The Redmond contingent of Bob, Sam and I (Shane) made the mistake of assuming the sunny, cloudless skies of Central Oregon would be with us still, when we arrived 1.5 hours away, but frigidly, they did not. We were a tad underdressed with shorts and no real jackets, so we patchworked together leg warmers, sweats and sweatshirts to take the chill off, as we got the bikes and ourselves ready to race!
After a brief warm-up on the short track course, we all headed to the start line. As we were on our way there, we realized that Sam had been given the incorrect number plate, which would have sent her on the long course for an extra 11 miles instead of the correct, 9 mile course. She would've handled the extra length just fine, but 9 miles of nutrition and water is a bit less than that for 20. Thankfully, Melanie, the Chief Referee was on-point and got Sam taken care of in the the short windows of time between start waves! With that slight hiccup taken care of, we lined up for the start.
Bob and I were in the first wave to take off, up the gradual paved start section. After the start, there was a sharp right hand turn up a steep powerline climb then it was trail time! The course consists of great singletrack AND motorcycle trails. Now you're probably thinking, 'ewww motorcycle trails!'. Quite the opposite, due to the higher bio-mass and clay levels in the soil, motorcycles don't churn the dirt into moondust, instead, it just gets pushed aside into perfect berms that are incredibly fun, no matter if you were climbing or descending! The berms, paired with perfect trail conditions (just enough moisture to keep it fast and grippy), and some solid climbing ~3,800 feet for the long course, the Bear Springs XC course is one heck of an epic mountain bike race!
Thanks to some good fitness starting to show in our legs, the team was able to put some solid results together. I was able to settle into a good position early on and keep a super even pace good for a 5th place finish, just two minutes back from the winner. The hours of training in New Mexico sure helped out for myself and Bob, who raced hard and took 16th in our 28 person field. Brian fought back from a broken chain to take 21st in the CAT 2 field and Sam brought home the glory for the second race in a row, taking top time in the CAT 3 Women's race.
After all these calories were burned, we headed to Government Camp for some much needed sustenance at Ice Axe Grill, where we ran into fellow racers Chris Moor, Sue & Tim Butler and sat down for some good laughs and good food!
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| Bob and Kai sleeping on the way home. |
-Shane Johnson
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