Month: April 2015

The CICA 4th Annual Dirty Mudd’r was held in Streator, Illinois on Sunday, April 26th. The Dirty Mudd’r is a gravel and dirt road race across open farmland, where the winds have been known to be pretty brutal.   I had been sick with the flu for 4 days, and I had thought about not going.  Marc, however, insisted that we go since we had paid an entry fee of $60 for the two of us that was non-refundable.  He informed me that it was actually a ride and not a race, and that he, Jeff, Eric and I were going to do this ride as a fun social event.  He said that if Eric and Jeff wanted to race it, that he would stay with me. There was to be a dinner and free beer in the park after the ride.

The ride was to start at 10:00 am.  At 7:00 am Jeff and Eric came to our house to load the bikes in the back of Jeff’s pickup truck. It was beautiful and sunny and about 40 degrees when we left.  Illinois is even more flat, if that seems possible, than Indiana.  We passed miles and miles of open farmland, a few wind farms, and more incredible looking barns than I could count.  I am a big fan of old majestic barns and their architecture, and I thought it was interesting that there were lots of round barns in the area.  Perhaps that was the specialty of a certain builder 100 years ago?  I tried to take pictures out of the truck window of some of the barns, and I actually succeeded getting a few nice shots, even though Jeff was flying 70 mph because he was worried about being late.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get any good pictures of any of the round barns.

On the way there, I started talking to Eric about this being a ride and not a race, and he looked at me as if I was crazy.  He said “Oh no, it’s a race”, and he said that there were trophies awarded at the end.  I was not feeling well, and I wasn’t happy about suddenly having to get psyched up for a competition instead of a nice social ride!

When we got to the park to register for the event, I went to the ladies’ restroom to change into my bike clothes. Since men outnumber women about 20 to 1 at cycling events, there is usually a line at the men’s restroom with no waiting for the ladies. I was not happy to see men waiting in line for BOTH restrooms. I pointed out the “Ladies” sign to the guy in front of me and he looked embarrassed and went to wait in line for the men’s room.

After I changed clothes I rode up and down the road that runs through the park to try to warm up. There was a gravel hill that had to be climbed immediately to get out of the park, and my legs protested loudly. I had only ridden about 40 miles the entire previous week because I had been sick, and I hadn’t eaten well all week. I was not looking forward to the start of the race.

The race started promptly at 10:00. It was a neutral start, with everyone riding slowly through the park and up the hill, and then sprinting once we reached the main road. When we got to the top of the hill, riders immediately began flying past us. I was riding my Trek Top Fuel mountain bike, and it was the only mountain bike I saw during the entire race. Everyone was riding a CX bike, and I knew I had a huge disadvantage. I didn’t have drop handlebars, and there was nowhere for me to go against the wind.

As more and more riders pulled away from us, Marc yelled at me to hang on to his back tire. I couldn’t close the gap at all, and he pulled farther and farther away from me. We were riding against the wind, and I was pedaling with all my strength to go 12 mph. Some of the roads were covered in fresh gravel, and it was very slow riding. There was absolutely nothing to see except miles and miles of open farmland, dirt, gravel, and a few isolated barns and farms. There wasn’t a single tree, and the entire area just looked desolate.  I looked down at my Garmin when we were about 4 miles into the race, and I couldn’t believe it. I could barely move, and it felt like we had been riding for hours. After about 8 miles, Marc was so frustrated he snapped that by the time we got back to the park it would be dark and everyone would have packed up and gone! It was about this point that we saw another woman rider in a red jersey with a man drafting behind her. She looked very strong, and it appeared the man was struggling. I pedaled as hard and fast as I could and passed them both on a downhill. Shortly thereafter, she caught back up to me and drafted behind me for a while, then the two of them pulled ahead again. Marc got mad and yelled “When you pass somebody, don’t let them pass you again!” The two of them ended up riding off into the distance, and I felt totally defeated. It was at this point that I actually started to cry, and then I began to hyperventilate. I was sobbing and gasping, and Marc suddenly got such a worried look on his face that he tried to pat me on the back, almost knocking me off the bike. I am not a crier, and I am not a quitter, but the flu and the wind had just gotten the best of me. I thought briefly that we were going to have to abandon the race, because there was no way we could finish the 62 mile race we had intended to do, going the speed we were going. We had maps with us, and I thought about finding our way back to the park with the map.

Shortly after I had this thought, I noticed that the woman in the red jersey and the man she was with had stopped at an intersection ahead of us. As we passed them, I noticed the man looked very tired, and I wondered if they were dropping out. We never saw them again. Just a little while later, an older man and a very heavyset man passed us. I glanced over at them, and something in me clicked. These two appeared to be nowhere near my fitness level, and they were passing me. I suddenly sprouted wings, and I rode as fast as I could to catch them. I pulled alongside the older man and asked him if he was doing the 35 mile race or the 62 mile race. He said he was doing the 35 miles. I asked him where the turnoff was, and he said that there would be a well marked sign not too far ahead. I thanked him, then I took off. It was at that point I resolved to ride as hard and fast as I could, and to have the best finish I could in the 35 mile race.

We passed the SAG stop at about mile 26, and I noticed a half a dozen or so riders had stopped. The SAG people were waving at us, but there was no way I was going to stop. We only had about 10 miles to go, and I had plenty of water and Shot Bloks. I heard Marc yell behind me “There’s a girl who just pulled out and she’s going to try and catch you. Move!” I was in the highest gear on the Top Fuel, and I was spinning as fast as I could. We were on a brief stretch of pavement, but even with a tailwind, the fastest I could go was about 24 mph. The pavement quickly ended, and there was an arrow pointing to the right, so I turned right. The sign was tipped a little bit, and it turns out it was actually pointing straight ahead to a dirt road. I had turned the wrong way! Marc got out his map and yelled at me to turn around, but by this time I was about 1/4 mile down the road. I turned around to come back against a head wind, and I saw the girl rider going straight. I was on mud and dirt now, and I knew my mountain bike had a brief advantage over her CX bike. I could tell she was riding cautiously in the mud, so after about 2 or 3 minutes, I caught up to the girl and passed her. We then turned right onto a hard packed road, and I could hear her gaining on me. Marc had zoomed on ahead, but I wasn’t able to close the gap and get behind his wheel. It was then that the girl passed me and caught up to Marc and began drafting behind him. This was just the fire I needed, because no way was I going to let her draft behind Marc! I caught up to them both and passed them. I looked back and noticed that Marc had slowed down a little bit, and it appeared he was talking to her. A light bulb went off and I realized what he was doing. He was slowing down while she was drafting so I could move ahead! I moved fast up a dirt hill, and when I got to the top I could see we were very close to the main road that led to the park and the finish line. It was paved, so I knew once we hit pavement she would be gaining on me quickly. About 100 yards from the park entrance I heard her behind me, and she quickly passed me. As we turned into the park, I flew down the gravel hill as fast as I could, and I almost caught up with her as we reached the bottom. I couldn’t see the finish line because it was just a line of tape in the parking lot and there was no banner, so I sprinted until I thought my lungs would burst and I passed her by less than a foot as we crossed the line. I rode through the parking lot to slow down, and circled back around to where a man standing next to the finish line asked my name and wrote it down on a sheet of paper. I had finished 2nd place, and the girl, whose name was Erica, had finished 3rd. She was a very nice girl from the Chicago area who very graciously said I deserved 2nd place because I had done the race on a mountain bike! Her friend, whose name was also Erica, had finished in 1st place.

I forgave Marc, who had simply been acting as my coach by being so brutal! After the race, the organizers had an incredible meal prepared, which included pulled pork (for the meat eaters!), huge baked potatoes, and locally crafted beer.

The Lowell 50 is a dirt and gravel road race that partially runs along the Flat River in Lowell, Michigan. This classic race used to feature a 27 mile and a 50 mile course, but seven miles were recently added to the course, making a 34 mile and a 57 mile race.

Marc entered the 34 mile race in the all inclusive fat bike class, and I entered the 34 mile race in my age division for women. The weather forecast for April 11th was sunny, low winds, and 45 degrees at the start of the race, with temperatures rising during the day to 55 degrees. We were excited at the prospect of  not having to wear our winter gear.

The morning of the 11th, I set my alarm for 4:00 am. We planned to leave the house at 4:45 to pick up Marc’s friend Jeff in Chesterton for the 2 1/2 hour drive to Michigan. We estimated that the drive, along with the hour time difference, would give us just less than an hour to change clothes and pick up our racing numbers. The drive to Michigan was blissfully uneventful.

We arrived on schedule and quickly found parking in a grassy lot in the park where the race was to start. This was a much different experience than Barry-Roubaix, where we had to drive through the town to find parking, and stand in a line stretching outside into the Ace Hardware parking lot to pick up our packets. We changed into our racing gear and rode our bikes a short distance to the pavillion to register and pick up our numbers. There was no waiting, and we simply walked up to a table and signed a release form and picked up our numbers. We also got a red and black day pack with “Lowell 50” written on it, and some stickers. We then rode back to the car to put our packs away, where we learned that Jeff had forgotten his helmet! Race rules will not allow any rider to race without a helmet. Our friend Eric, who had come in another car, immediately sprang into action and went walking through the parking lot trying to find a helmet for Jeff to wear. He quickly found a girl with an extra helmet. Jeff is a big and tall guy, and the helmet that Eric managed to borrow was a women’s helmet with pink accents on the side of the helmet and polka dots on the back! Jeff was going to race in style.

By this time, it was about 20 minutes from the race start time, so we all tried to warm up by sprinting up and down one of the roads in the park for a few minutes. Then Marc took a picture of me, and I took a picture of him. By then, Eric and Jeff were already in line for the first wave of the race. There were only 3 waves of less than 100 riders each, compared to 17 waves in the Barry-Roubaix. The first wave included all the 57 mile racers. The second wave started just two minutes after the first, and then we lined up to go last. The fat bikes and all of the women riders, along with the older male riders, were in the last wave.  Kelly and Marc lined up with other fat bikes, and I lined behind them.  The area where we lined up was so packed tight, I ended up sandwiched between other riders on the right.

A woman in a tent next to the starting line started counting down.  She made a point of skipping numbers, and said “19 seconds”, “13”, “8”, until she finally said “start”.  Then we were off. It was a neutral start, which means all riders had to ride no more than 15 miles per hour with a pace car in front, until we rode through a covered bridge. Once we passed through the bridge, the race was to really begin. This was an extremely frustrating start, as the pace car in front would not keep a steady pace. Riders were off at 18 mph, then the car slowed down and riders were throwing their hands back and yelling “slowing!” to warn riders behind them to slow down so there wasn’t a pile up. This continued until we got to the bridge. It was extremely tight passing through the bridge, and once we were through it riders were all around me and I couldn’t move. I noticed two very tall women who looked to be about my age on CX bikes, zooming past riders on the left. Then, almost immediately after clearing the bridge I heard someone yell “rider down!” I saw a rider on the ground and learned later that this rider had actually clipped the back of Marc’s wheel and several riders on CX bikes had gone down like dominoes. I thought that this wasn’t a good omen, to see a crash when the race had barely started.

Shortly after clearing the bridge, I looked up and saw a wall. I anticipated this hill, because I had read on-line that the hills started within less than two miles of the race start, and most of them were in the first ten miles of the race. As I started struggling up this hill, I looked around and noticed right away that this race was going to be extremely different than the Barry-Roubaix. There were no recreational riders here, as no one was walking this hill! In fact, most riders I saw climbed it quite easily. I was thankful, however, because at this point the crowd had started to thin out and I was able to get around other riders. The second hill came quickly, and then another and another. I kept looking down at my Garmin, hoping to see the 10 mile mark, so I could have some relief from the incessant climbing. I watched my Garmin and saw that we were climbing at the rate of about 100 feet every mile. Because I often don’t really warm up until 20 miles into a ride, the first 10 miles was very painful. The 10 mile mark on my Garmin had come and gone, and I was now 12 miles into the race and there was still one hill after another! Then I looked ahead and saw that we were turning what I thought must be north, onto some flat farmland. I was relieved, but the relief was very short lived, because without the protection of the hills, we were now being blasted by wind. I struggled to find a rider to draft behind, but there were no riders going fast enough. Most were struggling, and the fast riders ahead of me were riding too fast to catch. It was then that I noticed a very small woman on a CX bike who looked my age passing me. She was very fast and quickly zoomed out of my sight. She definitely had an advantage by being able to get down low on her drop handlebars, and her small size was a huge advantage against the wind as well. At this time I calculated that I was in 4th place, because I had only seen 3 women who looked to be my age pass me, unless there were riders at the front of the wave that I hadn’t seen.  I also realized at this time that my mountain bike wasn’t the best choice for this race.  The roads were far more packed and solid than I had thought.  The road conditions, together with the wind, gave all the CX bike riders a huge advantage.

As I was battling the wind, I reached down to get the energy gel that Eric had taped to the frame of my bike with black electrical tape. Marc had bought chocolate gels because he thought they would taste better than fruity ones, and it tasted like chocolate syrup mixed with frosting. It was very difficult to choke down! But sports gels are a miracle food, and I almost immediately felt the difference as we turned out of the wind and I saw more hills in the distance. By this time,we had climbed over 1200 feet, and it had become apparent that the hills weren’t going anywhere!

Also by this time, I had settled in to a group of four of five riders, all men, who were going about the same pace. One older man in a blue jersey with a moustache commented that he was never going to do this race again. He hadn’t anticipated the wind or the hills. For the next 10 miles or so we continued to pass each other. I would pass him and he would struggle to catch up, then he would pass me and I would struggle to catch up with him. I told him I was grateful that he was keeping the fire under me.

At about 20 miles we turned onto a flat paved road where we once again were blasted by wind. I managed to find a rider who was riding about 16 mph hour against the wind, and I hung onto his wheel until we got back to the gravel. I then thanked him for the brief respite. He laughed. After we got back to the gravel, I realized that I was getting tired and I needed to eat the second gel that was taped to my bike frame. Eric had wrapped this gel several times with electrical tape and I couldn’t get it off! I finally managed to get it off the bike and tore it open with the black tape flapping in the wind.

After more hills, we turned onto a paved main road which was like a roller coaster ride. For a very brief moment in time we flew down a hill at over 30 miles per hour, and I tried to tell myself it was all downhill from here. But it was over way too soon, because I looked ahead and saw a wall. This paved hill was the hardest hill in the entire race. My second gel hadn’t kicked in, and I rode up this hill at no more than 8 miles per hour. I thought I wasn’t going to make it to the top. When I finally crested the hill, I noticed that the group I had been riding with were all gone. I was now all alone. As we turned back onto gravel, a woman on a CX bike who looked to be about my age passed me. This was just what I needed to put the fire back under me. I quickly caught up with her and passed her, then rode as fast as I could until I knew she wasn’t going to catch me. I then looked up and noticed another wall, and that I had also managed to catch up with the group of men I had been riding with. By now we were at over 31 miles, and I thought this hill was particularly cruel, being so close to the end of the race. This hill rose through a vineyard, and I was momentarily grateful for the scenery that took my mind off the pain. It was at this point that I caught back up with the moustached man in the blue jersey. I passed him and didn’t see him again until the end of the race.

Shortly after the vineyard, I saw a policeman directing traffic at the intersection where it looked like the park was. He motioned left, and I started to turn left to go up a hill and he yelled “hard left!” I had almost gone the wrong way! I then immediately saw the stone arch where the race had begun.  I sprinted as fast as I could towards the finish line, where someone announced my name as I passed it.

I saw Kelly and Marc waiting at the end of the finish line, and I asked Kelly how he did.  He laughed and said he finished 5th, 6th, 10th and 11th.  He had apparently walked back and forth with his bike near the finish line, and the computer had picked up his number.  He actually finished 5th and Marc finished 9th in the fat bike class.  I walked to the finish line to see if I could get a picture of Jeff or Eric coming across the line. I waited for about 10 minutes and then I saw Eric, who did a fist pump as he crossed the line.

It was shortly thereafter that I checked results in the pavilion and saw that I had finished in 5th place in my age group. The older women are the most competitive group, and I noted that if I had been racing with the 19-29 year olds I would have made the podium!