2013 Lumberjack 100: Complete

Bright and early on Saturday morning I set out for my second attempt at Lumberjack 100, a race which I tried last year and failed to complete. Just after 6pm, a little over 11 hours after starting, I rolled across the finish line having met my two goals for the race: completing it and enjoying the ride. After crossing the finish line I picked up my finishing patch from the pile sitting on a chair (the person handing them out was off taking a break), put my bike in the tent with my stuff, and went and purchased one of the nifty plaid Lumberjack 100 jerseys that I told myself I’d get if I managed to complete the whole event.

I finished with an official time of 11:03:10.42, but due to some Garmin Edge 500 issues I had a difficult time getting accurate moving time data. From what I can tell my moving time was about 10:15:06, which sounds right as I stopped a bit. This was mostly to use nature’s toilet, but there were a few other times to fix mechanical issues, help a couple of folks, wait for traffic on the climb at the start, and deal with an exciting (but thankfully not terrible) crash.

Had I done a few things differently (not crashed, stopped less, pushed a little more on the fire roads, sat on the toilet a little less between laps one and two) I would have have broken 11 hours, but I’m still quite happy with that time. There’s also the chance that all of those things helped make it a fun time. Beating this goal (sub-10 hour would be ideal) is something to aim for if I try the race again in the future. I really enjoy this race, the area around Big M, and most of the preparation / training rides, but dedicating much of another spring doing long, endurance-type rides gets in the way of other things and starts to get a bit stressful.

Statistics

I ran into (yet more) problems with my Garmin Edge 500 on this ride (read more on the specifics here), but in the end I was pretty happy with how things worked out. I was fairly consistent lap to lap, even though one of those (namely lap 2) was padded with a bit of stopping due dropping my chain, using the plastic box toilets at the start, crashing, helping someone who had crashed, and giving someone a spare link for their chain. Lap one added some extra time during traffic backups at the start, and lap three had a bit of stopping to fix the chain, which kept dropping behind the largest cog on the cassette.

My statistics for the race are as follows, gathered from a combination of Garmin Connect (which managed to parse the corrupt .fit file without issue) and the official results.

Official Time: 11:03:10.42

Lap Times: 3:34:42.86, 3:44:20, 3:44:09

Moving Time: 10:15:06

Elevation Gain: 7,457 feet

Average Moving Speed: 9.5 MPH

Average Heart Rate: 137 BPM

Average Cadence: 77 RPM

The Weather / Clothing

Prior to the race I’d become a bit concerned about the weather, as it was quite cold in the cabin the morning before, the forecast for rain seemed to jump around indicating that we might get a bit wet on the afternoon. I even went so far as to ask Joe Seidl (one of the folks whom I split a cabin with) to pick up some spare clothes from my place and bring them up with him.

I really appreciated the pickup, but this ended up not being necessary, as I wore typical summer time shorts, jersey, light weight gloves, and all the usual accessories and was comfortable everywhere but on the initial ride down the road. Spending half a day on the bike is definitely something one shouldn’t overdress for. Since the Big M area has a very thick canopy and most of the race is in deep tree cover, almost the entire day was spent in the shade, the riding-induced breeze keeping me cool. It was perfect; I couldn’t have asked for better weather.

Crashing

Somewhere around mile 45 I had just passed a couple other folks and was riding on some beautiful, flowing sandy trail through CCC-planted pines when I passed through a slight chicane between two small pines. On my first lap I noticed this spot as a place one could wash out, but didn’t pay it much mind as it was easy to ride through. This time as I tried to navigate the gentle back-and-forth weave I suddenly found myself in the air and falling towards one of the pines. I’m still unsure of exactly what happened, but I figure that I either washed out my front wheel, hit one of the stumps hidden in the ferns along the trail, or lost control of my front wheel after hitting some deadfall. Since I’m prone to washing out my front wheel I suspect that’s what I did.

This fall would have been relatively uneventful, except while still in the air I managed to hit the upper part of my left cheek on the left end of the handlebar. This was a bit of a shock and immediately caused a small part of my face to go numb, which worried me. Not long after I fell some other folks showed up asking if I was okay, I said I was but that I needed a moment. Apparently my behavior worried one of them enough that they took off towards the aid station and informed them that I was seriously hurt.

When I fall off my bike I tend to stay in place for a few moments, checking to be sure that I’m all right before getting up. I figure this is a good plan as broken bone can cut/tear muscle, and the adrenaline that allows one to simply jump up and “walk it off” can mask more serious problems. While laying there I checked things over, asked people if my face was bleeding, checked my teeth and jaw with my tongue, pressed on my cheekbone to be sure it wasn’t broken, and spit on the ground to see if there was any blood in my mouth. After all these tests came up negative I got up, sorted out the chain on my bike, then got on with riding.

Unfortunately this thorough self check seemed to cause the report of my falling to snowball into a report that I was tangled in my bike and unable to get up and that I’d hit my face and was bleeding a bunch. When I got to the aid station Alex Mitevski, Jeff Wood, Kevin Allen, and Stuart Allen were all there looking concerned. I said hi and asked them if my face was bleeding when someone pointed out that I was the guy they were looking for. I’m really glad to hear that a bunch of people were looking out for the random guy who crashed on the trail and I’m sorry to have wasted the time of those who were waiting for me. I took a moment to wipe some of the heavy dirt off my arm with a dry paper towel then took off, eventually finishing out the day.

It’s really good that I was wearing glasses and didn’t hit the end of the bar while it was on the ground, as both of those being different could have made things a lot worse. It’s also good that I have bar end plugs in, as hitting a ~2 square inch relatively smooth surface (Ergon GP-1 clamps w/ plugs) is far less bad than hitting the end of a pipe.

Bike and Mechanical Issues

The Salsa El Mariachi Ti that Trail’s Edge set me up with was the perfect bike for me at this race. Other than a bolt coming lose (which is my fault, since I was the last person to tighten it), I had no issues with the bike. As with other long rides I’ve done it fit me nicely, felt great, and worked well. The brakes continue to be the best I’ve used, and the slightly-flexy rear makes long rides extremely comfortable. Providing everything goes as I hope there’ll be quite a few more miles put on that bike before the end of the year.

After crashing I’d found that my chain had ended up behind my cassette. This is often a ride-ending issue if the chain can’t be removed, but thanks in no small part to the relatively low flange hub on the Shimano HB-M785 rear hub it was fairly easy to lift the chain out from behind the cassette and get things back to normal. After this point I this would occasionally happen if I shifted quickly to the top of the cassette, and each time it was frustrating to stop and have to fix it. I fiddled with a limit screw at one point but it didn’t make a difference.

It was only after arriving back at the cabin that I found what the problem was: the swing plate fixing bolt on the drive side (#4 here) had come loose allowing the drive side to occasionally move backwards. I suspect that some slight frame flexing while shifting was allowing the chain to drop behind the cassette if I wasn’t careful. Since I didn’t have this problem before crashing I suspect it somehow happened when I fell, although I can’t help but wonder if the loose bolt issue occurred slightly before that, causing my rear wheel to go funny, me to lose control, and crash. Either way, I’m glad to know why it was happening so that I can fix it before putting the bike back together. I’d had it torqued to spec before the ride last checking it before riding Yankee Springs and I figured it was set, but I guess not. I’ll have to tighten it better next time.

(There is a slight, intermittent ticking sound that’s coupled with putting load on the pedals that I’ve been unable to isolate. After this weekend I strongly suspect that it’s due to low spoke tension on the rear wheel. The wheel continues to be true and solid, but it’s just about the only thing that remains to look at. Plucking spokes has them sound less taught than the front wheel, which makes me question them. Once I have a bit of time I’ll check on this.)

Other Riders

As per usual almost all of the other riders that I encountered during the race were quite pleasant and and seemed to be enjoying the race quite a bit. During my second lap I was passed by the lead group of four riders on the sandy, somewhat-sunny Sky Pilot climb after the aid station where there are sandy berms and evidence of old trail which is interlaced with the existing route. Despite all being on their third lap and only ~15 miles from this incredibly close finish they all looked fairly content, said hi, and called out plenty far back so I could hear them and make room.

There was only one small quirk, which was as the lead single speeder passed me in what I believe to be Big Wheel or Camp 24. I was riding along, he came up behind me and asked to pass, and just as an opening appeared to the ride he called “on your Left!” and started to pass me on the left. Right then the trail closed in and he made a hard / fast hop over some logs while swearing. When I told him there had been an opening to the right, he replied with “yeah, but I said left” and took off. Oh well, neither of us got hurt and he went on to win, so all was good.

Not long before crashing myself, I came around a corner to find someone laying in the trail, dirt packed in his face and helmet. He’d hit a stump that was hidden among some ferns in the beautiful CCC-planted pines (probably near this location) and taken quite a tumble. Except for being dirty he ended up being just fine, and carried on for the rest of the day and finished the race around the time that I did.

Some time after that I had just begun descending the ridge after what Nick Shue refers to as the Porn Climb (ostensibly because of a magazine propped up on a rock at the side of the trail there one year) when I saw a guy with an orange single speed walking his bike. It turns out he had a broken chain and a chain tool, but no parts to repair it. In my kit of bike repair stuff I had two links from a SRAM PC-1 chain, specifically intended for repairing single speed chains, so I stopped to give him one. A team mate was going to set out with a chain for him on his next lap, but he was concerned about getting it in time to make the cutoff. This link was exactly what was needed to fix his problem and he had a chain tool, so hopefully it worked out. (This is the ridge where this photo was taken in 2011 during a Memorial Day Weekend pre-ride; the same one where Bill Edgerton knocked himself slightly silly on this tree during a ride in 2010.)

Finally

I’m really glad I finished the race. Last year I felt a bit down after not completing it, and that stuck with me and made me want to do it. I wasn’t as fast as most, but I had fun and finished, and that’s what I wanted. Now that I’ve done this I imagine I can consider doing some longer rides as well. I’ve got a few things in mind, but what I’ll have to see what pans out.

In the mean time, here’s a bit more data from the race on Saturday: