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Coyote Classic Race Report ~ DFL is better than DNF
Despite what you may think - it's NOT fun racing/riding with fork oil soaking into flesh wounds - and that's just part of my story at the Coyote Classic race, in El Paso TX. No photo's ~ sorry.
I had been planning on this race since last fall, coming out and riding strong in my debut Expert race and the first in the NMORS (New Mexico Off-Road Series) of my second season. It favored my kind of riding style, requiring technical skills to climb & descend the gnarly, rocky - off camber at times - terrain. It also required strength & endurance, as the total mileage for the expert loops (one long and one 'short' - the short being 8-9 miles of hard riding!) made for 28-30 miles of racing; pretty rough given the low average speeds and the intense amount of effort needed to climb the steep loose trails. I was ready. Fresh off of the NOVA NORBA race 2 weeks ago, I knew I could hang with the fellas in my group, provided I rode smart, ate and drank accordingly and kept an eye on the stronger guys. It would be hot 2.5 ~ 3 hours of racing, as the forecast was for mostly clear skies and temps in the 70's. Feels hot after all the sub-freezing 'training' lately. Especially in the sun. Felt damn good in fact!
I lined up with the 30-39 pro/expert group, maybe 20 of us all told, and we waited for the go ahead. The start was rather anti-climatic at first as we had a neutral road section down the park entrance road, to a turn-around, then rode straight back up towards the start of the singletrack. Once we hit the turn around, we still sort of cruised, waiting for someone to "break" and string things out a bit. All of a sudden the few pros and semi-pros went off! I stayed relatively close to the front but just before the singletrack, 1-2 guys snuck by. A gap started opening too quickly, so I got by them and stayed in contact with the lead 5-6 guys. The race was on! This first stretch of singletrack was mostly descending, technical at times, and FAST. It was punctuated by a few nice, hard, steep, loose climbs out of drainages. After about 10 minutes we popped out off the trail, across the park entrance road and onto the beginning of the main loop(s). Fast and flowy, still generally descending behind a series of hills that separated the start/finish area from the rest of the frontside of the course - the trail bed was typical southwestern DG (decomposed granite) so at times was a little loose and always demanded attention - as a mistake would net an encounter with the prickly flora that bracketed the trails.
So far so good. Riding fast, hard, and efficient. I lucked out descending the scary drainages efficiently, which helped propel me up the opposite sides and keep close contact with the main group. 2-3 guys, the fastest of the Pro/Semi-Pro's, were opening a bit of a gap, but were always in sight. On a scale of 1-10 I felt maybe a 7, so not optimum, but pretty good. It had been a fitful night of sleep and a tense start, but I was now settling into a good race rhythm. I'd have a little ground to gain on the 1 guy I was keeping an eye on in my group, but knew it was a long race and if ridden smartly, would catch him by the end, no problem.
Near the end of this first part of the course, comprising 1/2 of the "shorter loop" there's a hell of a series of climbs that bring you up to a saddle, then drops you down to the main/backside part of the course. Still feeling good as I cruised down the fun descending trails, taking a clean hard left at he first of 3 water stations (!) onto a rocky wash. From here, it's a long 10-12 miles that takes racers out to the furthest extent on the course and then wraps back to start the big climb back into the start/finish area. At this point, me and two other guys are working within contact of each other, but the terrain was rolling and undulating enough to not have much of a "line of sight" ahead, so at some point we loose sight of the lead few guys. No biggie, as we're riding well. Then I notice my fork is rattling a little bit. Loose headset? Noooo..., headset is OK. Hmpf. Oh well, deal with it later. We drop off the trail into another, slightly climbing rocky wash and I have no idea where the course is all of a sudden - then I see where I must have overshot a left turn*. I stop, see the other two guys climbing off to my left, so I head back and up the rocky jeep road/trail they are ascending. Must be the beginning of the long, hard, loose climb up out of this sort of valley we were down in. We're heading in the right direction generally (so I thought), so it?s time to concentrate on climbing efficiently. Somewhere along here, I really start to feel good, and catch one of the guys I'd been with. The other is motoring ahead, setting a good pace, so it continues. 20 minutes later, the guy I'm with asks if we're on course - I say, "I think so, as long as we keep heading (I point up, to the right) that way". Well, 5 minutes later the guy leading up ahead turns around and comes back to us. We'd hit a dead end!!! Fahking hell.... My heart sank. 30+ minutes of climbing, off course, way out in the middle of nowhere. We descend back down into said wash* we had initially hit, see other older sport level folks heading up the wash further, then exiting out to the RIGHT side! There was our mistake. The course really should have been marked a little better, as it was confusing despite the fact I'd been here before.... Later I heard locals saying they knew of the spot and have made the mistake occasionally! Such is life sometimes...
Totally deflated, I notice that my Fox Float 100RLC has a problem. The red damper adjuster knob and shaft are sticking up out of the fork about half an inch. I push and twist it. It goes down. I hit a bump - it pops up an inch! Repeat a few times, as the dampening system in the right leg appears to lose it's "return" circuit, so the fork is compressing and staying down - more and more. Shoot, that's not good, I still have 20+ miles of "racing" left! Not for the win, place or show, but for the finish. God help me, if I can, I'll finish this dang race. The only DNF I've ever gotten was due to, um, unexpected unconsciousness and a ride in an ambulance to the ER. I ride on, noting how rocky the course really is, now that I can feel every square-edged boulder, slam through the dips and drainage crossings, and feel like my kidneys are being punched. Oh joy. Not much further along, I hit another bump and the fork temporarily springs back up - cool! No dampening, but at least I have some shock absorption... One bump later ~ plooosshhhh!!!! The damper adjuster and the rod it had been bolted to fly over my shoulder, propelled by a geyser of shock oil, re-compressing the fork fully, and spraying me, my bike, my cuts, and my water bottle. This is not fun. I stop, retrieve the broken shaft and knob assembly, Velcro it onto my seatpost with the CO2 cartridge and ride on ~ now completely defeated feeling. Amazingly I'm not having the WORST day, as one of the guys I had been riding with on our off-course bonus journey has now had 3 or 4 flats, and may have called it quits.
Finally I start the last major climb up to the start/finish area, picking my way up the techy loose steep climb. The smell of BBQ is really messing me up and I contemplate quitting here - but no, I crest the hill and begin the "shorter" second lap - 10 more miles of rocky, abusive hell, all over again! All I remember later on in this lap is getting to the Tee intersection I thought I'd turn right at, and close the last loop, but I was WAY off. We were to turn left here and right at the NEXT one. Ow. These rocks are really starting to thrash my wrists, shoulders, kidneys, head, eyeballs, and so on. The stinky oily slime all over my bike and me had a lovely effect on my disk brakes too ~ making them very sluggish as the pads were now totally contaminated by the repeated mini-geysers of oil shooting out the top of my right fork leg. About 30 minutes to late, I get the brilliant idea to Velcro my glove over the hole in the top of the fork - so I stop, rig it up, and press on. It works! Better late than never. I did have the clarity to keep the glove on the hand that I had punched two deep gashes into the night before, while putting my bike on the rack - I was tensioning the rubber strap when it slipped, and my hand whacked my big chainring - right in the meat of my right palm! Joy, deeply embedded oil in puncture wounds, on a critical load bearing part of my hand...
The last lap took about 45-50 minutes, making for a hell of 3 hour, 30 minute "ride". Thankfully there were still marshals on the course, and bottles of water - so I grabbed one before the last big climb (again) and rinsed myself down - getting a pleasantly refreshing boost to boot. Crawl up the last climb and call it a day. Done. Finito. Over and out.
Crawl to the car, pile in, head for the Flying-J truck stop, take the hottest, best shower I've ever had and we hit the road for the 5 hour drive back to Santa Fe....
Next time it'll be better!
Next stop: NMORS #2; Cloudcroft, NM ~ home of the "cloud climbing railroad"
Despite what you may think - it's NOT fun racing/riding with fork oil soaking into flesh wounds - and that's just part of my story at the Coyote Classic race, in El Paso TX. No photo's ~ sorry.
I had been planning on this race since last fall, coming out and riding strong in my debut Expert race and the first in the NMORS (New Mexico Off-Road Series) of my second season. It favored my kind of riding style, requiring technical skills to climb & descend the gnarly, rocky - off camber at times - terrain. It also required strength & endurance, as the total mileage for the expert loops (one long and one 'short' - the short being 8-9 miles of hard riding!) made for 28-30 miles of racing; pretty rough given the low average speeds and the intense amount of effort needed to climb the steep loose trails. I was ready. Fresh off of the NOVA NORBA race 2 weeks ago, I knew I could hang with the fellas in my group, provided I rode smart, ate and drank accordingly and kept an eye on the stronger guys. It would be hot 2.5 ~ 3 hours of racing, as the forecast was for mostly clear skies and temps in the 70's. Feels hot after all the sub-freezing 'training' lately. Especially in the sun. Felt damn good in fact!
I lined up with the 30-39 pro/expert group, maybe 20 of us all told, and we waited for the go ahead. The start was rather anti-climatic at first as we had a neutral road section down the park entrance road, to a turn-around, then rode straight back up towards the start of the singletrack. Once we hit the turn around, we still sort of cruised, waiting for someone to "break" and string things out a bit. All of a sudden the few pros and semi-pros went off! I stayed relatively close to the front but just before the singletrack, 1-2 guys snuck by. A gap started opening too quickly, so I got by them and stayed in contact with the lead 5-6 guys. The race was on! This first stretch of singletrack was mostly descending, technical at times, and FAST. It was punctuated by a few nice, hard, steep, loose climbs out of drainages. After about 10 minutes we popped out off the trail, across the park entrance road and onto the beginning of the main loop(s). Fast and flowy, still generally descending behind a series of hills that separated the start/finish area from the rest of the frontside of the course - the trail bed was typical southwestern DG (decomposed granite) so at times was a little loose and always demanded attention - as a mistake would net an encounter with the prickly flora that bracketed the trails.
So far so good. Riding fast, hard, and efficient. I lucked out descending the scary drainages efficiently, which helped propel me up the opposite sides and keep close contact with the main group. 2-3 guys, the fastest of the Pro/Semi-Pro's, were opening a bit of a gap, but were always in sight. On a scale of 1-10 I felt maybe a 7, so not optimum, but pretty good. It had been a fitful night of sleep and a tense start, but I was now settling into a good race rhythm. I'd have a little ground to gain on the 1 guy I was keeping an eye on in my group, but knew it was a long race and if ridden smartly, would catch him by the end, no problem.
Near the end of this first part of the course, comprising 1/2 of the "shorter loop" there's a hell of a series of climbs that bring you up to a saddle, then drops you down to the main/backside part of the course. Still feeling good as I cruised down the fun descending trails, taking a clean hard left at he first of 3 water stations (!) onto a rocky wash. From here, it's a long 10-12 miles that takes racers out to the furthest extent on the course and then wraps back to start the big climb back into the start/finish area. At this point, me and two other guys are working within contact of each other, but the terrain was rolling and undulating enough to not have much of a "line of sight" ahead, so at some point we loose sight of the lead few guys. No biggie, as we're riding well. Then I notice my fork is rattling a little bit. Loose headset? Noooo..., headset is OK. Hmpf. Oh well, deal with it later. We drop off the trail into another, slightly climbing rocky wash and I have no idea where the course is all of a sudden - then I see where I must have overshot a left turn*. I stop, see the other two guys climbing off to my left, so I head back and up the rocky jeep road/trail they are ascending. Must be the beginning of the long, hard, loose climb up out of this sort of valley we were down in. We're heading in the right direction generally (so I thought), so it?s time to concentrate on climbing efficiently. Somewhere along here, I really start to feel good, and catch one of the guys I'd been with. The other is motoring ahead, setting a good pace, so it continues. 20 minutes later, the guy I'm with asks if we're on course - I say, "I think so, as long as we keep heading (I point up, to the right) that way". Well, 5 minutes later the guy leading up ahead turns around and comes back to us. We'd hit a dead end!!! Fahking hell.... My heart sank. 30+ minutes of climbing, off course, way out in the middle of nowhere. We descend back down into said wash* we had initially hit, see other older sport level folks heading up the wash further, then exiting out to the RIGHT side! There was our mistake. The course really should have been marked a little better, as it was confusing despite the fact I'd been here before.... Later I heard locals saying they knew of the spot and have made the mistake occasionally! Such is life sometimes...
Totally deflated, I notice that my Fox Float 100RLC has a problem. The red damper adjuster knob and shaft are sticking up out of the fork about half an inch. I push and twist it. It goes down. I hit a bump - it pops up an inch! Repeat a few times, as the dampening system in the right leg appears to lose it's "return" circuit, so the fork is compressing and staying down - more and more. Shoot, that's not good, I still have 20+ miles of "racing" left! Not for the win, place or show, but for the finish. God help me, if I can, I'll finish this dang race. The only DNF I've ever gotten was due to, um, unexpected unconsciousness and a ride in an ambulance to the ER. I ride on, noting how rocky the course really is, now that I can feel every square-edged boulder, slam through the dips and drainage crossings, and feel like my kidneys are being punched. Oh joy. Not much further along, I hit another bump and the fork temporarily springs back up - cool! No dampening, but at least I have some shock absorption... One bump later ~ plooosshhhh!!!! The damper adjuster and the rod it had been bolted to fly over my shoulder, propelled by a geyser of shock oil, re-compressing the fork fully, and spraying me, my bike, my cuts, and my water bottle. This is not fun. I stop, retrieve the broken shaft and knob assembly, Velcro it onto my seatpost with the CO2 cartridge and ride on ~ now completely defeated feeling. Amazingly I'm not having the WORST day, as one of the guys I had been riding with on our off-course bonus journey has now had 3 or 4 flats, and may have called it quits.
Finally I start the last major climb up to the start/finish area, picking my way up the techy loose steep climb. The smell of BBQ is really messing me up and I contemplate quitting here - but no, I crest the hill and begin the "shorter" second lap - 10 more miles of rocky, abusive hell, all over again! All I remember later on in this lap is getting to the Tee intersection I thought I'd turn right at, and close the last loop, but I was WAY off. We were to turn left here and right at the NEXT one. Ow. These rocks are really starting to thrash my wrists, shoulders, kidneys, head, eyeballs, and so on. The stinky oily slime all over my bike and me had a lovely effect on my disk brakes too ~ making them very sluggish as the pads were now totally contaminated by the repeated mini-geysers of oil shooting out the top of my right fork leg. About 30 minutes to late, I get the brilliant idea to Velcro my glove over the hole in the top of the fork - so I stop, rig it up, and press on. It works! Better late than never. I did have the clarity to keep the glove on the hand that I had punched two deep gashes into the night before, while putting my bike on the rack - I was tensioning the rubber strap when it slipped, and my hand whacked my big chainring - right in the meat of my right palm! Joy, deeply embedded oil in puncture wounds, on a critical load bearing part of my hand...
The last lap took about 45-50 minutes, making for a hell of 3 hour, 30 minute "ride". Thankfully there were still marshals on the course, and bottles of water - so I grabbed one before the last big climb (again) and rinsed myself down - getting a pleasantly refreshing boost to boot. Crawl up the last climb and call it a day. Done. Finito. Over and out.
Crawl to the car, pile in, head for the Flying-J truck stop, take the hottest, best shower I've ever had and we hit the road for the 5 hour drive back to Santa Fe....
Next time it'll be better!
Next stop: NMORS #2; Cloudcroft, NM ~ home of the "cloud climbing railroad"
Of course there is a ways farther to go down too... (re. Ambulance / unconscious / etc.)
