Monday, June 30, 2008

13.5 Hour Race

The morning of the 24 hour race, I'm looking around at the competition. I think to myself, "I have this won!" Then to find out 10 seconds later that Pete Basinger had flown into Anchorage early that morning and was setting up for the race. For those who don't know, Pete was second in the Singlespeed category at 24 Hour World Championships.
The race starts, and within 2 laps, all four of the top solo riders were riding in a group together. A guy Chuck(I'm not sure of his last name), 24 Hour King Pete Basinger, my friend and Kaladi/Subway Teammate Adam Miller, and myself. This group was quite fun to ride in. Then 4 laps in everything separated. At 6 hours of riding and 7 laps in, I am really having a hard time keeping myself mentally aware of whats going on around me. At 9 I eat half a pizza that my mom made for me, rest and stretch for another 20 minutes, then decide I better start riding again because Adam had passed through the feed zone. I decided I needed to catch him and ride with him. Then the pizza starts to come back up. I struggle my way through that lap to see Adam already leaving for his 12th lap. I needed a break, so I lied down in my sleeping bag for an hour till he got back. At this point Pete is already 2 laps ahead and nobody really knew the status of Chuck. Adam gets back and we decide to ride that next lap together starting at midnight, his 13th and my 12th lap. I realize right away that Adam wasn't riding at or anywhere near his normal pace, so I set off without him. That lap was faster than any other lap I had done to that point, and I was shocked. So I give myself a 15 minute break to put some new EuroStyle Chamois Butter in, stretch, and drink some Accelorade. I head off for lap number 13 at 1 A.M. It may not get completely dark in Alaska, but it was dark enough that I didn't want to be alone. I see an old buddy Ethan. A few years back Ethan and I worked at REI together. Now just ahead of me, I make a small surge to catch him. We ride the first third of the lap together, then get separated on a fairly tough uphill singletrack.
I ride on without Ethan, then 20 minutes later as I head into one of my all time favorite singletrack sections, I see a bike mangled up in a bush just off the trail. 20 Feet farther down the trail, I see another bike lying on the ground with the light still on, it was Pete Basingers bike. Another 20 feet farther I see a helmet. Then maybe 50 feet later I see Pete holding a very bloody person. Pete was talking to paramedics on a cell phone, and stopped to tell me to get to a trail head parking lot about half mile away and across a river. He told me I needed to guide in the race director, EMT's and Paramedics to the site. He told me I needed to be as loud as I could because there was a very angry Grizzly bear in the area. And it had attacked a 16 year old girl. A girl I knew quite well. I head off toward the parking lot as fast as I could and yelling at the top of my lungs at a 1000 pound Grizzly Bear that could run onto the trail at any moment. I cross the river and head up to the parking lot, the race director and the EMT were just parking. They unloaded their bikes as I told them where to go, and without any hesitation they were gone down the trail. I wave in the paramedics and policemen. I guide in the first group of paramedics down to the river and Ethan came up from the scene to guide them the rest of the way. I raced back to the parking lot to guide in another group. We finally get to the scene, put the girl on a stretcher and head out. I grab her helmet which resembled nothing of a helmet and give it to a paramedic. I take her bike back to the parking lot, while another group stayed to gather up all racers still on the trail.
Pete was a great leader throughout the entire situation. If I hadn't stopped before that lap it could have been me attacked by the bear. It could have been anybody.
I did not give any information about the girl because the media has not yet released it. In one of the articles published by the Anchorage Daily News, Rick Sinnott, a state biologist, said "I question the wisdom of bicyclists". This is not the time to start blaming people, it is time to help make it safer, and that is your job Mr. Sinnott.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

24 hour race preview

so today i decided to check out the course for our local 24 hour race. it is a new course this year and it has way more singletrack than other years. that is exactly what anchorage racing needs. one problem. Horses. as i was riding the course, quite a bit of the singletrack was destroyed by a pack of horses. the trails went from being hard packed dirt from years and years of riding, to 8 inch deep holes all over the trail. i think im going to go and take a picture tomorrow because im so pissed off about it. besides making me angry, the course is great. i just hope my legs stay great for 24 hours.