running and in early September I completed my first running race at the Squam Ridge Race in Holderness, NH. Boasting over 3,000 feet of elevation gain the course was a 12 mile mostly trail run up, and across, the Squam ridge. I ran very well and placed 2nd in my age group and 7th overall in a field of around 90. Never had I previously thought of myself as a long distance runner but something was working right, and I out performed my expectations. Following the ridge race my training tapered off and by December I was 10 lbs. overweight and in lazy mode again. By the end of December I had begun gearing up my gym training and began putting hours on the bike trainer. I also had the pleasure of joining a new team “State 9 Racing”. Since then training has been going fairly well as ive been preparing for the season ahead. Which brings me back to the purpose of all this… April 11th and the Rasputitsa gravel road race in East Burke, Vermont…
For weeks leading up to Rasputitsa the debates on gearing were endless. What kind of bike should I use? What kind of tires? What should I wear? How will the weather affect all of these choices? The name “Rasputitsa” is actually a Russian word to describe the semiannual seasonal conditions of the roads in Russia. Simply put, Rasputitsa= mud season. Coming out of the brutal winter of ’14-’15 the course conditions could easily range from frozen gravel, to peanut butter mud, to snow covered snowmobile trails. The course itself is a 40 mile loop that boasts over 4,000 feet of climbing. For months the organizers hyped the race as a “suffer fest”, which includes a legendary 2 + mile section, dubbed “Cyberia”. This section comes at around mile 30 and is more of a trail as opposed to a road. No one knew quite what to expect upon arrival. Would there be mud, water, or snow? How much of it all? There is a reason this race is referred to by many people as an “adventure ride”, and it was also one of the reasons it appealed to me personally. Plus, the idea of completing a long gravel ride with decent elevation gain in April was very appealing to help boost my training.
State 9 racing was very well represented at the race with I believe 14 of us lining up to take our shot at the course. Personally, this was much more of a training ride as opposed to a race for me. There was a lot of serious talent bidding for a podium shot and the bike of choice for this race was surely a cross racing bike, which I don’t currently own. I was very happy to be able to ride my XC bike as it’s the same one I will be racing on all season, so the more time I can get in the saddle this early in the year the better. The race was capped off at 500 entrants, which is the biggest group of people I’ve ever started a race with. Fittingly so, as the siren sounded and the race began, snow started to fall. The snow was complimented by a cold breeze. It was definitely spring, but this is northern Vermont, where winter and summer can coexist only 24 hours apart from each other on any given day. I took my position in the middle of the pack to start. I had very little nerves which was a welcomed change to my normal nervous routine. This race was all about training and enjoying my time back outside on the bike, and that’s a good feeling to have.
The race started in East Burke and headed north out of town on some paved roads before switching to gravel for almost the entirety of the race. Conditions were quickly realized once we hit gravel. Most of the time was spent on packed gravel with a thin layer of soft mud, and many water filled potholes littered across the road. The lead pack on cross bikes went out at a pretty fast pace and took advantage of the grip they could maintain on the roads. I did my best to keep my pace consistent while not becoming to frustrated with the few cross bikes that would pass me at higher speeds. As the course began to climb this became a constant balance. I could do well to keep up and gain time on the flat and especially downhill sections, but every time we hit a steep hill my full suspension frame had some trouble keeping up with the cross racers who were standing and attacking the hills. This was to be expected, so I settled in and did what I could to find my personal rhythm. The first 20 miles or so consisted of shorter climbs (less than a mile apiece) followed by descents of the same caliber. My first sign of trouble occurred a little after mile 20 when I started getting a cramp in my left calf. 20 miles is wayyyyyy too early to cramp. It was manageable, but a sign of things to come if I wasn’t able to get control of my eating and drinking habits the rest of the race. I downed some skratch and ate a few shot blocks and attempted to relax the best I could. I knew “Cyberia” was coming around mile 30 so I had to save face for that section knowing it would be tough.
After the initial climbing leveled out we reached a section where the gravel road followed a stream on the left and wound its way through low laying marsh land. With a place dubbed Cyberia ahead, this portion of the course deserves a name in itself. The road was muddy, with puddles and peanut butter everywhere, and the wind was relentless at times. One moment you wouldn’t feel a breeze, the next you’d get hit with a 30 mph gust pushing you sideways. At one point I was following closely behind a cross racer, we were on the right side of the road with a stream bed next to us on the side of the road. A large wind gust came out of nowhere and we both were nearly blown into the stream bed. With a loud and simultaneous “WHOAA SH*T” we were able to avoid what would have been a miserable fall into the cold water. For a little while in this section I was alone, which wasn’t very enjoyable, if there was any point in this race where you could really benefit by working together with someone this would no doubt be it. I knew a long climb was coming only to have Cyberia waiting at the higher elevation so I backed down the rpms a little bit to prepare for the final 15 miles or so.
The course suddenly began to climb out of the marshy windy tundra at a steady rate. I settled back into climbing mode. Once again, any time I had made up on cross racers behind me was gapped by the time I reached Cyberia. The climb up wasn’t very difficult, but steady and steep enough where I kept a steady rhythm but couldn’t hold off the lighter bikes on the way up. When we hit the section marked Cyberia the conditions were obvious, complete snow cover. Loose granular snow at a depth of around 4-6” rendered the trail unrideable, even to the fat bikes that were on the course. It is here where the race leaders dismount and RUN up the 1.7 mile section to the top. Most of us chose to get off and walk up the hill, using the time to stretch our legs out while getting pounded by the wind. I stopped at one point, and took a quick video and a few pics on my phone which is something I would normally never do in a “race” but it was funny to me to be walking in ankle deep snow pushing a bike so I wanted some form of documentation for that experience.
At the top of Cyberia was an aid station complete with a slumped over yeti costume, four girls in creepy horse masks dancing around, and homemade jelly doughnuts. The doughnuts were delicious, as I took my time eating while feeling like I was in a scene of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas watching the four human horses dancing around. I knew the worst of the climbing was over and there was less than 10 more miles to go in the race, the rest of the time I would push it pretty hard and finish strong. Coming down from Cyberia was similar to going up except instead of pushing your bike uphill you were pushing it DOWNhill. This was one of the few moments where I was happy to have a mountain bike. I was able to carefully ride down most of the snow covered trail, only falling over once. I passed a lot of people with skinny tires in this area. When the snow became too tough to ride down, I resolved to jog downhill with the bike. After about a mile of downhill we came out onto a dirt road, turned right, and headed back towards Burke which was a little over 7 miles away. I went from suck to blow and turned up the gas at this point.
The rest of the way I was in full race mode. My cramping was managed, my legs were tired but had plenty of juice left, and I was determined to work this section like a time trial. Thankfully, in my opinion this was the most scenic part of the whole course. The wind was still blowing, but not like it was on the other side of Cyberia and the dirt road opened up into farmland with rolling hills and mountains all around. I put my head down and labored in a high gear over the rolling hills, catching and passing many tired riders through this area. I was an encouraging feeling to be rolling at such a high speed, passing people who had passed me earlier in the race on some of the longer climbs. I expected to be chased through this area but it appeared no one at that time wanted to work with me so I just kept my head down and tried to empty the tank. The road turned back onto a trail that was covered in snow and dropped steeply down towards finish area. Once again, I was thankful to have a mountain bike here as I was able to balance and ride down this section where others were forced to walk. The trail turned left and it was a sprint to the finish. My original estimation of my finish time was 4 hours (knowing nothing about the course). Somehow, I finished in EXACTLY 4 hours and 4 seconds. I ended up 162nd out of 500 total, which is acceptable on a full suspension mountain bike for me this time of year. There are certainly things I could have done better, and time I could have made up in areas, but I did exactly what I wanted to do. Huge thanks to my State 9 team mates for their never ending wealth of advice, knowledge, and support on and off the bike. Thanks to our team sponsors, DG Cycles, Vittoria, RideBiker Alliance, and Giant who have helped us create and build the team in such a short time frame.
This is just the start of what’s going to be a great season for the team, and myself personally. I have quite an itinerary of races in the season ahead that’s filled with new challenges in disciplines that are still new to me. Uphill road racing, 24 hours solo, and various 100k and 100 miles races are on tap. I am absolutely in unchartered physical territory here and am excited for the extreme challenges ahead. These “races” are no longer about beating other people on a time sheet. My rival and biggest challenger is the space between my ears and no one else. Sure it’s nice to land on podiums, but that doesn’t happen until you beat that other guy, and he’s not backing down any time soon…
Cheers!
