A special friend earlier this week, did me a huge favor & confirmed just because crazy & unexpected things happen in life, it doesn’t mean you are crazy. And that life has twists & turns you never expect, but doesn’t mean you can’t still embrace them and hold onto them for what they can be. They perhaps happen for a reason and are more unique & special than you realize.
That may be an apt description of life lately but it echoed itself in the Ore To Shore Hard Rock MTB race in Marquette, MI this weekend. “The Rock” as it’s often referenced is one of the biggest races I looked forward to each year. 48 mile miles of off road racing on one of the fastest & longest yet reasonably challenging courses of it’s kind in the Midwest. Attracting 700+ racers, it’s a great spectacle to witness.
Drove up Friday afternoon, and though the weekends adventures began rather uneventful, it wouldn’t stay that way long…. Arriving later, I missed pre riding with McFaddens & co. but needed a nap so I snoozed in the van waiting for registration to open & Kate & the kids got out & played/biked nearby. Just what I needed from the busy & at times sleep deprived week I had. Woke up felt great, got the registration package and then off to pre-ride the last 21 miles of the course.
Kate dropped me off & down the trail I went. As fast as the course is I was still surprised by it. I kept the pre ride in check due to a cassette & spoke issue I couldn’t fix until back to the van and the lower traction tires were alittle less than ideal after the rain left parts of the course slick. Nonetheless was having a good ride, clearing my mind for tomorrows race. About the time I’m entering this really beautiful outlook/overview of Lake Superior I get a text wishing me good luck for tomorrow. The timing of it could not have been better! I’m feeling great. Life is good.
(Smartphone picture & power lines don’t do this view over Lake Superior justice, it’s just really beautiful in person).
As I wind up the ride and about 1 mile from the finish, I can’t complain things are good…… then I hear a “pssssst”. What the..?
I pick up this errant nail that was laying in the trail, laying my rear race tire to waste. Aggh? It’s now 9:30 EDT, how can this have happened? So immediately, my mind starts to scramble, what am I going to do? I look through my phone to try to find someone, who knows someone, who could help. I start with Paul Belknap (who’s now in Pennsylvania) to get Tom Carpenter’s number. I call Tom to see if he’s got a tire to spare for tomorrow, he tells me his bike shop/sponsor QuickStop Bike Shop in Marquette is open til 10pm and should be able to take care of me. Sure enough, I got over there just in time. After some back & forth good natured harassing with fellow racers Nate Guerra & Tyler Gauthier about various tire selection, who they themselves were setting things up for Saturday. Nevin at the shop, helped me out big time getting the exact replacement Bontrager XR1 tire. He also ground down the chain stops on the cassette alleviating the spoke problem. Perfect help & timing. Can’t say thanks enough. Guess the pendulum of luck was swinging back my way.
Headed to hotel, shooting for a good 8hr nights sleep. Only that didn’t go over too well as I woke up at 1 & didn’t fall back asleep til almost 4am. Head spinning, just couldn’t sleep.
Got up at 7:30, had a slight headache from lack of sleep but nothing a shower, some stretching & food couldn’t cure. Put the finishing touches on prepping the bike , getting the kids ready and though alittle late we got to the start with 15minutes to spare. A quick warmup and to the start line… gotta love having been awarded a preferred start & getting in the first few rows rather than 700 racers deep. I see the bunch of the regulars and line up next to the always great guy Chad Sova and pro road racer Cole House. Di McFadden & Michele Peariso in front of me I wish them good luck and soon it’s “go time”!
At the start I know immediately I’m going to stick to Chad Sova’s wheel to get to the front & out of more of harms way. He’s savy & does a great job of getting where you need to be at the front. I felt the pace this year was really high right from the start. So I had to do a delicate act of managing a reasonable heart rate around 170bpm and yet stay toward the front. It went ok, but I was probably in the middle 30’s to 40th place in the early miles of the race. Not where I’d like to have been, as I was feeling alittle extended but otherwise fine.
As race entered the city of Ishpeming, things settled down abit, pretenders & contenders were starting to separate. I got in a good grove riding with Nate Lilly & Adam Swank and soon afterwards was able to do some passing on hills that followed and keep Chad Sova in sight.
It wasn’t long after this story gets even more interesting… Ore to Shore has a history of racers in the front getting off course. I always wondered how in the world is that possible? Well,…. let’s just say Josh Tesch & myself now know how & why. I was riding strong through a series of up & down climbs pulling away from others and finally passing Josh when we came to a road crossing. The most obvious way looked to be right so we took it. We tucked into time trial cycling positions and tried to catch whoever was out of sight in front of us…. about a minute or so of that and one of the least fun sights I’d ever seen in racing was about to play out. We came upon another road crossing and at that moment two other racers flashed by just in front of us, one was Tyler Gauthier. We almost T-bone them. Hitting the brakes & narrowly missing we quick did a u-turn and got back on course.
With the lost momentum we did our best to catch back on but Josh said he was at his limit and with 35 miles to go I wasn’t about to blow up trying to catch them myself. Riding in 13th place at that time eventually Darrin Braun & Mike Anderson & one other guy caught up we all worked together. Not much longer Todd McFadden & two other guys caught up as well. That stayed together pretty much until we came upon what they call “Misery Hill” an impassable rock hill that one has to hike their bike up. Some love it, some hate it. I don’t mind as it adds character to the race.
At the top it’s now just Todd McFadden, myself & two other guys. The four of us work together pretty well each giving a pull at the front. I start hearing this funny clink/clunk on my bike periodically, doesn’t sound right but it’s not slowing me down.
Our rotation goes on for the next 12 to 15 miles or so……and past another two water bottle handoff spots. Here’s the problem for me… No kate. No water. So in the back of my mind I’m downed my last oz of water and there’s 20+ miles to go, what in the heck happened. She’s really good about getting from spectator/water checkpoint to the next. So I’m visualizing this great race I’m having going from sizzle to fizzle. Fortunately, at mile 27. I see Scottie Kylander Johnson who’s doing water bottle handups for his wife Sara, Todd McFadden & other racers from Duluth. On a hope & prayer as I’m going by I ask if he’s got an extra bottle. Scottie’s like “Yeah sure! Hold on!” I coming to slow roll as he races back to his water bottle stash and come flying back with a bottle, hands it over and gives me a push to get going again. By this time Todd & the two others have 150 yards on me and I have to work hard in an effort to catch up – but they held up a bit for me AND I got water!!! (Yet still in the back of my mind… what the heck happened to Kate!?)
The last larger climbing portions of the race were coming up and we were doing fine but I could tell our pace was slowing. Having been low on water, I wasn’t able to help pull through as much as I would have liked & being only a group of four it needed a really good rotation of racers. On next to the last climb, two groups caught up to us lead by none other than Chad Sova. It added another 14-16 guys into the mix. That’s both good and bad. That’s extra guys to help share the workload but also the downside of more competition to try and thin out at the end.
Three or four guys stayed at the front for most of the next 15 miles of the race. I finally glanced behind me with 9 miles to go and was shocked to see no one behind me…. I’d been riding towards the front between 5th & 9th position of the twenty racers the group had been. So it was pretty wild to turn around and see half of them gone! It was like… who swooped down and took ‘em away. That’s how it is when racers fall of the pace, you don’t hear it happen. It’s just they eventually aren’t there.
I’m relieved at this point being thankful the group is down to this size and we’re within the top 20-25 racers. I’m thinking I just gotta hold it together this last 9 miles as I fought off leg cramps from the dehydration that was creeping in. At the 5th & final water handoff station, there was Kate & Hope. On the drive home we later figured that my misdirection early on with Josh had bypassed the first water station. Because she never saw me she waited around too long & missed me at the other ones until running into Scottie Kylander Johnson who filled her in on where I was.
With 4 miles to go, we hit the “sand dune” downhill section all together. It lead up to the last sharp climb in the race. I don’t know what’s it’s called but it’s hurts pretty bad by that point in the race. I managed to climb fine just in front of Chad but just when I hit the top, my legs completely cramped up. Quads, hamstrings, everything. Ugh! I had to slow pedal & stand to try to alleviate it but by that time the group of 7 or 8 was gone & away from me.
Now it was just a matter of racing as hard as I could the final 3 1/2 miles and holding off any larger groups of racers that might be catching up from behind. I didn’t work this hard and fight through this race to let that happen. I got to the final 1.5 miles where it opened up again and saw no one in sight behind me, breathed a little sigh of relief. I could still see the group in front --but barely, so I concentrated on that, the finish line and prayed for no nails in the trail like had happened the night before.
With good fortune & managing inevitable problems that came along I crossed the line to finish 23rd overall. Can’t exactly complain about that as I’m really happy with my race. Wasn’t the top 20 I was looking for but given the circumstances of racing without enough water & cramping I gotta be happy. I took first place overall in my 35-39 age group out of 110 and outside of Todd McFadden & one other guy, I was the third fastest guy over 35 – not a bad result for this little hobby/habit I have on the side…
Oh yeah, and that clink/clunking noise that started half way through the race? It was my rear wheel’s rim…. because a nail was stuck through the new tire pushing into the rim. Somehow never leaked air… how lucky was that. 
So plenty of ups & downs, and good fortune to balance the lesser fortune of the day. The cycling gods had to be with me.
Had a great time catching up with friends & fellow racers afterwards, swapping race stories. Finally got something to eat, jumped into a cold Lake Superior with the kids and then headed home. Tired, more than alittle beat & exhausted but a very good time had. Got alotta people to thank in helping have made this years Ore to Shore so great. If I missed mentioning you directly in here you still know who you are. Thanks a million. :)
At the beach….. Daddy & Aaron Cooper Douglas…
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