This is the final race of the Cranky Monkey series. The races progress from moderate to difficult in the course layout. Fountain Head is an extremely technical and pretty taxing course. There is no room for error here-or getting your bottle out and dropping it 2 times in the exact same spot. It is the only course I know of that ends with a climb. Just the way I like it

The day started off in a bad way. It poured down rain for a good 20 minutes on 495 on the way down. I almost decided to make a u-turn and go home, but I continued on hoping for the best. It had stopped raining by the time I arrived and everything was a go. I had yet to decide wether or not to go geared or mono. I was in 4th in points, so that played a little in my descision too. I chose my Supa-fly ss with a 32/18 setup. Again, this course has plenty of very steep climbs which I love and can make up crucial ground on the geared guys. The race starts with a mile long road prologue-not a good thing when you are the only guy with one gear. Still made it into the singletrack 10th, which is what I expected spinning at 180 rpm. What I still find funny are the comments by some racers that don’t know you or how you lay it down. They assume that riding a SS, they are gonna dust you. I won’t go into details, but lets just say the guys that made the few comments were passed on the first big climb, and never saw them again-WHO RAH! SS UNITE! uh, yeah…

Alex, Don, Ben and myself have become friends and have raced the series for 6 years now. When Alex isnt blowing us away, we work as a team, which is pretty bizarre in a mountain bike race. We ask each other how each of us is doing, were the others are in relation to us, how we are going to attack and what is the strategy. Even to the point that we will sacrifice our pace to keep the other guy in our group close to us until it is time to make a move. That, to me is what its about. In the past, before the super powers of the 29er crew were bestowed upon thee, Don would finish in front of me by about 2-3 minutes.

This year, It wasn’t gonna happen. We rode together the entire race. We had put a 5 minute gap on the group in back pretty early on. We chatted on and off for the entire race. It came down to trying to keep from blowing up. It ended up being a very close finish between Don and I. He took 2nd by 6 seconds. Remember that ascent at the end? I wish I had gears then-gasp! Alex of course was first. Don was 1 point ahead of me for the series going into the last race, so I ended up 4th in the series with 88 points, 20 more than last year. I bettered my time by 2:24 from last years race aboard my Paragon, finishing with a 1:30:06 mark. So I made some big imrovements. At the end of the race, my superfly makes alot of new friends. One guy had made the comment about all of the Bontrager jewelry. I really enjoy talking to people about the stuff, but it always amazes me when they ask why? Why the hell not? I mean, 1. It works. 2. I have never broken anything in 15 years and 3. it looks cool. He was at a loss for words when I told him I built it that way. “It didnt come built with all that stuff on it?” I guess he thought I rode it because of the 29er crew. Anyway, here is my Garmin data-Check out the elevation, no that that isnt an EKG, not a flat spot anywhere! Average HR, 177! http://connect.garmin.com/activity/45730862-I LOVE THAT THING!

I was expecting dust, I was expecting heat, I was expecting about 11,000 feet of climbing, I wasn’t expecting to lose my precious Endurolytes that I so brilliantly devised a method of consuming, I also wasn’t expecting to be attacked by a deranged grouse.  All of this however was included in the High Cascade 100 mountain bike race which took place in Bend, OR last weekend as round six of the NUE Series (National Ultra Endurance).  I’m quick to point out it was part of the NUE  Series because it sounds so dang cool, National Ultra Endurance Series…  100 miles is a long way to ride a mountain bike, especially when 80 of those miles are single track.  The little things become a challenge, like eating, and drinking, and shedding layers, which brings me to the 35 degree start.  Yikes.  We began with a couple miles of neutral heading up the highway toward Mt Bachelor.  It was a quick warm up.  The first loop is a 40 some mile trek around Mt. Bachelor with fantastic single track, lots of rocky techy stuff, but fast.  I felt real good for this section and estimate I was 12- 14^th place.  At the end of the first loop I lost my Endurolytes.  This was sort of the beginning of the end. Shortly after that it seemed only fitting I should run out of water and begin cramping.  The second loop was another 40 something miles with a rabid man-eating grouse followed by a steep switchbacked climb from hell that goes on forever.  That was pretty much the end of my “race,” from there on in it was survival mode.  The second loop ends at the start/ finish area where the third and final loop begins, a nice easy 13 miles of nothing but rolling fields of flowers and butterflies and cuddly little bunnies, or at least that is what I nearly had myself convinced of.  Nothing is easy at 90 miles in, nothing.  The downhill for the first six miles of it was great; it was the whole having to climb at the end of a hundred mile race thing that kind of hurt.  The coolest thing about racing a mtb for 100 miles though is, no matter how rotten you may feel during the race you’re going to feel like a million bucks when you cross the finish line.  AND you’re going to feel like a million and one bucks when you get a solar shower, half a barbequed chicken (which closely resembles grouse) and an icy cold Mirror Pond Ale to wash down the glorious Bend, OR dust that you will inevitably be cleaning out of your ears for a week.  As I look back I have to say I’m fairly satisfied with my 24^th overall result considering how bad I bonked for most of the second half.  Note for future 100’s: eat lots.  Congrats to Thom P who raced with me briefly then dropped me like a bad habit.  I always enjoy Thom’s post on the Crew blog and felt a little star struck riding with him.  Big thanks to Mike Ripley and crew for all the hard work they put in to an event like this, it was killer.  J

 

On sunday at Schaeffer farm, we lost one of our own. Cecil Funkhauser passed away from heart complications. A special thanks to all of those who came to Cecil’s aid on the trail. He will be missed. Pray for his family and loved one’s. The upside is Cecil died doing what he loved. Just proves how quickly life can change for any of us. If any of you know EX2’s Jim Harman, he runs all of the fantastic EX2 races, keep him in your thoughts as well. He was pretty shaken by what happened as well. The was taken from EX2’s website for those interested. The viewing will be held from 6pm-8pm on Wednesday, August 11th and the funeral is at 11am on Thursday, August 12th at the Mount Castle Turch Funeral Home in Woodbridge, VA. Cecil’s wife, Bobbie, wanted to extend a warm thank you to the EX2 community for the outpouring of support. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made in Cecil’s name to the American Heart Association by calling (800) 242-8721, where an account has been established.

Not to belittle the situation from this morning, but pick the one that pretty much says Dave (me) is a moron (more than one may apply) a) never go into a race blinded, i.e not knowing the course. b) do a 34 mile group ride the day before. c) forget to put on your water bottle cage back on, or d) all of the above. If you picked d, normally you would be correct, but todays race proved that, at least for today, i wasnt a moron, a bit aloof, but not a moron.

Schaeffer farms is a great venue. I had never been there until today, but I was very impressed. Singletrack, some fireroad and a crazy  1/2 mile maze of 7 foot tall corn on either side. As you know, I am a SS guy. I own geared bikes to fit in in with everyone else. I brought both my Ferrous and Paragon to the race and decided to run the Paragon. It was a good choice.

The 40+ group is a collection of very fast geezers. I have been racing with Alex, Ben, Don, Hyder and others for quite some time now. We have built a good friendship because of these EX2 races. We know what each others plans of attack are. We can almost guess where we will finish. So when a few guys show up that you are not familiar with, and line up along side of you at the front, you start to think.

We normally start at a reasonably fast pace, but nothing insane. Today would be different. The 2 two guys who were with us took off. I mean rocketed to the front and just caught everyone by surprise. So we made the descision to follow. I like using my big ring as much as possible, but its rare to use the 44/11 combo, very rare. I used that and the 12 for the first 5 miles! We averaged 17.3 mph for that time. We knew they couldnt sustain that pace, but we knew we couldnt and it would surely cause us to blow up before the last lap. Well, it wasnt us who’s wheels fell off the cart. They hit the first major climb and that was the last time we saw either of them.

That was a HUGE relief. We could now settle in and race our race. Nothing much went on after that except for some place

swapping here and there and I ended up 4th at 1:38:21 for 20 miles and picked up 30 points to bring the total to 53. Last year I ended up with 69 points and 5th over all, so I am in good shape to surpass that this year with Fountainhead being the last race of the series. Yesterdays ride did not have any affect at all-welll, maybe a tad after mile 18. I was really surprised otherwise. I certainly dont recommend it, but I like to think it gave me some extra super secret power. I felt like I did early in the season. The Paragon was awesome, but I miss the quiet, surreal quality of the SS. Here is my take-geared is like having all of your daughters friends over for a sleep over. SS is just you and your wife watching a good movie.

It was a great day at a great course. Rob was racing 34 and under and was just going off as we were leaving-I am sure he will do well.