All caught up now? Yea? Good.
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| Hours after the doc gave the all clear |
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| Commuting to work the next day |
Well a few weeks went by of riding on the pavement on the cross bike, and then I finally got the fat bike back with the new Lauf fork!
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| Laufy Lauf Lauf |
I did a few commuting days on that Lauf to get a feel for it, but my shoulder just did not like that wider flat handlebar position yet. That fork sure felt pretty rad though!
Another few weeks and I had another post-surgery doctor check-up where I got some great news! Not only was I cleared to ride on gravel now ("just don't wreck!"), but I was also probably going to get back on some real singletrack before December! I could start trying in October, and just "be smart about it" - actually pretty funny if you know me.
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| B roads on the cross bike! |
So now we were cooking with gas on gravel! Man o man does that cross bike with Gravel King tires feel amazing on gravel BTW!
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| No cars = much better then road riding! |
Well throughout this whole time I was getting stronger and stronger with lots of help from Edge Physical Therapy. Good folks with cycling in their blood - highly recommended! As I got closer and closer to October I got more and more excited that I could possibly do the Omaha Jackrabbit 130 mile gravel race! It would be so rad if I could finish out the year with some sort of hard event, seeing how I missed Odins Revenge, Gravel Worlds, and most of the Psycowpath races.
So as things got closer, and my shoulder got stronger, I started getting out on gravel on the fat bike which was to be my stead of choice for the Jackrabbit.
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| Testing the fatty and my shoulder on gravel |
As I continued riding and testing the shoulder in October, I knew it was going to be just fine for Jackrabbit! So now it was time to trai..... ahhhh hahahaha. Like I ever train properly for anything right? Sheesh you would think I had absolutely no tools for training, except I have all the tools.
So the morning of Jackrabbit comes, and I was feeling rather confident. Hell I had almost no training (certainly nothing over 60 miles), but the shoulder was feeling strong.
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| Morning of, lets do this! |
The race went really well for about 50 miles, and then all to shit for the remaining 80. After mile 50 my stomach was having nothing of any food. Whether that be Gu's, peanuts, M&M's, whatever. Anything I ate was just making my stomach tie up in knots worse. I ended up at the convenience store, in the small part of the Indian Reservation we went through, with serious thoughts of quitting. I was texting my wife telling her just that. After some words of encouragement I was off to the next checkpoint.
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| Ugh...no energy |
I struggled down another few bites of peanuts, but my stomach actually felt better if I laid off all food. So I switched to just drinking water. I got to the final checkpoint in Decatur and was excited to try and eat some pizza - last year that had made the world of difference for me. Well I tried the pizza and had to struggle down two slices (mini personal pizza), as it just didn't hit the spot like it did last year. Well shit.
So I filled up my two large water bottles, put some beef jerky in the feed bag, and headed out into 45 miles of mostly flat headwind gravel. The jerky was another "hey that worked last year" thing that ended up not working at all.
From that point on (mile 85) I wouldn't eat any food until the race was over. About 2 hours after leaving that checkpoint I also ran out water. So put it all together and I had no food for 4 hours, and no water for 2 hours. On top of that the food I had before that checkpoint was few and far in-between.
In case you haven't guessed it, I was extremely low on energy for those last 4 miles. How low on energy? Well the little small climb over a creek brought me down to 6mph and almost my lowest gear! My average speed for that flat section was 11mph!
If you have ever ran out of water on a long event, then you know how this feels. I had got to the point where I stopped, unscrewed the top off my bottles, and licked as much of the water out as I could still find. At one point an SUV was passing me on the gravel so I wildly waved a water bottle at them. This nice lady stopped and gave me the last of her half bottle of water! I drank it so fast it hurt my throat. Man all I could think about for those last two hours was water. I was started to stare longingly at the water in the creeks I would cross. Surely that wouldn't be to bad for me right?
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| Finished! |
At mile 124.2 my Garmin's battery died. WTF Garmin!
The last two miles had some relatively tame climbs, but before each one I would hop off the bike and stare at the climb like it was a snake that was ready to strike me dead. Even on the last little up-shoot gravel "climb" across the highway (maybe 15 ft of elevation gain), I got off the bike to stare at it.
As I got over that last little incline I am pretty sure I either screamed, whooped, or yelled something, so my apologies if that was something involving curse words everyone! I wasn't in my right mind.
Scott Redd (Jackrabbit race director) offered me a beer, which I declined and asked longingly after some bottles of water.
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| Drinking water and relishing the completion! |
After draining some water, I got some food in my gullet which I had to take slow otherwise I would feel a little nauseous. Turns out my struggles weren't all for not, as I was the first fat biker to finish the long course! First place baby!
Things I learned:
- I really need to get more experience with longer rides and nutrition. I almost wonder if my body just isn't used to processing food with that sort of effort. Practice makes perfect right?
- My shoulder is ship shape! Not even a touch of soreness the next day! Woot.
- Equipment:
- The Trek Farley 9.6 with Lauf fork was freaking amazing! It was light enough to climb great (for a fat bike), had a good range of gearing (30 chainring with 10-42 cassette), and could haul ass down the craziest MMRs! I would lean back, take my hands off the brakes, and huck over any big bumps. What a riot!
- The Bar-Yak cue card holder was awesome! It staid in place even over the roughest MMR descents (bottomed out the Lauf fork!), and was super stable. That removed all of my stress with handling cue sheets which is worth way more then I paid for it. Great product!
- The Becker Gear downtube bag was perfect for holding the big fat bike tube, multi-tool, patches, pump, pain killers, chain lube, and I still had room left! Keeps all that weight low and snug so it wouldn't move around on me. Come to think of it, I could have fit a small water bottle in it!
- SRAM GX1 - that crap just plain works! Reliable, crisp, good gear range. Good shit!
- Music. I knew I would be by myself most of the day, so I decided to try some music to help keep my mind occupied. Sampling of music I had: Slipknot, Five Finger Death Punch, Harry Potter Soundtrack, Star Trek Soundtrack, Batman Soundtrack, Pentatonix, etc...
Well - you hung in there for the novel, so now I will leave you with some sage words:
Never trust a hotel toilet - double flush every time!
Until next time!
Great ride and account! Huge ride! Thanks for the write up. Want to come up there and ride.
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