Cascade Cream Puff Race Reports

Race Report by Kathleen Meyer

My first lap was awesome. Feeling great, able to keep my heart rate down just as planned. The downhill was fantastic. My best ever ride on that singletrack. I didn't think I could finish a lap in under 4 hours but records show mine was 3:46.

I figure my stomach started going bad on lap two before the second aid station. There I asked for some tums and a guy from Santa Cruz dug out some gaviscon. Still able to climb, just not eating much. Having had stomach issues and dizziness for the two days prior to the race I figured this wasn't too bad. On the singletrack I started to get dizzy again and didn't like the thought of going all the way down feeling that way. I opted to stop at aid 2 and enjoy the people I knew as they came through.

All in all, this is the most difficult one day event I know of. I had a blast and even though I didn't finish I did win, a custom single-speed frame! Some would say that rounds out my collection of bikes but Jeff would disagree, there's still a cross bike missing! Don, who runs the CCP says I need to come back next year just to race it. I'll have to think about that after I ride it for a couple of months!

Stats;

Jeff finished on his single-speed in about 13 hours. Cramping since hour 6 or 7, he figured he would finish even if he had to walk the third lap!
Jim Kelleher finished and took 3rd place in the vet cat.
John Hillstrom (takes a month long vacation before the race and doesn't train) finished well.
Rich Henthorn decided to complete this year and he did just that (better color hat this year!).
Karen Kinser didn't finish this year but was determined enough that she completed the third climb to aid 2. Rather have them tell her she didn't make the cut-off than to stop on her own. Next year!
Steve Sprague had a different sort of mechanical this year. Probably ate at the same place I did on the way up north.
Matt from the Spokemen bike shop finished in under 10 hours.
Stella Carey crushed the women on her single-speed with a time of 11:01.

I knew more people there, too many to list. Great showing from the bay area!

Kathleen

Race Report by John Hillstrom

I know, the Cascade Cream Puff (CCP) is now ancient history but due to a couple of requests for a ride report, and the fact that I can only now sit at a computer (due to saddle soreness) and type some 3 weeks later, here's a quick "race" (ride) report.

First, if you've never ridden in Oregon (which I hadn't), you gotta go. I thought the actual loop the CCP does is among the top 5, if not the #1 rides I've ever done. It's 33 miles w/ about 6,000 feet of climbing over 17 miles on fireroad and 16 miles of singletrack descent. Did you get that, the entire descent is singletrack and the finest XC geek singletrack it is! To give you and image, a middle section is called the Jedi Forest. And the climb is all middle ring fireroad.

So back to the report - I carpooled up w/ some folks that Kathleen Meyer hooked me up with who were both very cool and we got up to Westfir in time on Saturday to shuttle 1/2 the descent and scope it out. Thank god we shuttled - it was HOT out there. Very unseasonable for OR I guess but it got me jazzed for the race.

Next morning, we had a 5:15 start so a 4 AM wakeup (that's about 4.5 hours before I normally get up!) The start was a cool roadie-style rolling start - slow to the beginning of the hill and then the people who were "racing" took it up a notch while the rest of us trying to survive just settled into whatever pace we thought we could hold for 100 miles. For me, that pace was very, very "measured" - in other words, I was out for a fun Sunday ride since I had been on vacation the previous month and unable to train properly and I haven't ridden 100 miles on or off road all year.

A key feature of the course is that it's a figure 8 with and aid station at the bottom of the 8 and one in the middle (which serves both riders ascending and descending and is about 7 miles up the climb), and one station at the top of the 8 (which is also the high point). So on the first lap, I was at the middle of the 8 aid station before I knew it and didn't really even need to do a water bottle swap or anything so continued up to the top and then began the 17 miles descent. Yeah, you think 17 miles of singletrack sounds great but try it at 8AM after climbing for 3 hours - the downhill was much tougher physically and mentally than the uphill (like Downieville in some ways).

I really took it easy on that first lap on the downhill and was psyched to come into the bottom aid station marking the end of my first lap - 1 down, 2 to go and I was feeling good. The triceps were screaming as were other downhill muscles but hey, they had a few hours of climbing to recover.

The second lap probably went better than the first - yeah, it took longer to get to the middle aid station and I definitely needed water bottle replenishment at each station, but it was still cool and I was feeling like the whole thing was going to be very doable.

Then lap 3 hit. And things got ugly. Given that each lap was around 3.5 hours, the climb for the 3rd lap couldn't have come at a worse time: 1st climb at 5 AM, second around 8:30, and 3rd climb from 12:30 to whenever... can you say HOT. I'm not sure if it was the heat or the accumulating fatigue but the climb to the middle aid station on the 3rd lap must have take 2 or 3 TIMES as long as the first 2 laps (and it felt like longer). I would stop every few hundred yards when there was shade and take off my helmet and hangdog over the handlebars and just REST and try to cooldown. About 3 or 4 people actually passed me looking reasonably okay in this section only to be spotted a few hundred yards later, laying in the bushes trying to cool down. It ended up being me and 2 other guys "leapfrogging" each other this way, slowly pedalling by each other as one another would have to take rest breaks. To make matters worse, I had picked up my Camelback for this lap which I had filled w/ ice and left in a cooler - turns out that the Mule is too well insulated for my own good as the ice wouldn't melt to give me water and it didn't provide any cooling on my back as I had planned. And I hadn't gotten full bottles b/c of the Camelback. So I was thirstly. I did eventually get most of the ice out though and into a water bottle or into my jersey pockets... Around this point, I absolutely SWORE I'd never do another 100 mile off-road race or anything else that takes > 10 hours to complete.

Anyway, I finally got to the middle aid station, drank a bottle or 2 of water, got 2 new bottles, and pedalled out of town. I think I only stopped 2 or 3 times (vs. 10 or 15 times on the earlier climb) on the way to the top aid station. Once there, I hung out for a bit talking to the top aid-station guy who's a FIXTURE in this race when I saw someone coming up the trail and realized, yeah, this was still a "race" and I shouldn't let some guy pass me while I was jawboning. So I pedalled off, without great enthusiasm to start the long descent.

The first part of the "descent" is actually really rollie with some of the hardest climbing in the race and me and 3 other guys were trading spots as one or the other of us would stop to recoup any energy to continue. I came out of this section in the lead and fairly blew through the middle aid station, rejuvenated by the thought that I had only "real" downhill left, and only 8 miles of it at that. Still, this downhill is pretty fast, and doesn't allow for ANY relaxing so I thought I would take it conservatively, given that I thought I might just suddenly feel the need to lay down and rest for a few weeks.

A few miles down the trail though, I heard some guy approaching behind me and realized, "HOLY SHIT, this is a RACE! I'm ahead of this guy and I should STAY ahead of him!" So I seriously cranked up the pace and road that downhill MINUTES faster than the previous laps, looking behind me the whole time for my mystery pursuer. It was GREAT! And then when I know I'm really, really close to the end, I hear this whoosh and my front tire goes flat - a quick calculation suggested it would be quicker to just pick the bike up and run it (I was hoping with everything I had that the finish was CLOSE but couldn't quite remember)... so I ran over a couple small rises and 100 yards away appeared the finishing tent. Needless to say, running into the finish carrying my bike got a good rise out of the crowd! My unknown pursuer road in not 1 minute back - the tire change would have let him pass me.

In summary... I still don't think I'd do it again. The trail was amazing - great views, superb singletrack, amazing variable foliage including a wild-flower display that was more tropical than Pacific Northwest. But that's all pretty irrelevant when you're just trying to keep pedaling. But if you ever get a chance, go PRERIDE the course. And if you're into this kind of thing, this is a GREAT race - very well supported and an awesome vibe.

Here are the results: http://www.puff100.com/race/results/results03.html

And if you've made it this far, here are some photos: First, here's a great photo of our own Rich Henthorn at Aid 3 with the great food spread on the side: http://forums13.consumerreview.com/crforum?14@93.uajfac8eFYQ.0@.efb9b18/47 And me lookin' XC Geeky... http://forums13.consumerreview.com/crforum?14@93.uajfac8eFYQ.0@.efb9b18/70

-John

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