Ever since I found a 2014 Cowboy Tough race report describing the bike from South Pass City to Lander, I knew for almost certain we'd be repeating that section during our race. It looked challenging and like not much fun. On the plus side, it wasn't too many miles and the navigation should be simple. And I was prepared for the singletrack down to Sink's Canyon. Still, that didn't keep me from proclaiming a name for this leg in advance...
Leg 7 - "Hell Bike"
[36 miles of biking, 60% gravel, 25% paved, 15% singletrack, 6400' gain and 8100' loss]
Let's lead in with an irrelevant but neat photo - John found a stash of bike boxes in TA the day before we arrived. They didn't have bikes in them and we wouldn't see them until much later, but it's a good look at our decorations (and I remain pleased to this day that John added handle straps to mine):
Our bikes were transported outside the boxes from the last TA. John woke up from sleeping in the truck that morning and came to find out if we were there yet. He said he knew we were in the TA because Leslie had found her bike and set it upright before she went to sleep:
Below is the barn where we had our morning nap. All the racers were quiet and considerate, and I didn't hear most of them leave (the barn was close to deserted by the time I woke up). If only we had thought to prop open that dang door that creaked in the wind all night! I slept decently anyway, but I think not all of my teammates were so lucky. It was certainly nice getting off our sore feet for a couple hours.
Up and at 'em!
John took a couple photos before we realized he was there. Hi John!! Big hug, it was great to see him. OK, I should keep getting ready.
A couple teams were walking around wearing orange bibs, and we learned they had been given the option to skip the second trek and move to "short course" status. Sounds like an excellent way to give teams a way to stay in the race if they didn't think they were going to make the cutoff. We also thought it was helpful seeing orange bibs so we could tell who we weren't competing with now. We might have seen Wedali walk in as we were leaving? Otherwise, most of the teams back here with us at this point were wearing orange bibs.
We were happy to make the 72-hour cutoff by a few hours. Our progress getting here had been steady, just enough to stay comfortably ahead of the "virtual cutoff" for each leg. We had metered out just enough sleep and stops as we went, and I felt quite fresh and ready for the next half of the race.
I spent a few minutes in the warm bathroom putting on tape in strategic places and applying a Chamois Butt'r/Bag Balm mixture. I've had issues with butt sores this spring/summer with all the bike training, and I decided I should try aggressively addressing it for this long (basically 200-mile) ride.
We got our stuff together and celebrated making the halfway cutoff with a shot of whiskey - or Pepsi, but that sounded gross, definitely whiskey for me. I'm more of a rum girl usually, but what the heck. Leslie decided not to let me drink alone, thank you lady! Cheers!
Bottoms up!
The whiskey was quite strong and made my lips numb for a few minutes :) A good way to wake up, I guess!
It was time to ride, starting up a hill and past the mine. The gravel roads over to Atlantic City went better than expected. The hills were steep, but nowhere near as bad as they had looked from inside the truck while driving through during scouting.
We stopped to check out the restaurant in Atlantic City, but it was too late for breakfast. They were out of food - someone should have warned them that they might have more business this morning. Dave said we should have slept on their porch instead of in the barn and gotten up to eat when they opened; now that would have been a fine idea. Instead we bought drinks, I drank some Spiz, and we moved along.
Leslie towed me up to the highway, clicking off checkpoint 13 along the way. It was a nice morning for riding. I think we were all starting to relax about the race clock - as long as we kept moving methodically we had more time to work with to get to the finish line.
Next was a big, fast, paved downhill where my teammates were much braver than I am. They waited for me at the top of the next hill. We turned up on Limestone Road, a nice grade for climbing. During a break in the shade of a tree we talked with a nice man in a truck who stopped to ask about what we were doing.
Then came a long, long downhill on gravel. Partway down we had a group discussion (it was probably more of a Marcy lecture) about not riding so far ahead of me. The sheriff stopped by while we were in the middle of that to see how we were doing. Just fine, sir! He basically escorted us down from there. Did we look like we needed help? Was he watching to be sure we stayed together? Who knows.
Some northerly travel toward Lander:
We stopped at the bottom so Tom could try to sleep. Apparently he had not been sleeping nearly as well as I had during our recent naps. Sure, let's find a shady spot. For once I didn't fall asleep, as the ants and flies tickled my skin. I believe Wedali passed us here, and we wouldn't see them again for the rest of the race.
Tom said he was ready (not sure he managed any shuteye) and then there was a brief miscommunication where my team was waiting for me but I thought I was waiting for them, oops.
Checkpoint 14 was at the creek crossing, another one down. The moving water was above my knees, so I watched Leslie for tips on the best way to carry the bike. That worked OK, and I was happy to hand my bike over to Tom after he had crossed and came back to help. Thanks Tom!
Ah, so, here's where it got difficult. The road turned straight uphill and we basically walked up a wall. We pushed the bikes up the steep, steep slope. Oooph. It was a lot of work, and starting to get warm. Yep, this is one reason why I wasn't looking forward to this section. My legs hadn't recovered and/or adapted yet to the climbing, so it was some effort to try to stay with my teammates.
I worked on different ways to push my bike uphill - hands on the bars with my arms straight forward, pulling on the seat, pushing the bike forward with the seat. It was a long climb. We had some tiny bits of riding here and there (more so for Tom and Leslie). I was at least happy with the interruption of some trekking into the long bike leg.
Finally to the top of the first climb. Now to find out how the downhill is going to go (I had always been most concerned about the downhill biking coming into the race). This descent was on half-decent road with some kinda-fun swoops in places. I tried to stay on the bike and mostly succeeded. Leslie followed right behind me, and at the bottom she said "that was fun!" - excellent! I didn't make that too tedious for one teammate anyway.
We must have crossed a creek at the bottom, but mostly I remember that we started climbing again. My legs evolved to feeling semi-OK and I was hopeful they would recover real climbing ability in the next day or so. We hiked the bikes up the hill, meeting another team along the way for a bit of conversation.
Reaching the top we were rewarded with a strong tailwind, which kicked up enough that a little swirl pushed me up the next small hill, fun!
Now for another steep downhill, and this one was too gnarly in places for me to ride. I pulled over to let the other team go past. As I was running down the road, one of the racers on the other team fell (behind me). I'm not sure if I was causing congestion, but I was trying to stay off to the side. He might have been the one who said he was riding without functional rear brakes - yikes! That doesn't sound like fun.
My teammates waited for me, more rocky downhill, and eventually we reached a place where I could see that we were almost there (i.e. almost to Sink's Canyon and done with the worst part). Leslie led down the last descent, helping me with good lines that I could ride. That worked well (thank you Leslie!) and soon we were at the last creek crossing.
Photo from scouting:
One last uphill push, and it was another bear of a climb. At least it was a baby one compared to the Mama and Papa Bear climbs that we had already conquered.
Good place for a photo shoot of the team:
Almost there... and in the background is the hill we just rode down:
Adventure racing teammates and friends:
Checkpoint 15 was at the top of the climb, yay!
Next up was the Brewer's Trail. I'd ridden it twice before, so the team let me lead. I took off along the singletrack, more comfortable because I knew what was ahead.
It starts with a nice traverse:
Then a small rise up to a rocky section. We stopped in here to let a couple women riders (non-racers) come through. We got to witness one of them tip completely over down the side of the hill - ?! At least she was OK (and laughing about it), but it wasn't doing anything to make me want to try riding the harder stuff. I was content to know where I wanted to get off and run, and where I should be able to ride.
Run and ride I did, hoping to do it fast enough that it would be a fun experience for my mountain biker teammates. This was, after all, the only real singletrack of the whole race. I pushed across the rocky saddle, gaining some momentum:
It was a fun ride across the top and over to a big field where Lander appeared in the distance. We were so close to making it into the trees before rain hit us, but we didn't quite make it. We stopped immediately to don jackets so we wouldn't get soaking wet.
We rode more carefully over the wet rocks, and the rain stopped as quickly as it had started. Checkpoint 16 in the woods, now we just have to get down the hill.
The bike trail map I had found in The Bike Mill a couple weeks before. I had been all over these trails for training and scouting:
As we approached the trail network we made sure everyone was close enough to follow each other through all the upcoming intersections. I turned right onto the Aspen Grade, which I knew was a bit more direct than staying on Brewer's to the bottom. Aspen Grade dropped down through a gully that I wasn't fond of (more running with the bike) but it was faster than the switchbacks covered in river rocks.
A couple more quick intersections at the bottom, and I was psyched not to need to figure this out as we went.
Soon we were crossing the bridge over to Sinks Canyon Campground and riding up to the paved road. Yay for a fun ride down! We rode down to the TA at Sawmill Campground, where John was waiting. Hi John! I bounced around, all excited that I had improved my descent time (from the trailhead to Sawmill) to about an hour. The team was like, "hey John, Marcy's been sandbagging up to now, you should have seen her ride down that hill!" Very kind, y'all.
After leg 7 (bike #2, CP17) = 76:09:34, 32nd place
36 out of 200 almost-consecutive biking miles down and looking forward to a brief change of pace before we got back to riding "for real". So far, so good!
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