Checkpoint MC - Bad Mtn. Enduro - Dec 5th Report

[scar tissue]

Checkpoint MC - Bad Mtn. Enduro - Dec 5th report.

It's Monday AM, and I'm tired.

Eel, Thumbs, Kelsorat, Holeshot and I , along with several members of the TWMC group, showed up for the race. It was, how do I put it, COLD. FREEZING COLD, AND RAINING/ SLEETING. WINDY AND COLD COLD COLD.

I'm glad I brought my new vented gear :clue:
Eel, Thumbs, Kelsorat, and Holeshot and I showed up seperately Sunday AM, as it was way to cold to tent camp with our so cal gear. I ran in to Holeshot at the check in table but then never saw him again. Eel Thumbs and I pre entered and were on minute 52 while kelsorat was on 66. Good ,I thought, maybe it'll warm up a little. No such luck. We started out on loop 1 and my hands were freezing. everything else was Ok but I could barely hold onto the bike. We arrived at 2.9 ahead of time as usual so we waited and that let some warm blood get into my fingers. man that was painful . We contiuned on and everything was fine from there. Loop 1, IMO, was not very fun at all. just one whoop section contected to another whoop section. No real hills, no interseting terrain, not hard. just endless tiring whoops. :(

I resolved myself if loop 2 was like loop 1 I 'd just pull off and DNF. As it was really cold and windy to not be having much fun.

During our break between loops we all sat in our trucks with the heaters on to warm up. As we were slightly sweaty and losing body heat rapidly.

Loop 2, What a nice change. Loop two was light years better than loop one. (maybe not if you ask Thumbs, but this is my opinion.) We take off and start hitting some rocky hill climbs, tight boulder lined canyons, sandy creek bottom with lots of switchbacks. etc. The sleet-rain picks up a bit and vision becomes a factor, between the foggy lenses and roost it made things challenging when the going got nasty. Thumbs crashed on a hill climd and busted a radiator shroud. Crashed on another and dented his pipe, crashed on a third and did more pipe damage including punching a hole through it. :yikes: The loop went like this, Eel and Thumbs would pass me on the points we thought were between possible checks, Then I'd get to watch Thumbs crash, and catch and pass Eel while he slowed up to avoid being early. Thumbs would catch up and roll in while we were waiting at the resets with some new story. We leap frogged like this for the entire loop. Just to remind us of loop 1, they ended it with a long whoop section. I'll give em that one after laying out a great 2nd loop. :aj:

I was able to make everything with only 2 washouts in sandy corners.and one retry at a hill climb after Eel unintentionally cut me off as I was going to pass him. I think I did it to him earlier, again not on purpose. Kiwi's Jawbone adventure was much harder to ride, but for a race, unlike Kiwi, the hosting club actually wanted people to finish- survive.

Thumbs and Eel went out for loop three as the are both in a different class. I packed up and headed out before they got back. They'll need to report on that part.

See you all next Sunday at the next TWMC race. :yeehaw:

 

[thumbs]

I lost my back-up clock, my computer time was off so I rode bind off of Tim and Eric, I went over the bars before the 2.9 mile marker, I broke a shroud, crushed a radiator, broke a lever, destroyed my pipe (2 holes & huge dent), failed two easy hills, picked my bike up at least 10 time, looped out twice and my hands are still cold.

 

[the Eel]

Good report Tim .... sorry about the little cut-off there. :(

Many, many whoops on Loop 1, 2 and 3. Hell on the legs.

Loop 1 was pretty easy though the 1st check seemed to have caught a few people off the pace. I had a good 1st loop ... felt like my timekeeping was going well with the addition of a watch and rollchart for backup / verification when we got near a possible. I might finally have the system down .. no more burning easy checks ... ride with the computer diff time to within 2 tenths or so of the possible, then consult the rollchart to see what minute the possible is on, check the watch, and then roll in on the minute ! Like Tim said - the 3 of us would pass each other back and forth depending on where we were relative to the next possible. Tim had a really good ride from what I could tell and Tony just had one of those days ... he'll tell the story. KelsoRat also had a really good 1st loop ... I think he only dropped 2. The main things I remember from Loop 1 were the whoops and the cold. Rain on my goggles from time to time and they were constantly fogging up.

Loop 2 was very solid with some great tight rocky washes and a few tricky hillclimbs. Quite a few whoops again. The trials rockface downhill just a mile or so from the start was amazing. I can't wait to see the photos from that. I'm pretty sure I dropped 3 and change over Loop 1 and 2. I tried to get by Tim by going over a rockpile into a left hander and he skillfully block-passed me into the rockpile. Nicely done Scar ! :)

Loop 3 was thankfully short ... it was much colder for some reason. They started us out on the same trail as Loop 2, including the trials rockface downhill. There were some tough hillclimbs and downhills (I bulldogged one downhill) but mostly the hard part was the speed average through the long special ... 38 MPH. No way I could keep the pace through that mess. I dropped 14 or 15 minutes on Loop 3, and was glad to finish since it was damn chilly.

A good day .. we should all sign up on the same minute more often.

Thanks to Tony for going through the trouble of signing us all up. So Tony, what pipe are you gonna get ? :aj:

 

[2strok4fun]

I was thinking about you guys and wondering if there was snow, would have been better as snow than freezing rain. :O

Great report, see you next week.

 

[JPIVEY]

I froze my stink'n butt off out there, but had a blast, I can not imagine just how cold you guys must have been, we got a little snow fall and then when that stopped the wind kicked up, it had to be in the 20's with the wind factored in, can't wait to do that again

 

[holeshot]

The Sat before the enduro it was kind of "iffy" as to whether I'd make it or not, but at 4 AM Sunday I decided it was a go.


When I arrived at the Bad Mountain, the only Wrecking Crew member in sight was Scar at sign-up. They all must have been wearing camoflage, because I didn't see anyone thereafter.

In preparation for the enduro, I went out and bought a pair of warm gloves, but when I arrived at the Bad, I could only find one glove in my gearbag. I somehow flipped the other behind the workbench at home when I was getting ready early that morning. :( Rather than ride with one warm hand and one cold one, I decided to just wear my regular gloves.

Damn, my fingers were cold that first few miles :eek: I could barely hang on and was ready to give up, but then decided I could always stop and warm my fingers awhile. Anything would be better than another DNF.

I dropped a few minutes at the first check and then crashed about 50 feet from the second check (it was just around the corner).

There were some moderate trails after that, and I kept thinking, "Dang, I'm gonna be like one of those guys that dies of heart attack when he's shoveling snow" (it was still kinda cold).

There was a very fast section after that, so you could easily catch up if you were tardy (even very tardy), but there were no checks in that section to catch you off gaurd. My fingers were starting to feel toasty.

I finally caught up to my minute and was cruising slowly when I dumped it in another sandwash. This time the brake pedal was jammed into my boot sole, so I couldn't get the bike off me. There I was, pinned for eternity down with the sand fleas. Finally a group of riders came along and picked the bike off me (instead of just saying, "Are you all right?" and then motoring off). More dropped minutes.

I could have done without the long, rock filled whoop section near the end.

Why did I come out to ride this? Because I'm a sucker for punishment.

 

[kelsorat]

Well I got up at 3am for a 330am Sunday departure. On the drive out to the dez I knew it was gonna be a cold one, as I ran into some sleet at higher elevations. BTW, I saw two drunks on my drive. I guess 4am it's only truckers, insane dirt bikers, and drunks on the road.
Arrived at Lucerne just before the sun came up and the desert floor was covered in frost. After some slight confusion at signup, I waited for the Crew to show up. I never saw Holeshot, think I saw PhastPhart, and of course saw the Knucklehead contingency.
I was on minute 66 with 3 other riders I had never met. A XR600,CR500,YZ250, and me. I was the only one with a computer so after the start I actually thought I was doing well passing the other guys(turns out they just wanted to follow, cause I had the computer). Anywho, I blew 2 checks, but other than that I thought the first loop was great and I was actually expecting a much tougher use of terrain, since the Knuckleheads told me a District event would be tougher than a club race. I was having a blast roosting along trails I had never seen before. I really don't mind whoops, and I enjoy long rides, so this Loop was fun.
Coming in the rest after Loop 1, I refueled, had a snack, and was ready to start Loop2.
Well, Lesson 1,,,, District events are much harder than Club races. Lesson 2 Pat myself on the back for wearing CoolMax stuff.
Loop 2 started in a fierce headwind, I needed another gear on the MXC as I had her tapped out heading toward a scary trials rockface downhill (not to bad), but herein lies my problem. I need to be prepared and in the right gear for an on coming uphill. The first rocky uphill of the race and I just stalled in probably 4th gear. I lost time, but did catch up to zero the first check. After that, things went downhill fast. I messed up on all the uphills, dogpaddled down the rocky stuff, and was pooped. I was almost 17 minutes down when I crashed in the rocks. My bars came within 1 inch of making me a unic, plus the bike pinned me down with the footpeg ramming into my heel. Screaming in pain, some saviour on an ATK406 picked up my bike, saw my minute number on the front plate, and told me to stop and rest, before I hurt myself again. I told him thanks, and as he rode away, I didn't listen and fired up my bike, to try to get back on time. Finally, 3 miles before the last check, I got back on time, caught up to the other guys on my minute who had given up on me and started following minute 65, and got my finisher's pin.
Today Tuesday, I'm still sore.

 

[PhastPhart]

I was on minute 36 leading a group of enduro newbies (Blind leading the blind as they say) I did burn check 3 but I hear that they will throw that check out because the mileage was wrong. My Watchdog had another .44 to the next possible when I came over the hill and saw the check. Kinda made me mad at the time.

Loop 2 was cold! That first trials downhill into the check I couldn't feel my hands and was have a tough time working the front brake and clutch. My goggles would fog every time we got in one of those rocky slow sections and I would have to peel them off so I could see. At least there was no dust.

I did okay and dropped about 5 minutes on the two fast sections in Loop 2 with no crashes. Luckily Senior B's didn't have to ride loop 3 because I was frozen and tired. The thermometer in my truck read 39 degrees at 2 pm.

I think I'm hooked on this enduro stuff. I'm already plotting for the UEA event in January.

I forgot to kick JP. I guess I owe him one.

 

[nonickname]

Woke up at 4:20, left the house at 4:40, and got to the pits by about 6:15. The water on the not-so-dry lakebeds was frozen as I passed, and the temp in the truck was reading 30 deg., nice... Sign-ups only took a few minutes, and I lucked out and got an early minute because of a cancellation (33d). The buttons on my Pro-comp wouldn't work until I took it off the bike, into a trailer, and put the hairdryer on it. Dawdled in the warm trailer until I was almost late for the start line. At the start, the buttons on my Checkmate wouldn't work, and I couldn't get it started until about 40 secs late. Great, now I get to do math all day on my diff time.

First loop was fun. Not too challenging but enough to keep the blood flowing. I wasn't even that cold except for my hands (thank you, Mr. Moose XCR jacket). The worst part about the cold was my goggles would fog up every time I hit a tight section. I felt sorry for the workers, I'd rather ride than stand around when its that cold.

Second loop I started getting these weird stomach cramps. I switched energy drinks for this race, and I think that was a mistake. My Cytomax had hardened into a big brick since last time I used it, so I opened a new can of Lemon-lime Endura. Now I've never actually had to drink urine, but I can't picture it being much worse tasting than this stuff. Anyone ever tried or liked this stuff (uhh, the Endura that is... keep it to yourself if you've tried/liked urine)? The cramps I got weren't like a sideache, but more like a gas bubble or something (like a sharp pain if I tensed up my abs). Not bad enough to stop me, but enough to make the whoops even less fun than usual (and there were plenty of whoops). Anyways, I missed both of the specials by seconds (19 and 10), so I know the course was zero-able up to 2 loops anyways. I've been bitching all year about them not letting the B-seniors go 3 loops, but I was glad to get off the bike after 2 on Sunday.

Funny thing is, in retrospect I enjoyed the race. I always say that the harder the race is, the more memorable it is. I must be sick in the head or something. :bang:

 

[JPIVEY]

Oh man Gregg, I want to thank everyone FOR not kick'n me, it was so damn cold, my leg would have broke off.

Vince, was tracking the minute because he broke his arm laying out the course and had to sit in that chair, without moving until it was over, the poor guy was frozen, he could barely walk to the truck

 

[JPIVEY]

Anyone ever tried or liked this stuff (uhh, the Endura that is... keep it to yourself if you've tried/liked urine)?

I know everyone has their favorites, but, I swear Propel is the best, some of those sport drinks actually make me more thirsty