2015 Something Wicked 6 Hours of Cathedral Pines

Our local endurance mountain bike race, the 6 Hours of Cathedral Pines, has become a ‘must do’ race now for us. Quite apart from the fact that it’s a mountain bike race held less than 20 minutes from home, it’s a great chance to catch up with our friends who organise and run the race, compete in the race, help out, patrol, spectate and photograph the race.

In previous years, Kim and I have tackled the solo event. This year we decided to do something different. It’s held the weekend before Thanksgiving, putting it right in the heart of the local cyclocross season. The training required for the 30–60 minutes of a cross race is just a little different from that required for over 6 hours on a mountain bike. We’d decided early in the year that we would do it as a team of two in the ‘co-ed’ category. After Kim broke her collarbone in June, this idea was a little in doubt, but her recovery was good enough to let her race.

We had a group of six from Vermont stay with us the night before the race. Little did we know that we had the first place pro woman and man, second place pro man and two other podium placers visiting us. What we did know is that they brought us a dozen Heady Topper cans, one of the best, and most sought after, beers in the country. We had a relatively quiet night, with lots more water than beer being drunk.

We arrived at Cathedral Pines at around 7am, our normal arrival time, and were directed to our normal parking spot by Shoogs, the normal parking attendant. It’s a slightly strange thought to realise we’ve got into a routine for something like a 6 hour mountain bike race.

Kim and I had discussed some race plans the day before. I was going to start, and do two laps, then hand over to Kim to do two laps, then we would go one lap each until the end.

Race briefing at 8.30am. Sad moments as we remembered our friends Luis, Ross, Chris and Roland.

Rolling down to the start at around 8.45. One advantage of doing this as a team is I could take extra clothes to the start and hand them off to Kim. The morning was a bit colder than I’d expected, but nothing like as cold as last year. One extra layer was all I needed to be comfortable.

Last year I pushed the start really hard to try to get into the singletrack in a good spot, but really paid the price later in the race. Even though I was doing this year as a team, I was pretty conservative at the start. This meant that I ended up on the singletrack in a slower group than I would have liked, but I was resigned to that. As I’ve written a number of times, this is one of the downsides of riding a singlespeed for me; I just cannot spin fast enough to keep up with riders on geared bikes on fast open terrain.

I settled into the group, listening to Reggie calling out to the people in front to get a move on. Hans crashed on the downhill in Big Pine, but fortunately was OK. My first lap was done in 52:39, putting us in fifth place in our category. When Kim and I had originally talked about doing a mixed team, we had realistic hopes of getting on the podium. Kim has a good collection of 6HoCP medals, but I’ve yet to win one, so I was hoping we’d be able to do that. After Kim’s injury, we changed the level of competitiveness we were aiming for, planning to enjoy the riding, have fun hanging out with friends, and let the results be what they would be.

I rolled around the car park, grabbed a beer handup from Kim to hand on to the cowbellers/cheerers/hecklers that were gathering at the Bartlett Rd part of the trail. It’s become a bit of a tradition too, both the gathering spot and the handing up of beer to them.

My second lap was mostly free of traffic. It’s surprising how different the first and second laps were in this regard. The large groups had disappeared, and any traffic was single riders. It’s much easier to get past a single rider, and everyone was really friendly and cooperative about passing and being passed. Second lap done in 48:07; that’s a bit more like what I wanted to do. At this point, we were in third place, but I hadn’t really been keeping track. I knew definite contenders for the podium in our category were Cliff Williams and Diana Rooney, and they were in second after having done a lap each. I rolled through the finish, and Kim took off on the first of her two laps. She put in a 53:40 and 51:49. These great laps had us in fifth place, and less than a minute away from third, with second place another couple of minutes ahead. Cliff and Diana were well in the lead by this stage.

I’d felt pretty good on my second lap, and had over an hour and a half of recovery, so I set out hard on my third lap, our fifth, with the objective of getting us at least into third, and hopefully into second. Fourth place was only a few seconds ahead, so I was able to make up that spot on the loop around the car park. I moved into third after Deer Path. Then the chase for second was on. I had an idea of what they were wearing so kept an eye out in front of me. I think this is one of the fastest laps I’ve ever ridden in Cathedral Pines. I was having a great time trying to hold as much speed as possible through each corner, punching hard up the hills and accelerating hard out of the slower corners. Just after Bartlett Road, a little over half way through the lap, I’d caught up to second place and moved into that spot. I didn’t relax for the rest of the lap as I wanted to get as much of a buffer as possible. This lap was 45:56, my fastest of the day by nearly 90 seconds.

Sticking to our plan, Kim did our sixth lap, her third. She smoked the course in 51:45, comfortably keeping us in second and gaining a few seconds on the leaders. Their lead was four minutes as I headed out on my fourth and final lap, our seventh. I didn’t have any expectations of being able to catch Cliff. Before Kim had finished her third lap, I’d been looking at the times and realised that we were on course for doing eight laps, something we had never contemplated in our planning. As Kim and I handed over for my final lap, I called out to her to be ready to do another. She’d left everything out on the course during her third lap, but I was hoping she’d be able to recover for a fourth. My intention was to go as hard as possible, again, to get as much of a lead over third and fourth as I could. First place was still not in my calculations.

But after finishing the three hills early in the lap, I saw a rider walking his bike, and realised it was Cliff. He’d broken his chain in a fall on the fast descent before the third climb. He called out asking if I had a chain tool. Luckily I did, so I pulled out my tool bag and handed it to him as I rode past. I had a moment of thinking I should stop and help him, but then realised I still needed to stay ahead of the teams behind us. He was OK, so I left him to deal with his chain himself. Knowing that we were in first, I kept pushing hard to try to get as much of a lead as possible to give us a chance at taking the win. My final lap was 47:21, slower than my third, but I was still happy with how it felt. We’d done seven laps in 5:51:17, giving us the chance to get eight done.

Kim was ready for her fourth lap, which is good as I didn’t have a lot left in my legs at that stage. I saw Diana, Cliff’s teammate, in the transition area, and let her know what had happened. I then kept a very close eye on the other mixed teams coming through. The coloured number plates make it very easy to identify people’s category. Andrew Rizzi came through the finish with just over two minutes left, looked like he was about to call it a day, but then started to head off on an eighth lap. Damien Talese came in with just a few seconds remaining before the six hour limit, and his teammate, Gloria Liu, headed out on their eighth lap. Unfortunately Cliff came in after the six hour limit, so their race was over at seven laps. I was pretty sure Kim had enough of a lead on the only other two teams who could do eight laps, and even if it wasn’t enough, we were still going to be on the podium.

Kim’s final lap was a 56:10, giving us the win in our category. Gloria finished their eighth lap, moving them into second, while Andrew and Heather didn’t complete an eighth.

A few things I really enjoyed about doing this race as a team instead of solo: it was really good to do a race with Kim as part of a team, it was fun to be able to go hard for a lap or two, and then recover before going again, and it was great to be able to watch others racing, cheer them on and catch up with other team racers and spectators.

A huge thanks to the Cadre crew and their families for putting on this event. Jeff, Jen, Randy, Lynn, Jody, Scott, Missy, Chad and Kelly put on a fantastic event every year. Thanks to our trail patrol friends for providing support on the course. Thanks to Brian Silverio and Tina from Island Capture, Jen Carlson, and Jenn Solomon for the excellent photographs. Thanks to everyone who came and cheered, cowbelled and supported. Congratulations to everyone who raced; there were a lot of amazing performances amongst our friends. Congratulations also to our Vermont house guests for taking home a swag of medals and prize money, and thanks to them for hanging out with us the night before the race. And a huge thanks to Kim for being such an excellent speedy team mate!