CB 100

Heather, Dharma and I headed to Gunnison on Friday night and got a room there. We were up at 5:30 the next morning so I could shove as much food down my throat that would fit. As we headed to CB we watched the temps fall on the digital thermometer in the Jeep. There was a pre-race meeting in the parking lot at the visitor's center. Soon I found my friends Eddie and Chucky. I met these 2 characters the morning I dropped down into Breckenridge during the CTR and we rode, laughed, and suffered together a lot. Company would be really good for the long day ahead.
There were 106 racers lined up for the several mile neutral roll out from town. As soon as we hit the dirt road, we would climb up for quite a while before hitting singletrack. A few hundred yards from the dirt you could see the whole field shuffling as the players came up front. Brick Oven Pizzeria riders horded the front and eventually I saw none other than Ethan Passant at the back of their train. When we hit dirt, there were 2 BOP riders dialing it up really high with Ethan in tow. Next was a Trek rider (not sure who he was but he was fit) and then, for some strange reason...my dumb ass. Shortly after we started climbing, Ethan took off and I started going in debt. Ethan is super fit and I'm not sure how he does so many different things that require different physiologies. He's quick at the shorter stuff, the longer stuff, the really long stuff and he kills it every year on the mountaineering circuit where racers speed climb up a mountain and then ski the backside.
I rode much harder than I should have the first lap. I felt terrible the whole time. I ended up finishing the 35 miles in 3 hours. It was fairly uneventful but I looked up on one singletrack climb to see a big cow staring me in the face. I stopped and realized that there was more behind the first one. As far as I could see it was cows. I wasn't sure what to do but I figured if I just got off the trail that they'd come on by. They did. Until another racer caught up to me and he started yelling at them and they scattered! It was chaos. It was even worse when the rancher came over the hill and saw what was going on. It can't be easy to round up all those cattle and then have some guy in lycra spook them. The guy was all on his own and really had his work cut out for him.
I got going again and eventually made it to town and checked in before heading to the car for some food and to figure out what gear to take for lap 2. I wanted to travel super light but I could see some storms building to the north so I grabbed a bit of stuff and took off after about 10 minutes.
30 minutes into a 12 mile climb it started thundering over the ridge. Bad weather scares the crap out of me and I was heading towards some very exposed areas up high. I road solo out of town on a gravel road that evetually turns into Slate D'Huez road. As I approached it I could look up and see the switchbacks and riders traversing the mountain. It was probably the steepest climb I've ever had to do and I had to walk some sections of it just to work some different muscles. Weather was quickly moving in and it didn't look good. I could see the distant mountains turning white from the snow. At the top I hit the 403 trail. I hated this trail. It was badly erroded and very technical. It was now raining and in the 40's. All I had with me was a base layer and a rain jacket. I put it on and ate some food and kept moving.
After finishing the 403 you hook up with another fire road. If you go right you head back to CB. Go left and it climbs 1-2 hours before hitting the famed 401 trail. Standing in the cold rain, I thought about which way to go for a good ten minutes before going left. I hate quitting anything but some of the locals had told me to be very careful at the top of 401 because it was very exposed. I climbed for 20 minutes and was soaked to the bone. With lightning popping off all around, I decided to bed down and try and take a nap. I found some pines and crawled into them and took a snoozer. About 30 minutes later, the rain had not let up so I decided to push on. It took forever but I finally made it to the start of the 401. More climbing that probably wouldn't be a problem on normal days but I had nothing left.
Finally the downhill on 401. It's completely exposed and the singletrack is cut into this steep mountain. It's not real technical but it does have some nasty little cuts in it that follow the contours of the mountain and one of them is nothing but sharp slate. At this point I couldn't see any other mountains because of all the clouds. It was raining, sleeting, and snowing off and on. I was frozen. I bombed down the trail and eventually hit the fire road with 10 miles to go to CB. I had one river crossing left and I was in such a hurry that I just bombed through it without looking. It turned out to be a foot and a half deep and I didn't carry enough speed so I had to walk through it. My feet stung.
I ate a ton of mud on the ride back to town and just gritted my teeth from the cold. I checked in at the Birck Oven and told them to stick a fork in me. I found Heather and Dharms at the car and cleaned up. Needless to say, I'm disappointed that I didn't finish. I'm having fun riding my bike again but I feel like I'm not focused on any particular area although I don't know if I need to be. This year I've done crits, long distance stuff, and I am doing a 12 hour team race in 2 weeks. I feel like my body is scratching it's head. Not sure what I've got going on. All I know is that I really love seeing stuff I run across on my long rides. My true racing days my be behind me.