The Comstock 550

 After a few days of sleeping, I'm feeling human enough to decribe the Comstock Epic 550...

The Trans-Nevada Trail (Comstock Epic 550) is just that - a race across Nevada, East to West, on dirt roads. Ten of us signed on for this adventure, hired a shuttle to drive us and our bikes across Nevada, then began the sufferfest at 6am, June 10th.

Left to Right: Neil Beltchenko, Kurt Sandiforth, Blake Bockius, Zak Tourville, Alex Alexiades, Matt Reynolds, Forest Baker, Paul Ress , Isaac Chilton.

We were mostly worried about the heat and wind. Forest adopted the Plum's "Sombrero Style" and I had my standard hooded long sleeve. Everyone else was packing their sunsleeves and extra water.

As it turns out, Rain, hypothermia, and mud were our major issues (besides the Heinous Headwinds...). Paul and I are the only ones pictured with sleeping bags - these veteran racers go light! I think at some point everyone felt undergunned in terms of dealing with the weather, except maybe Neil, who was fast enough to avoid the rain altogether. A couple experienced racers suffered mechanical issues and had to bail.

The Highway start. Matt and I turned to each other at this point and said "that's the last time we'll see those guys!"

Thanks Matt for the photo. There was a couple mile stretch here of sand (I walked the bike on flat ground). Note the wind farm in the distance.... Those babies were spinnin'!

The middle of Nevada has a very remote feel. At one point I think I pedaled 100 miles without seeing another human. We passed through a gate, off a "main" dirt road. Not sure what this sign meant, but it sure added to my "I'm going to shrivel up and die in the middle of nowhere" feeling.

Typical terrain. All this route, besides Ophir Pass, was incredibly ride-able. If it weren't for mud or headwinds, it would be really fast, too.

Evening of the first day. I caught up to Isaac and Alex (briefly) and had some company for a while. I was getting super exhausted and tired, and Alex said something like "yeah, I might want two hours of sleep tonight" and Isaac replied "I don't know if I'll sleep at all".... That's when I made an excuse for stopping, let them go, and curled up into my bag for an indulgent 5 hours of much-needed sleep. I think I've figured out its possible to be relatively "fast" by pedaling slow but not really stopping... Maybe by next year I'll have the fitness to pull that off. For this event, being on the move for 16hrs each day destroyed me. These dudes are athletes!

More typical Nevada. This was at a "T" in the fenching. If you look closely you'll see a dead horse in the upper right of the photo - I'm assuming these poor guys were looking for water and didn't find it. Again, this was not comforting... I nervously re-checked my supply of food and water then sprinted off. Yikes!

Weather in the distance. This was heaed up Ophir pass, where I had to hunker down in the bivi sac as I got dumped on, thunder and lightning adding to the excitement. Fortunately, the rain stopped for long enough for me to get up and over the pass. It sounds like Alex had to do that in the dark, in a whiteout.. yikes!

Trying to look chipper (and failing).

My god it's gorgeous out there!

You can see the mud starting to cake to my wheels... I only had to walk through a few miles of mud - last year the racers had it much worse. 

I took this in the bathroom at Middlegate, after eating a huge burger. I was pretty blown away by how haggard I looked. Only 200 miles to go! I kept pedaling through the night, making it to the outskirts of Fallon - my saddle sores started at this point, and the adventure changed from "really hard, exhausting work" to "character building torture".

 Riding into Fallon the next morning I was out of the saddle the entire time, I simply couldn't sit down. I bought duct tape and scissors and rigged up my sleeping pad like this. It "hurt less" and allowed me to continue.... Neil tracked me down at this point on his drive home - we had a brief discussion about how this was going to "rub in the wrong places" (which it did). I could tell by his expression he knew the suffering that would soon ensue.

By the time I arrived in Tahoe, this is the seating arrangement that hurt least. Putting as little weigh on the seat as possible meant my wrists and knees took the majority of it for the last 200 miles, so they of course became aggravated. My left Achilles swelled up with fluid. But look at how pretty it is! Good times!

I think my official time was 4 days, 11 hours. That put me in 3rd place (though it would have been 7th if the other riders hadn't bailed). Neil, who won, rode it about 2 days faster... Wow!

Lessons Learned:

• I'm psyched on bikepack racing! After climbing El Cap 25 times (and feeling "done with it") I've been looking for different challenges that get me into wild places and situations. There are many similarities between bigwall climbing and bikepack racing - it's refreshing to be out of Yosemite valley, seeing new areas, meeting new people, and covering lots of terrain.
• I need to do more really long rides in the months leading up to an event like this. While my cycling fitness has improved greatly in the last 6 months, I only did one 12-hour ride, and my body was NOT used to sitting on the bike for so long. Ditching the heart rate monitor and simply going riding all day will be way more fun, too.
• As with climbing long routes in the mountains, there's some artistry and some luck involved with "going light" - bring less to do more, but still make it home. It will be exciting to see how little equipment I can get away with, once I'm confident I can pedal huge stretches without stopping (definitely not there yet!)

6/28/16:  -----  12 hours of Temecula

I raced the 12 hours of Temecula on June 25th, despite some pain in my Patellas that seemed to be getting better but was still making itself known. I'd already registered and reserved the campsite, so thought I'd go "check it out" and bail when stuff starting hurting too much. The course was fun! (I'll be going back). It was a hot day, and I think a lot of people bailed as a result. I drank twice as much water as I expected, but just kept pedaling and slowed down before I crashed and burned.....

My guess is a lot of the fast riders bailed because of the heat, because i ended up 3rd overall and 1st place singlespeed. My first legitimate "win"! Wahoo!

6/7/16:

Photo: Janel Caton

I didn't think I'd be interested in cross-country racing. The races are short, which means everyone would be going really fast (except me), or so I thought. My good friends Jeff and Janel Caton were going to be racing, so I signed up.

During the Pine Nut in Gardnerville, my first MTB race ever, I got lost, but ended up 2nd place in cat 2, age group. Some of the "Sierra Eastside Racing" did very well, earning first place finishes. Good work, team!

We then raced "Ridin High at the Ranch" in Susanville - an awesome and difficult course. Jeff had ridden the course the day before, and warned me about the hills... Sure enough, I buried myself early on and suffered greatly. Ben and McKenzie crushed first place, cat 1, finishes.

Next up is Nationals, here at Mammoth. I have vowed to rehearse the course to death, giving me every advantage possible!

The SEMBA Race Team at Pine Nut - great to ride with these guys and gals.

Ride around Lake Tahoe

 Tony and I rode the Tahoe Rim Trail (and connectors) around the Lake. We had a couple gpx tracks, which were very similar with only some slight variations. We followed (for the most part) Matt Reynolds track - info here.

Huge sections of the Tahoe Rim Trail are open to mountain bikes. It was refreshing to be up in a Sierra Alpine environment on a bike. Amazing, actually. I think if I were hiking I'd be pretty annoyed by the bikes, but not any more than horses and all their crap on the trail...

We started at Big Meadow trailhead, thinking we'd get the difficult part out of the way first, and have a bunch of downhill at the very end. I think this was a good start/end location - there's a campground near the trailhead as well (though no food).

 Our first view of the lake. this would be from around the "7-oclock" position.

Single track and Mountain Dew.

 Lots of rocks..... I really don't want to know how many miles we essentially carried our bikes over granite bowling balls. I kept pouting "I like to ride my bike".

Despite the hours of tortuous hike-a-bike, we found ourselves in some gorgeous locations.

This sums up my feelings concerning the Rubicon Jeep trail and surrounding area. It was hard to stay psyched (but look at the view!)

Our lat bivi spot was pretty cool, but the other two nights we just kind of stopped once it got dark and we were exhausted.  This was a spot that wee passed by, unfortunately. With more time and knowledge of the area, one could camp in some stunning locations.

After Heavenly ski resort the TRT wound around the east side of Monument Peak - views down into Carson/Minden. Keep your eyes on the road!

The morning of our fourth day, descending down towards big meadow. This wass on a Sunday - we were blown away by how empty such an amazing trail was on a weekend. The crowds tended to be within a few miles of the pavement, so it was easy to find some solitude.