24 hour Off-Road Adventure for the Sleepless Being
So, there i was, minding my own business, riding around in Moab, when I get email from my good friend Natalie. She wanted to know if I would be her pit crew at a 24 hour motorcycle race that she is doing with 4 other maniacs. She even offered to kick down gas money. I looked at my busy work schedule, and after shifting a few appointments, I carved out the time to drive up to lovely Washington (motto: We're almost Canada, eh?) with her bike and gear. While normal mortals schlepped their own equipment around, Natalie had the full factory ride going. She flew in, and got picked up at the airport by a teammate while her pitboy (yours truly) put the hammer down on a Tundra chock full of motorcycles, gear, food, ez-ups, water, folding chairs and tables, etc.... My intention was to stop and ride near Bend on the way up, but the arctic temperatures and profuse quantities of snow on the ground caused me to abandon that silly idea. Instead, I holed up in a little burrow in the front seat of my truck on Thursday night to catch 4 of the 12 hrs of sleep i would get over the next 3 days.
When I got to the race site Friday morning, it was approximately 0 degrees kelvin, and no other racers were there (big surprise), but a few of the organizing club members (Over The Bars Gang) introduced themselves and treated me nicely. They got a kick out of the ridiculous amount of stuff I unloaded from the truck. It was sort of like the clowns and volkswagen trick at the circus. Eventually, other humans arrived, but they did not, unfortunately, bring any warmth with them. I went out and walked the infamous "woods section." Many riders were talking about it like it was some alarmingly tight, twisty, and scary piece of trail. It turned out to be what we in NorCal call doubletrack, and as an enduro racer, it kinda looked like a freeway to me. I knew the girls would probably be taking advantage of the width to pass slower riders, and elbow them into the adjacent lake. I didn't get to look at much of the rest of the course, but what I could see looked like a freakin' boatload of fun and smiles, and you can bet I'll be racing next year. I'm not fast enough to get a slot on the ShredBettys, so I'll have to scrounge a team of the bettys' significant others.
The Shred Bettys |
Leann on the Start Line |
Good Clean Fun |
Early in the afternoon, factory-pro-girl showed up with her chauffeur, who was also racing, and before long the whole team was assembled. It consisted of (from left to right in the picture with the trophy):
None of the girls had ever done a 24 hour race before, so for preparation they relied on guesses and what they could extrapolate out of my 24 hour mountain bike race experience. We cobbled together a 3-sided shelter, and put Jeff's propane heater in it, so we could at least pretend we were warm. We didn't need to cook much because OTBG was wise enough to arrange for a catering truck that could make some money off us, which was a real godsend. Until you do a race like that, it's hard to understand just how little motivation you have for anything that's not actual riding. Forget all about cooking, just keep the warm drinks flowing, buy food from the truck, and make sure the pitboys remember to warm up the bikes before each turn, gas up the bikes and clean goggles after each turn, and offer moral support and shoulder rubs whenever they are required.
Leann started off in a cloud of dust, and recorded the fastest laps for the team. Even as the team got used to the track, it got more rutted, and grew deeper and fluffier "berms", so each lap was more difficult than the previous one. The 11.7 mile lap was taking around 40-50 minutes in daylight (except for super-Leann, who turned in a 38-minute 2nd lap), so the girls all felt comfortable with 2 laps at a time. They had originally imagined doing 3 laps at a time at night, to provide lengthier sleep times, but that proved to be rather unworkable due to the exhaustion factor (told ya so). Amazingly enough, with all the entertaining things happening around us, the ShredBettys experienced zero major problems. Preparation? Pit Crew? Good Looks? Luck? Probably a little of all of these thing. We saw cracked frames, exploded stators, broken pelvises (pelvi?) and collarbones, lunched motors, and I'm sure I missed some good stuff during the 90 minutes of sleep I got, but almost everything went smoothly for the Bettys.
One area of preparation proved to be especially important. Many of us have limped home from a ride as the sun set, and been happy to have the cheesy headlights sported by modern enduro bikes, but try to imagine going at race speed with those lights. Fuhgeddaboudit! Natalie's factory model NiteRider Headhunter light (in conjunction with the bike headlight) proved to be one of the best lighting solutions due to the remarkable capacity of the NiMH batteries and the industrial-strength wiring and lights. Leann and Emily used a prototype system (Mt Adams Lighting) that was economical and very effective, but ended up overpowering the generating capacity of the little 200exc, and the battery backup didn't quite last long enough under the stressful conditions. The guys with 300's and 450's that were using the same lights, and could plug them into the bike's electrical system, reported no problems. Many riders on other teams, with less excellent pit crews ran COMPLETELY OUT OF PHOTONS during a lap. That has got to suck! Luckily for one of those poor fellows, Kimberly was generous enough to slow down to a mortal human's pace so he could follow her in.
Honey, I'm Home |
Early on in the race, Leann managed to go a little too fast over a sharp kicker and smash her chin into her handlebars. How one could do that and not crash is beyond my comprehension, but she stayed upright, and choked down blood for the rest of the lap.
Leann the Amazing Rocket Girl, while possessing supernatural riding powers, is not exactly what you would call "graceful" when off the bike. In a remarkable display of coordination she (I swear I'm not making this up) fell out of her dad's travel trailer and catapulted a couple feet to the ground with a resounding thud like a sack of flour, only with a few more yipping and yelping noises. To protect their investment, the team sponsors are insisting on wheelchair transport for her for next year's race.
In the middle of the night, Natalie passed a rider named Skip with a fouled plug (and no tools or spare plugs, obviously not as well prepared as the Bettys), and offered him a lift to a point on the course where he could get help, as long as he drove, and not too fast either. As a factory rider, she is aware of her value to the sponsor, and unwilling to risk unnecessary injury. Needless to say, Skip rocketed away on one wheel, with Natalie clinging desperately to him, legs dangling out behind the bike while he tried to make up time.
In the real, deep, dark middle of the night, while waiting for Leann the Amazing Rocket-Girl, Natalie turned to me and asked "So, if I ride 11.67 miles, in 60 minutes, like, how many miles-per-hour average is that?" Emily, who was looking on, smirked, and appeared to be on the verge of actually speaking, but somehow she brought herself under control. This is an example of what happens to your brain in a 24-hour race, and underlines the importance of preparing well enough that you don't have to actually engage in any conscious thought after the first few hours.
In the middle of the night, Katy (the dirty one) burned off two laps that were the Bettys' fastest night laps by far, and only barely slower than her daytime laps. We decided to invest in really, really dark tinted goggles for her for next year's event so she can crank out those times even when she can see where she'll land if she messes up.
For a first-year event, the organization was nothing sort of incredible. Hats off to OTBG for all the work that went into the course (how many clubs have their own freakin' bulldozer!?). The newly installed lighting and gravel in the pit area was well-appreciated, the concessions were just what the doctor ordered, and with the stern lecture beforehand about the sacrifices our servicepersons make (including veterans like the motosapiens staff), it ended up being a real hoot-and-holler event that you could bring your family to. Here are my only suggestions to make it better for next year:
That's all the criticism I can think of, and they're all very minor points. Pretty goldarn amazing to bring off a 24 hour race that smoothly in their first try. If you're not a member of a dirtbiking club, consider joining one in your area, and helping to put on their events. You don't have to be as superhuman and visionary as OTBG to make a big difference in how much fun your fellow humans have.
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