Vacation Cross
NYC Velo “Jack of all Trades” Brett Champlain has a bit of the wanderlust in him, most recently galavanting across the American west (i.e. the land past the Hudson) in search of “The Ride”. In his own words:
From September 28th to October 11th of this past year, I had the opportunity to take some time away from the bike shop, Prospect Park and my diminutive apartment in Brooklyn, to travel to California, Colorado, and Pennsylvania. Many refer to this sort of thing as a vacation but I’ve chosen to dub the trip a “Restorative Vision Quest” because I returned to New York City not just relaxed but with a restored appreciation for riding bicycles and the beautiful thing West of us that is called the “United States of America.”
My RVQ had three distinct foci: a wedding in sunny San Diego, a visit with family and the higher elevations in Palisade, CO, and the big finish, the Iron Cross IX race in southern PA. The plan was to fly to San Diego and drive the return trip with my father in his $1,600 Mercury Marquis…now that’s luxury.
I boxed my ‘cross bike for the trip, disassembling sections of it and wrapping it in absurd amounts of bubble-wrap in anticipation of the tossing it would get from the baggage handlers. I wrote some “Thank You” and “Hup!Hup! Good Work!” notes all over the box as encouragement, but stopped short of taping a couple single dollar bills to the flaps. I’m happy to report that my bike arrived in San Diego in one piece because of those hard working luggage handlers, and Jet Blue didn’t even charge me to check the box as it was my only checked “luggage” and was not oversized. I had no reason to complain about the airline or air travel in general; the trip was off to a good start!
San Diego was warm and sunny the morning of my arrival, quite a contrast to the weather typical of NYC this time of year. After meeting with friends and family, resting a bit from the flight, and assembling the bike, it was time to set off for a little riding. I was staying in the Mission Beach section of San Diego, which is pretty flat, so I rode a few miles North toward Bird Rock and La Jolla to find some hills. It was a short ride before I encountered plenty of enticing hills to repeatedly ride up and down. I breathed the salted air and felt sun that is distinctly different from ours back East. I had plenty of time (before meeting my lovely girlfriend at a nail salon in La Jolla) to get some steep hill work. After a bit of exploration, I even found a nice dirt road to practice some cross skills on. I did some hill repeats and practiced cyclocross mounts and dismounts at speed for about an hour before showing up to the salon dirty and most likely smelly (where my girlfriend was finishing up her complimentary champagne). In spite of the nice weather, the day’s adventure would be the only riding I would do in San Diego (I was there, after all, for a wedding, which proved to be quite enjoyable). I wish the new Mr. and Mrs. all the best now and into the future.
My ladyfriend and I made a short trip North where we met up with my sister, her hubby, my handsome nephew (now almost 2 years old), dear old dad and his dog “Griz.” We spent an afternoon sipping cheap beer before moving on to a glass of decent wine and working on a jigsaw puzzle of a yellow and red bicycle. I spent the next couple days here, the sunny day of the two walking around the mission of San Juan Capistrano. The mission was founded in 1775, then left, then re-founded in 1776 to convert the native population of California into good, tax paying, Spanish citizens. Today, the mission is a quiet, well-kept garden.
The next leg of the trip would see my dad and me driving to my hometown, Palisade, CO. Palisade sits snugly in the Eastern corner of the Grand Valley, where the Colorado and Gunnison Rivers converge, butted up against the Grand Mesa, the Bookcliffs, and Orchard Mesa. The town sits at about 4,600 feet and geographically is one of the most beautiful places one could learn to ride a bike; the Rocky Mountains are to the East and The Colorado National Monument and Fruita (some of the best mountain biking in the country) to the West. The town was originally a good place to grow grapes and produce wine, but when prohibition blew through the area, stone fruits, especially peaches, took over and the little oasis between mountain and desert became famous for this fruit. The last 20 years have seen a swing back to producing wine and thus, “Peach Fest” held in mid-September has fewer and fewer peaches as the wine regains prominence.
Because I was to be in Palisade for only a single day, I had my sights set on a solid ride via Rapid Creek road to the town of Mesa, followed by a visit with Mom. The ride would be about 35 miles round trip but climb to almost 8,000 feet and look to be dirt roads the whole way. In all the years I lived there I never completed this ride and, sigh, I still haven’t. If you look closely at the satellite images and maps on the google (like I did after my “ride”) you’ll see that there are two Rapid Creek roads. One allows for the trip I anticipated, the other just goes off kind of into nowhere, leading you to hike for hours to find the ride-able spots of a laughably steep, rocky trail. Upon discovery of this miscalculation, I figured the ride a wash but no matter what, it would be good training for Iron Cross’ hike-a-bike sections and good to be physically working hard in the thinner air. I hiked for 2.5 hours before meeting a barbed wire fence across the road that forced me to turn around. That same 2.5 hour hike up was ridden back to town, down the rock gardens, quickly through all the gnarly technical sections, to the finish.
The return was dispatched in about 30 minutes and It was this ride home, bouncing and picking lines through volcanic rock, feeling my tires bottom out occasionally with no consequence, that really sold me on the tubeless set up I had decided upon for Iron Cross. I rode my cross bike through some pretty heinous stuff at decent speed and had no worry of pinch or puncture. If you have any questions about tubeless conversions or tubeless specific set ups, stop in the shop and Bill and I will have a whole bunch of informed opinions! Though my ride wasn’t technically a success in that I went from A to B and back, I did brush off my handling skills, took in some nice views, and got over to my mother’s place on time for a much needed home-cooked lunch. There will definitely be a round two with Rapid Creek Rd in the near future.
The final point in the trip was Iron Cross IX. At 100K, Iron Cross is America’s longest cyclocross race. The organizers billed the event as “Ultracross” and said it was inspired by the Three Peaks race in England. The course was designed to favor a ‘cross rider on a ‘cross bike, including some rolling paved roads and a lot of dirt and fire roads. On the other hand, the course designers made you feel dumb for doing the ride on a ‘cross bike by including some technical single track full of roots, rocks, felled trees, creek crossings and “run ups” that no one was running up. The race took place in Michaux State Forest, named for the French naturalist Andre Michaux who went traipsing through the Pennsylvania mountains to “discover” and name plants in the 18th century. It’s a scenic place, with the rolling mountains and the color-changing leaves of October. The route itself was one big loop with a few checkpoints along the way. This year the start/finish was Pine Grove Furnace State Park, which has adequate camping and parking, some nice walking paths and a lot of really good mountain biking. Pre-riding the course is hard, not just because it changes a little every year but it also changed the morning of. I rode some sections Saturday, to see what the feel of the race would be but found very little of what I covered to be included in the actual race. Not to worry though, it just added to the intrigue. We stayed a short drive from the park at a Super 8 in Carlisle. To keep it interesting, we smuggled the dog into the room wrapped in a blanket like a burrito.
The race: Sunday morning during my warm up spin I thought, hmm this front tire is going to be a little too low, I’d better head back to the car and add some air, and proceeded to bunny hop a roller on some slick grass, crash, burp the front tire and get a clump of sod caught between the rim and bead thus losing my sweet tubeless set up. I usually like to crash or something like that right before a race so that everyone can see what they’re up against. I had about 5 minutes before the Pre-Race Meeting so I had to just stuff one of my spare tubes in right off the bat and go tubeless rear, tubed front. Even though not ideal for the race, this would indulge my tire geekery with a sudden side by side comparison, a head to head of Tube vs No Tube. The group of 214 riders all went out at once, and all hit their brakes at once for the first corner, someone rear-ended me here but it wasn’t harmful, just good for a laugh. There were immediately a couple things to string out the riders, a steep-rocky-downhill-sharp-left-turn and a narrow run-up. Both proved helpful in getting the nerves out. Next up was a rising road section to a dirt road that, upon reaching, shocked me at how soon everyone was flatting, I counted at least ten flats in the first 3 miles. We came out to some paved rolling hills to decide the racer that would take the KOM (King of the Mountain) title home, and then ducked into Lippencote trail, the first section of single track. This was my first time riding Lippencote and it was super fun! If you that haven’t ridden it, it’s really worth the trip. It was definitely in the spirit of, “why am I doing this on a cross bike?” There isn’t much room to pass on this stuff so I was behind a slower guy for a while shouting, “let it roll let it roll you can go faster!” till he got sick of me and let me by. I listened to my own advice after I passed him and backed off the brakes, really letting go until Bang! (A pinch flat). I quickly put a tube in and got back to it, with a little more pressure. About 5 minutes later Bang! (Another pinch flat). I was well past the first checkpoint and that was my only spare tube because I had used one before the race, so I ran for a while, got out to the next section of pavement, jumped on and rode with a flat front. My thinking was that I would ride to checkpoint 2 where I had a drop bag with tubes and CO2. Luckily I didn’t have to, after a solid 5 miles a lifesaver came along and gave me a tube – Thank You to that good sport that helped me out!
I realize now writing this that the race blurs together in many ways. I won’t try to play by play/bore through it for you, let’s just say that Hog’s Head Road is one of the longest, gnarliest climbs I’ve ever done, the weather was perfect and there were some ridiculously fast, and at times dodgy, sections of fire-road. Suffice to say that during the race, there were places back in the woods and riding along ridge-lines where I was tired, but overcome by how amazing it can be to try to ride a bike fast on a gorgeous fall day.
The race concluded back at Pine Furnace Grove with a couple of barriers right before the finishline. Some of the faster and more experienced guys bunny-hopped them. For those readers out there who like numbers, when it was all said and done, I had four flats, finished 43rd out of 96 in my field, 92nd of 214 overall with a final time of 05:09:11 (nine minutes, 11 seconds outside of my goal). Not bad for the 2nd race in my life. The winner finished 03:53:01.
After all this excitement I found Dad and Griz and relaxed over lunch while watching the other racers finish up. The race was really well organized and I’m looking forward to challenging myself to do better next year.
On our way back to NYC we took a little detour through Gettysburg to bring a fitting end to the Restorative Vision Quest. I have to thank Andrew and the rest of the guys at the shop for covering my schedule while I breathed in some fresh air, searching for my spirit animal. It turned out to be a Jack Russell terrier, go figure.