Date: February 17, 2002
Event: Cool Mt. Bike Race
Category: Veteran
Laps: 2
Miles: 20
Place: 5th

Bring on the cold weather and lots of rain! :’)

That tends to be the way it is at the Cool Mt. Bike Race. I left the bay area at 6:30am with Sarah and Jason (two other “cool” racers”) and headed up to Cool (down highway 49 from Auburn). Rain, clouds, and fog the whole way up. Chain alerts flashing on the warning signs. Luckily, the elevation of Cool is only around 1000 feet. Any higher and I know we would have seen snow.

A day like this requires layers, so I obliged. Two jerseys and a rain jacket, shorts, tights, and rain pants. (btw – I recommend Swobo wool if you can still find it). I even used two pairs of gloves and plastic bags over my socks. There were actually people out there wearing shorts! They suffered.

I debated warming up on the bike or just sitting in the truck with the heater running. I read about Lance A. doing this in his book “It’s not about the bike”. Hmm… so I did both! First in the truck and then on the bike for 20 minutes of riding and then up to the start line. Where I find that they have decided to line us (vets) behind all the sport riders. Ugh. Oh well, I was being a slacker since I picked this cat instead of expert. The Pros and Experts were grouped together and had to do 3 laps. Hey, it’s pre-season so why work that hard? :’)

I decided I didn’t want to be stuck behind the herd of sport riders. At the whistle I jumped hard. It was easy pickings. As is typical, many of the sport riders started too fast and then blew up on the hill. I glided by them without giving them a glance. Soon, I was out and away from the mess and had plenty of room.

The course consisted of 90% fire road and 5% single-track and 5% that I can only call mash potato mud. I think there was a trail in that stuff but it was hard to determine.

After leaving the sport pack I settled into a nice rhythm. What song was playing in my head? Hmm, can’t remember but having one is always a good sign. No song means a bad day.

The downhill sections were a bit sketchy with my worn out 1.95 rear tire. Still, it’s a blast doing two wheel drifts and rear wheel slides around the corners. (Note to self, use different tire to go faster or keep it and have fun pretending I’m a flat track racer.)

At the bottom of several of the steep downhills were some nice creek crossing. The largest being 20 feet across and 1.5 to 2 feet deep. It was faster running that than riding it. In fact, cyclocross paid off for the techniques I learned and was able to apply.

Only a few steep climbs. Most were short and could be middle or big ringed. Well, except my middle ring started chain sucking about half way through the first lap. Not the small ring, not the big ring, just the middle ring. So, I did the rest of the race in the big and small rings. Hamster spin on the steep hills, and big ring push during the other sections.

Pushing the big ring might have also lead to my right upper quad just beginning to cramp on the last lap. It started about 1/2 mile from the finish. Never had that muscle cramp up. Maybe it was the combo of pushing big gears, cold weather, and early season.
By the second lap the race was really strung out. I was passing stragglers all over the place. Nothing like the look on someone’s face pushing their bike back to the start/finish. Especially when the bike looks fine but the engine obviously doesn’t.

Not that it was easy looking at anything. I had front and rear fenders and I still got constantly sprayed in the face. On some of the descents I was peering through muddy, foggy glasses. Removing the glasses meant spray and mud in the eyes. I opted for glasses and wiping them off when I could. Even with them, the next morning my eyes were squirting out mud balls.

They had us finishing by riding down a short hill, across a narrow deep flowing creek, and then up a muddy rise to the finish line. On one section of the creek bank they had setup two little wooden jumps. Some little brat was at the top of the hill and would yell at each rider to “jump the creek, your not going to win anyways… go on, jump it!”. That made me chuckle.

I didn’t jump it but I did ride across. A couple of cheers for that effort but not what the crowd really wanted. They would have to wait for the next sucker.

After hosing down myself and the bike (ouch the poor bearings) I headed to the truck to change. Warm clothes please! Returned to the expo area and found the muddy results board. Well, everything was muddy so assume if I talk about something, it’s muddy. Found my name. Finished 5th.

Hung out for the raffle since everyone talks about how good it is. Sure enough, really great prizes. Too bad my number never bubbled up.

Packed up and headed home.

Cheers!

(side note: 2 hours of cleaning, greasing, and oiling the next day and my bike still needs some work.)