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Race Report by Rich Henthorn Start with my results for those not interested in crappy details: DNF - Crash I went for a scrape about 10 miles into the 16 mile race. I walked around for a few minutes to see how badly I was damaged. Everything worked, but my left elbow felt kind of funny, so I decided to play it safe and go get checked-out and cleaned-up. Luckily for me, it was not very far from the start-finish area. I have a few ow-ies on the left side of my body that are sore, but I should be back for NVDC. Jeff Hane finished on his borrowed bike, about 15 minutes behind the winner (I think). Kirsten came in fourth after a hard-fought battle with the eventual 3rd place finisher, 6 minutes behind the winner. We get down there on Saturday to pre-ride the course and find out that they decided to run it backwards this year. At first, I didn't think it would be a big deal since the course consists of a lot of roller-coaster singletrack. Well, it turns out there's a reason, after running this race for 11 years, that they ran the course counter-clockwise - because you can actually race in that direction. Clockwise turned out to be a test of survival for all but the "Alpha" pack at the front. First, the mile 1 or so used to be pretty wide with 3 or 4 good lines, allowing racers to get their bodies used to the hard effort and jockey for position before the singletrack. Not this year. After about 20 yards, the course takes a hard right, then down a short hill, then between two tree-stumps with a large rock in the center of the one line. Not one GOOD line, but a single line. You cannot go around the stumps. This seemed like a dangerous crash waiting to happen. As it turned out, at the start of my group, the crash happened after 20 yards at the hard right turn. Nothing serious, but it took about 6 racers down for a few seconds. Second, the course used to have some fairly difficult, fireroad climbs of the long grinder variety. The type where you could get into a rythmn, have some gel, and start to recover for the next lap. This year, these were all pretty boring downhill, except when I crashed at the bottom of one of these one lap 2 of 2, when a good sized rut came up and ate my front wheel. Third, there used to be a long, loose, pretty steep, fairly twisty descent that was sometimes scary and all fun. This year? A hike-a-bike that lasted like ten minutes. By the time I got to the top, I was wasted. I got back on the saddle and rode like a drunk for 5 minutes. The only positive from crashing out was that I didn't have to do this part a second time. Basically, it sucked. Some good things about Keyesville, is the terrain is kind of interesting. Roller-coaster type singletrack on dry, dusty trails, with some dirt roads connecting them together. When I asked the race promoters why they switched directions, she said, "Oh, no reason. We just thought it would be neat to try it this way since this is our last year organizing the race." That's not what I wanted to hear. Neat? Not bloody likely. You just ruined a perfectly good race. Later, I heard that they had just decided to change it the week before the race. Why exchange a fun singletrack descent for a boring dirt road downhill? A useable fireroad climb for a crappy 10 minute hike-a-bike? I guess that's neat. Oh well, if this will prepare me for the death march climb out of the valley at NVDC, perhaps some good will come of it. -Rich
Race Report by Jeff Hane As some of you may remember I cracked my Ibis so my mechanic bravely offered to let me use his Trek 8900 for the race. It's an 18 inch which is the size of my Ibis so it sounded like a good plan. Heading out on the pre-ride on Saturday it became quite obvious that whoever measured these frames must be a man because this frame felt much smaller than my 18" Ibis. I decided I would call it "Mini-bike" :) Anyway, it actually didn't feel to bad on the pre-ride so I was somewhat hopeful of having a decent race although I was little sketchy about racing on a bike I had only rode for 8 miles. I was reminded of all the good and bad things about a aluminum hardtail, at close to 180 pounds aluminum just punished my body(at least compared to steel). So the big news what that they had decided to run the course backwards from previous years. This was definitely bad new that was confirmed during the pre-ride. There was a big(not huge like NVDC) long, dusty hike-a-bike section right in middle of the course. Nobody was riding this one under any circumstances! Finally, the race. I managed to get front line again and blasted off the line avoiding a major traffic jam that occurred due to an immediate right hand turn. I was in perfect position in the top 5 or 10 when we started hitting small inclines, not even hills. Well, it quickly became evident that my quads did not like "Mini-bike" afterall. Rich passed me early, probably within 2 miles of the start, and made a de-moralizing comment about "Mini-bike" and virtually crushing what little hope I had of a semi-descent performance:) After a few more miles and the stupid hike a bike and being passed way to much I just resigned myself to having fun and just enjoying myself with "Mini-bike" in the tight twisty singletrack. On the second lap, I was heading into a fireroad, downhill corner and there was a huge dustball standing beside the road, unfortunately this turned out to be Rich. I stopped for several minutes to make sure he was ok, he seemed somewhat dazed but otherwise still in one piece so off I went to finish. I would say at least 30 people in our class, I was well off the leaders but I think finished in the middle(the result weren't numbered and I didn't bother to even count) There looks like there are tons of trails to ride in this area so it might be worth a weekend trip to this area. There are also a lot of boulders in the area so if you are into bouldering there are lots of opportunities (although, I discovered the rock is really crumbly). And once you get outside of Bakersfield and near the Kern River the scenery is really great. jeff
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