Ashland 12-Mile Super D Race Report

First of all, a little bit about my strange Saturday on the way to Ashland. It starts in Grants Pass, where I’m at a local gas station and some guy yells out of his truck, “Hey OBRA!” It was Randy MacNeil (whose name I’ve probably misspelled), one-time framebuilder of N A C frames. We chatted for a while at the pumps. I had never met him before, nice guy.

So I get to Ashland, and with plenty of time to kill I decided to walk around. Ashland is a nice place, but it’s a little surreal. The first oddity I saw was the arts fair. Not entirely odd, just out of place. In a town that is quite expensive to live in (relative to salaries at least), the art fair was a sort of hippy-fest that I would expect to see in Eugene. Oddity number two: walking downtown behind an older couple, probably in their mid-fifties. The woman was wearing a rather light full-length white dress, that provided minimal coverage of her little black thong underwear. Oddity number three, the winner of the strangest thing I have seen in a long time contest: the guy sitting at the table next to me at the restaurant I went to for dinner along the little river that runs through downtown. Cowboy hat – check. Wrangler jeans – check. Leather cowboy boots – check. Face shaved to perfection – check. It’s an urban cowboy! Nope, sorry. Holy freakshow, Batman, this dude has dreadlocks a good foot below his shoulders! On top of all that, this guy definitely had the whole Brokeback thing goin’ on to boot. OK, now don’t get me wrong, if this guy was gay it’s his business and it’s fine by me. But the whole gay cowboy with dreads thing was just a little too many lifestyles to try to fit into one dude.

OK, so about the race. 12 miles, 4,500 feet down, with about 600 feet of climbing thrown in for good measure. I believe there were around 80 racers in attendance, not quite as many as I thought would show.

The race started right there at the Mt Ashland Ski area lodge, and went downhill from there (there isn’t much up left at that point). There was still some snow up there, and the first section near the top was giving everybody problems. Then is was pretty much double-track descending for the first mile or so. Then we hit the climb. Now let me start by saying that 600 feet of climbing, even all at once, doesn’t sound like that much. I mean, after the Race at Reehers, what’s a little bit of climbing? Oh wait, THIS climb STARTS at well over 4,500 feet elevation already. For those of us who live at about 200 feet elevation, this one was a real lung-buster. I felt like I was about to hack up my lungs, my spleen, and any other organs that are nearby. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! The good news is I passed two other riders going up the climb. Did you hear that, I passed two people going uphill! Maybe three, it’s all a little foggy.

Ah, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh…the hill is over…huh, good. More singletrack descending, and lots of it. It was not the best singletrack descending I’ve ever ridden, but it was pretty darn good. OK, it was great fun. Nice mix of terrain, as you literally pass through a couple climate zones on your way from the top of the mountain to downtown Ashland. Toward the bottom of the hill, there were a bunch of switchbacks with wood barriers built into the corners, for erosion control I presume. Nice 180-degree turn after 180-degree turn. The best way to really move through them for me was to pull my inside foot out of my pedal and lift it over the barrier, then clip back in on the other side. Down close to the bottom the trail got pretty steep, enough that it was difficult to even know where you (and the trail) were going. When the whole thing was over, and I came charging though the little flagged finish area, I was kind of bummed. I wanted to keep going!

I did the whole thing in just over 45 minutes, enough to get me second place in the 30-39 Sport Class. I also beat all the 19-29 Sports, and half the Experts! Yeah, so it was a little nuts to drive five hours (twice!) for a 45-minute race, but I was pretty sure I would do well on this one and my hunch proved correct. Next weekend, T&E Cycle Challenge XC race at Mount Hood. After that, the big Kahuna: Elkhorn Stage Race in Baker City. 85 mile road race on Friday (plus a ten mile ride home), TT and Criterium on Saturday, and then a 100 mile road race on Sunday, complete with a 2,000 foot climb to finish at the top of Dooley Mountain. What fun!

Oh, and thanks to Puck for riding his motorcycle for the first Mt Tabor race last Wednesday. Puck got to have fun doing loops of Mt Tabor car-free; I got to enjoy 8 laps of pure suffering pain. I think all cyclists should be Buddhists.

-Smack