Gary's 2011 Sagebrush Snowfari Race Report

Race was originally scheduled to start at 11:00am, so PV and I planned to leave his house at 7am.  I got there a few minutes early and we were on the road. 

Just past Alpine, the snow started to show up on the sides.  Going over the pass (4000’) there was snow still on the roads and I would estimate around 4” on the ground.  Everything was white and PV and I started wondering how different the course would ride compared to our pre-ride on the Monday before.  We  called ahead to a Rock N’ Road guy, Tim, who was also racing and he told us that they moved the start time to noon.  We turned off on the dirt road that took us to the start of the course and new then it was going to be a wet and muddy day.  There was a lot of snow on the ground in the parking lot and again the word that kept coming into my mind was “epic” and “insane”.

Got the bikes ready and even used a trick of spraying Pam on the bikes to keep the mud from sticking.  The big question was what to wear.  It did not feel too cold, but once you were riding it was definitely a multi-layer day.  I went with a base layer, a jersey and then my vest while PV skipped kept the vest on during the warm up but then removed it before the race.  We both had arm and leg warmers on. On the warm up, we stuck to the paved road to not get the bikes full of mud before starting out.  On the way back, PV pointed out were we come back onto the road from and went to check it out.  There were two other guys stopped at a stream crossing.   They were not doing the race and one of them took off to see if he could find the best line through it.  It turned out that staying to the left was a much better option.  PV and I were thanking them for testing this and helping us know the line to take.  At the time, we did not realize how critical this would be.

As we were heading back to the start, they were getting ready to send out the Pro’s.  Over the PA system, they were saying something about laps.  The pro’s would do 5 laps and everyone else would do 4.  I knew something was up with the course but was not quite sure how they had changed it.  We ended up getting back just before the Pro’s took off and had very little time before we took off.  It felt rushed and did not know why until we realized later that they had reduced the time between the category’s taking off and they were also grouping more of the folks together.

PV got right in line and took off shortly after.  I also got in line and went about 8 minutes later.  Right from the start, I tried to push it hard to get up front to reduce the number of people I would have to pass on course.  The ride starts out with about a mile of pavement and then turned off into the dirt.  The first section was going through the stream that PV and I learned the line just prior so I felt great about getting through it.  Sure enough, I took the far left line and blazed through it were others got stuck.   After going through 2 other streams, there was a wide single track flat section that you could just blaze on.  The pace stayed high.

We weaved through the course and ended up back close to the start line.  Right after passing folks handing out water, the course turned into a mud pit.  There was this right hand turn that got a number of people due to the mud being so deep, but PV cleared this every time and I touched down once due to a crash in front of me.  At one point, PV said that he came to a complete stop but managed to get going again.  After this section, it was just a lot more mud before you would complete the first lap.  Each lap was about 4 miles in length.

Some highlights over the 4 laps were:

·         Got passed on my second lap by a group of Cat 1/pro’s while on the road section.  I jumped on to the train and we booked it to the dirt.  I hung for a little while through the single track but they moved a little fast for me so started to pull back so I had something left for the remaining two laps.

·         For me, I was able to keep a high effort for most of the ride.  Sometimes it is hard to tell if you have more to give, but there were enough people on the course to push you.

·         The more laps you did, the more fun the course got.

·         Just before the finish, I was hoofing it to pass as many people as I could.  There was one guy I started to pass and he turned it on as well.  He looked like he could be in the same age bracket as me so game on J  I thought I had him since he took an outside line through the last mud section and earlier that day I never saw anyone save time by doing so.  I went straight and we merged with him slightly in front.  I tried getting around him before the finish but it did not happen.   In the end, it did not matter since he was in a different age group than me.

Either PV’s field of competition has grown since last year, or he just had an off day since he came in 7^th.  I think he would have done much better if they would have kept it the original course.  It matched better to his strengths overall.  Lots of climbing and technical descents.

I ended up with 2^nd place and missed first by 2 minutes.  Good day for me overall and looking forward to the next race in a few weeks.  If anyone is interested, we are doing Bonelli Park in San Dimas on March 12 – 13.

PV and I enjoyed the post ride activities by having some great beer.  I had a “double bastard” and PV had an “inferno”.  We hung out for the award ceremony so I could pick up my hardware.  It’s a pretty cool award and is being proudly displayed in my office right now J  The snow in the parking lot was mostly gone now, but still small pockets of it.  The drive home was also a lot easier with no snow left on the ground and everything being dry.