24 hours of Big Bear, WV

by schmalz

Photographer:

Nathan Kraxberger

 24 hours of Big Bear, WV

6/13/09
by Kevin Brubaker
 
I will try to encapsulate my first 24 hour mountain bike experience into an "am new york" length article if possible. Some of what you are about to read really happened. Only the slightest amount of gratuitous exaggeration is included.
 
First of all, we had 3 teams all camping together organized by Steve Rosenthal and the Sid’s Bikes MTB team. (flawless prep except for forgetting salt): a sport 4 man, a coed 5 man, and an expert 4 man (which I was on) with Nate Something, Ross Something-else, both on the Sid’s Team, and Scott Slingerland (who did La Ruta with Rufus Pichler). These guys could really ride off road. Nate chose to do the race with a rigid single-speed 29er. Sick bastard. Apparently these races really chew up bikes, bike parts, and people so we had an entire bike shop/repair station all set up and a full kitchen with Michele, the wunder-chef preparing meals….toasted everything bagels with eggs, potatoes, and cheese, pasta, burgers, hunted deer (slightly exaggerated remember?)
We rode one recon lap of the course friday afternoon, had dinner, tweaked gear and got a good night’s sleep to the sounds of nature’s Ribbit-Cricket Symphony #6. We actually saw stars too for the first time in 46 years.
 
To give you a quick synopsis of how the race works, it’s basically a 4 man relay that starts at noon on Saturday and ends at noon on Sunday. The team with the most laps and best time wins. There’s all kinds of crazy classes: mens solo, women’s 2 "man", and fixed-gear-29er-rigid-one-legged-unicycle class. Everyone has an electronic swipe card to check in and out to digitally keep time. Under a large support tent, the check-in/check-out process happens and teammates wait in cue to transfer. You try to calculate the arrival of your teammate so there aren’t any time gaps in the handoff. This all sounds pretty straightforward until you add fatigue, sleep loss, random events and the required math skills to calculate your departure. One of the only rules is that every person on the team has to complete 1 lap. There’s no neutral support so if you have a mechanical out on the course, you either fix it yourself, get help from a fellow racer, walk or conjure a forest fairy with a work-stand.
 
About the course… 14 miles of the most varied, beautiful terrain I’ve ever destroyed with 2 tires: huge pine tree forests with high canopies and ferns… i was waiting for speeder bikes to come screaming thru with ewoks jumping out of the shrubbery to ambush us. I did get ambushed by a rattlesnake but I guess I wasn’t worth it’s venom. (not an exaggeration). One part of the trail hugs a ridge line where you can see out along the Appalachian mountains. Next, you’re bombing down a mile long, hand numbing, arm twisting, back breaking gorge descent that drops you into a wet riverbed. Climb out of that and hit lots of rock gardens (stone teeth is more like it). After that, there’s more climbing, some tight tree twisting stuff and then you come out of the woods to a rickety carnie-style ramp that takes you across the camp entrance and down into the start-finish corral. 
 
The race begins with a mass Le-Mans style running start of about a 1/4 mile. Thankfully I was the anchor. me+running= too much whining. Scott was kicking ass from the beginning, sitting about 8th wheel into the hole-shot. Unfortunately, he rolled in about 30 mins late on the first lap from two flats and had to ride the last 5 miles on his rim. My first lap was tons of fun, lot’s of energy, wanting to kick ass and show these ground pounders that a roadie can do it too. With the hardest part of the course in the last 4 miles, restraint is key…. of which I have little. I still finished a respectable 1:24.  The second lap was pure joy. It was completely dark by then and my first time to ever ride off road at night. It’s surprising how well you can see, even going fast, with a 500 lumen headlamp and bar-mount setup. You do have to go a bit slower and just trust that whatever is in the shadows on the trail won’t take you down or kill you. It’s hard to describe the serenity once you get deep in the forest. It is a truly unique experience not unlike a reality video game. All you have is the sound of your heavy breathing and a 9" 3D television set that’s throwing stimuli at you at breakneck speed. It was truly a fundamental existence. By now the course was starting to get sloppy and a bit torn up. Sections became more challenging but I was still on the bike 99% of the time. 
 
After my second lap, I thought, cool, that was fun. I’m ready for a beer and bed. In actuality, you have to eat, re-hydrate, drop off lights to the charging stations, clean the bike (they were getting pretty sloppy), and get a little cleaned up. By the time all of this is done, you really only have about an hour and a half to chill before you have to start getting set up again. I got about 30 mins of chair time with my eyes closed. Non racers (and probably some racers too) were partying it up all over the campground, shooting off fireworks and rocking out to Lynard Skynard. Putting on my damp kit again was an unenthusiastic experience that brought back memories of being 3 with a wet diaper.
 
Lap 3 was the one. It would always take about 15 mins for the legs to wake up and get into a rhythm. This never really happened. At around mile 4 (I never really paid attention to the mile markers until now), my lower back decided to say "hello." By mile 10, it was swearing at me like a short changed Pakistani cab driver. Something also about the WV woods: they’re very damp at night with a thick layer of dew collecting on roots, rocks, and frequent pungi sticks. I must have gone down 10 times. Sections that I never had to negotiate before starting taking more energy and focus. A little after mile 6 starts the mile long gorge decent. I’ve always had a problem with my hands going numb on the bike if I put too much pressure on them. I was in trouble. Half way down, I couldn’t feel them at all. I have the rear brake completely locked (I wore out a new set of pads in the race) and trying to feather the front as I’m barreling down this rock-strewn slip-and-slide. With my arms screaming and my headlamp bouncing all over the place, I come to the bottom. There’s a rather large drop that you have to pull up the front to clear safely. My arms didn’t listen. What followed was a perfect 180 degree somersault "endo", putting me face first into the mud and rocks. I was fine; cut up, bruised and out of breath but able to get right back on the bike. I’m a bit rattled and can’t help but show the course a little more respect. Mile 11 is the climbing capital you now have to spend for that downhill party from before.  At the top, I was in trouble. My body and mind wanted to stop the madness. The radiator was overheating, the head gasket was blowing oil, and the power steering on my Pinto was long gone. Pedaling triangles, I come up a short rise to see a group of tents with Christmas lights ablaze and some sort of blippy german der-schnauzer techno sound pollution coming out of a tin can. A half naked girl is covered in blue fluorescent painted stripes, dancing under a black light with a hula hoop. (really true…i think). The preposterousness of this sight made me laugh out loud, lifting my spirits enough to roll in right as the sun was coming up. She was my dashboard Hawaiian bobble-doll that got me thru hell. 
 
Seeing the sun again was a relief. I managed to get a solid hour of sleep before my last lap. I had to come in with a 1:35 or less lap time to keep us in contention for 4th in our class and 7th overall and to get Nate off to do another lap. The course managed to dry up some with the sun and that hour of rest did wonders. I popped 6 advil, loaded up with caffeine and managed a 1:28 lap. 
 
Being bike racers, we’re twisted in that the harder and more painful the race experience, the better it becomes (in memory of course) …just as long as it doesn’t break you. I definitely had some cracks but I was thankful for no mechanicals (which have plagued me throughout my mountain bike races) and staying injury free. 
 
If you like camping, bagpipes, mirages, and the taste of mud, I highly suggest trying a 24 hour race. Considering it took a week for my legs to recover, I won’t be doing one anytime soon but that solo thing does look sadistically interesting….
 
Results:
 
4 MAN EXPERT- “SIDs Bikes and Beers”
Nate Kraxberger (SIDs), Ross Anderson(Cycles54), Kevin Brubaker,(Pacifico)
and Scott Slingerland. They rode consistently solid laps throughout, and
finished 4th in a very competitive field stacked with locals. An exciting
battle for the podium ensued in the wee hours, as they gained time and
closed in on 3rd place. They came up a little short with Kevin riding a
fast penultimate lap and Nate finishing as anchor. They also came in 7th
overall just behind the all women’s “Dream Team” which included Olympian
and National Champ Sue Haywood.
 
5 PERSON COED- “Mud Sweat and Gears”
PA riders David Koehl, Curtis Byler, Jeff Morehouse, Jackie Hill, and Dave
Chomowicz (SIDs). At midnight they were in 6th Place and climbed their way
out of a time deficit to close within 1 min of 3rd by the 12PM cutoff.
 
5 MAN- “Lactose Intolerant”
Steve Rosenthal (SIDs), Ken Boy Gallant, Brett Schwartz, Don Kelly and
downhill racer Christian Eichele. Choosing a Yuengling rehydration
strategy, these miscreants took 11th. Big ups to Steve for pulling this all
together.
 

 
For anyone interested in competing in a 24 hour race, the "24 Hours of Allamuchy, NJ" takes
place a little closer to home on August 21-22-23.
 

 

14 Comments

Wheelsucker

Great article. pictures, and video. Especially after the last two days of bad mojo on here.

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