More 24 hour Off-Road Adventure for the Sleepless Being

2004 24 Hour Race at Starvation Ridge, WA

After working as pitbitch for Natalie and the rest of the ShredBettys last year (read the story), I came to the conclusion that the whole 24 hour thing looked like way too much fun, so I vowed to race it in 2004. Unfortunately this left the ShredBettys without any shoulder-rub support, but they persevered anyway. Natalie still got to do the factory girl fly-in while we schlepped her bike up there.

The infamous schoolbus from hell pic by Jeremy Weintraub

Kelly pic by Jeremy Weintraub

Waiting for my turn pic by Jeremy Weintraub

So before I even hooked up with a team, I hooked up with Zac, who was on one of the Thumpertalk teams, and was driving up to Washington from Auburn. He and I arranged to meet in Reno and ride together so we could share expenses and keep each other awake on the drive. His big toybox trailer made the trip pretty cush compared to last year when I was sleeping in my truck in 20 degree weather. The only really difficult part of the whole trip was just directing Zac to my son's house in Reno. Just about every possible thing went wrong, including him turning the wrong way on the right street. Luckily, I saw a big toybox going the wrong way from a couple blocks away and called his cellphone to straighten him out. Then we missed the 395 ramp from I-80 west, since the sign now appears just *after* the ramp. I wonder whose great idea that was. Finally we got rolling north, and things were relatively uneventful (i.e., we stopped getting lost) until we pulled into the pit area at Starvation Ridge. We arrived around 2:00 pm on Friday, and there were already plenty of people there, but it wasn't full enough to give us any trouble maneuvering Zac's trailer into position in our pits. As soon as we unhitched the trailer, we got to the serious business of drinking beer and catching up with old friends and new friends. My team hadn't yet shown up. I didn't even know their name, just that they were bringing a schoolbus, so I figured they would be easy to find when they did finally drag in.

Preparation

So i set about consuming as much as possible of the case of Sierra Nevada pale ale I brought, while making feeble attempts to get my bike and equipment organized, and mostly just hanging out and being a pest. This is part of my official 24-hr preparation program, since I knew from mountain bike racing that I often have trouble sleeping between night laps. My rationale is that If I stay up late and drink lots and get up early, that I won't have any trouble sleeping in between shifts the following evening. Works like a charm.

When I saw a cute girl with her head on fire, my first thought was to reach for the fire extinguisher, but it turned out it was only Sharla, with her newly dyed 'do' to match her vicious little ktm200. That's some serious brand-loyalty there. Natalie showed up to reclaim her bike and attempted to murder poor Zac with a big ol' Captain Morgan and coke. That manly drink, on top of the earlier beers, caused Zac to think it was a good idea to start working on his bike and installing a new tire. All was going well until he smashed his finger into the rear sprocket, causing blood to squirt everywhere. Another tragic case of WWI (wrenching while intoxicated).

The best time to install lighting, an hour before your first night lap (click for larger picture) pic by Jeremy Weintraub

About this point, it occurred to me that it might be wise to take a quick spin on my bike to make sure it would actually run with the bizarrely rich jetting I had decided on. Since the race was 5000' lower than where I live, I had to use jets that had never before been installed in my bike. So I put my beer down, put my helmet on, kicked my bike and went to see how it ran. HOLY *#&%-ing($&%*! No wonder people live down in the flatlands. The old 300 pulled like a mad bastard with all that dense atmosphere to work with. I had a pretty silly grin on my face by the time I got back to our pit and resumed my previous activities. About that time, the official Team Rooster Performance schoolbus (not a short bus, tho that might have been appropriate for those guys) showed up, and I got to meet the rest of my team. Jeremy, Scott, Kelly and Tim were my teammates, and they were well-prepared with radios, food and drinks, warmth, tools, and anything else you could imagine. Eventually, the evening wound down and we hit the sack, sleeping like rocks until the following morning. I apparently missed the utter and complete asswipe that decided to loudly rev his bike like like a drunken quad-owner around 2:00 am. Thank goodness for beer.

Race Day

At long last, race morning dawned. Scott the organizer gave us an approximately 55-minute speech, during which he said a) be careful, and b) don't cut the course. No worries. Anyone who goes to that much trouble to put on a killer race like this is entitled to rant a little. The course was lengthened from the 2003 course, and the weather cooperated pretty effectively, dropping just enough rain to make dust almost a complete non-issue, but not enough to provide serious mud. Nobody wanted to make any decisions about who was riding in which order, but finally we came up with Scott, me, tim, kelly, jeremy. or something like that. All I really know is that I went after Scott. We opted to do 1 lap each to start, so everyone could get a look at the course in broad daylight and ride off the jitters and nervousness, then switch to 2 laps at a time to allow us to get into a rhythm without getting too tired.

The author, getting documented roost (click for larger picture) pic by Jeremy Weintraub

To the resounding cheers of all, Scott waddled across the start area at top speed to reach his bike in the Lemans-style start, and roosted his way out onto the course. 36 minutes later he came flying into the pits and I got my first taste of gp-style racing. Imagine an old-school mx track, from back in the day before they invented triple jumps and artificial whoops from hell, and mostly just used natural terrain with a few subtle modifications. Now stretch that out from 1.5 miles to 15 miles, with lots of hairpin turns, water bars, ditches, rocks, ponds, dragons, punji sticks, etc... What a hoot! It's radically different from the enduros I'm used to. For starters, you ride considerably faster. Also there's enough room to actually make passes, although that proved not to be much of an issue for me. I passed an old woman and a 12 yr old, and got passed by a bunch of people that were freaking flying through the rough stuff. I was seriously impressed at the rate of speed that some folks were able to maintain. Clearly I need to get some suspension work done on my 300 and then learn to ride it. My 250sx would have definitely been easier to ride fast, but unfortunately it lacks any kind of lighting capability. Even though it seemed like I was crawling, as it turned out, everyone on the team was turning near identical lap times in daylight, and then we slowed down by about the same amount at night, so no one could bitch about anyone else being slow or feel bad about being slow themselves. We were all equally slow.

I got 2 more laps in the daylight in the afternoon, then got ready for night. I think it's always a good idea to start working on installing your lighting system a couple hours before dark. That way it's not on your bike long enough to get broken and be unreliable. Much to my surprise, it all worked the first time, even though I am a complete doofus when it comes to electrical matters. I used the Mt Adams headlight, mounted on my helmet and wired into the 300's lighting coil. In addition, I was running the stock KTM headlight.

Into the Darkness

Riding at night was pretty bizarre. Even though I have quite a bit of experience riding and racing mountain bikes at night, the speeds are so much higher on a dirt bike that it is completely different. I found that the helmet light was overpowering the headlight a bit, and the higher mounting point of the helmet light means it washes out some of the contrast close in front of the bike, making it hard to see all the chop, and there was plenty of chop at that point. I think a more powerful headlight would help bring back some of the shadows and depth perception, and the helmet light would still be there for longer distances, and for looking around corners and over jumps and such.

The fenderless remnants of nate's bike (from Thumpertalk's dominant open expert team) pic by Zac (i think)

Another thing I discovered was that applying the brake caused the headlights to dim at low rpms. That proved to be pretty annoying, but was easily solved for the next laps by disconnecting the taillight/brakelight wires to remove them from the system and jealously hoard their electrons for headlight use. With the taillights out the 300 lit up both headlight and helmet light even at idle.

On my 2nd set of night laps, a slightly faster fellow caught me early in the first lap, and i hammered hard to stay with him. He dangled 50-100 yards ahead for several miles, but his movements telegraphed the course to me, so I was better prepared for tight turns. Even though the course was getting rougher every lap, I found I was starting to get used to it, and I was definitely going faster and feeling pretty sure I was going to turn in a fast lap. Then, going through the 'woods' section (a hundred yards of typical enduro trail) my helmet light got clotheslined by the xmas lights strung in the trees, and then got all tangled up. The whole mess was about 4' behind me, and holding me securely to the trees. It took me a couple minutes to extricate myself, and then I hightailed out of the woods to an open spot where I could reattach the light without being in the way. Once I got going again, I realized that the DOD-approved duct-tape light-fastening system I had developed had come partially unglued and now the cord was taped to my goggles, and pulling them off as I rode. Dammit! Luckily I was almost to the pit area, so I quickly swang through and got help to set the tape right and head off on another lap. Even with all the festivities, that lap time was pretty much what I ran the rest of the night laps, and pretty much what everyone else was running too.

Results

A couple people asked me how my Michelin x-11 trials tire was working. I just said it was all I could afford. Actually, in the magic dirt we were blessed with,

Jeremy, Scott, me, Tim, and Kelly, Proudly displaying our 3rd place sandbaggers trophies (click for larger picture) pic by Jeremy Weintraub

I think supermoto tires would have worked great. Maybe even bare rims would have been adequate in the velcro-like damp earth. One fellow said he had seen an old x-11 hanging on the fence near the track entrance, and he thought maybe he'd try it. I think on the hard sliding corners, a nice new knobby would have been a little more predictable, but not predictable enough to justify putting on a new tire for the race. At any rate, running a trials tire with over 1000 miles on it gives me a good excuse for being slow if I need one.

My sleep strategy of staying up late and drinking alot the night before worked perfectly. After each of my night shifts, I grabbed a quick bite, and sank into a deep and untroubled sleep while my teammates kept churning out 40-42 minute laps with no drama. The morning dawned and it appeared that if we stayed on schedule, we would have just enough time to squeak in 1 more lap for me. Our closest thing to a mechanical problem occurred right around daybreak when Jeremy came in to switch to dark goggles. Just as he was about to take off, another racer pointed out that Jeremy's rear tire was flat! Scott was ready to roll, and he bolted off to grab his helmet so he could ride, but Jeremy was thinking even more quickly, and he simply stole Scott's bike and rode away. At least the bike was warmed up for the rider switch half an hour later.

We stayed tight on time, but Scott came into the pits with 5 mins to spare, and I got to do 1 last lap in daylight, which I really enjoyed. The course had turned very choppy by that point, but at least I could see the good lines better than at night, and I managed to match my times from the previous day despite the deteriorating course conditions. By the end of the race I felt like I had a much better handle on the whole GP thing, and I was getting the suspension pretty close to working well. I still think I'm going to have some suspension work done to my 300 if I do the 24 hr next year, but mostly I just need to ride faster and corner better. On a side note, as Zac and I were driving out of the pit area, I spied the earlier-mentioned x-11 tire hanging on a fence. It had obviously been there a year or so, but the tread was in practically new shape (less than 100 miles probably), so I snagged it. A $100 tire for free almost payed for my gas to get up there. Sweet.

We ended up 3rd in the over-30 Amateur class. Not only were we sandbagging, but the teams that beat us were more than a lap ahead, so they were sandbagging even worse. Still, we were a long ways behind the top experts. If we can keep the same consistency we had (no crashes or major mechanicals, very predictable lap times) and take 2-3 minutes off each lap, we should be competing for the lead in over-30 expert.

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