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05-30-06, 02:30 PM
My son and his housemates, all students at Western Washington University, put together a team for Bellingham's Ski to Sea Relay - - B'ham's yearly signature adventure race event. They honored a couple of us dads by asking us to help flesh out their team.
This race is about 85 miles long, beginning on Mount Baker and ending up in Puget Sound. It consists of seven legs: Nordic ski, downhill ski, running, road bike, canoe, mountain bike and sea kayaking. My son had the road bike leg, Chris, the other dad, had the Nordic ski leg and I had the mountain bike.
This was going to be an adventure! We all wondered if Evan and Jason, our canoeists, would even manage to work together to get their battered canoe (an ancient, heavy fiberglass scow patched up with duct tape) down the Nooksack River to the finish.
Things went pretty well, actually. We were in the Recreational Open division. Our other Chris, team captain and sea kayaker, said our quest was to beat the team from the WWU Outdoor Center (his coworkers). They'd been razzing him mercilessly and he wanted payback.
I won't dwell on all the details, but I'll relate on what I know. My son's road bike leg was 36 mile long and mostly level - - except about the last 10 miles, where it went UP. He said he was feeling good and strong until about the twenty mile mark and then he had to fight his way in on what was left of his legs. He's a mountain biker and had never done a road race before (he only got a road bike this year). I was very proud of him, though; it sounded like a grueling leg. Glad I chose the mtn bike leg :).
I was ready for our canoers to wash ashore at that leg's finish and I was pumped. The mtn biker could help carry the canoe over the line, so when they hit the beach, I grabbed for the bow and tore the bow plate off (oops!). Poor guys had no arms left to carry so I grabbed the stern and kind of wheelbarrowed the boat up the bank with Jason and Evan tugging on both sides of the bow.
Then it was my turn. I took off on my son's hardtail Trek - - now thankfully sporting the clipless pedals we'd whipped off his road bike (we only had one set between us). That's when I found out he'd set up the springs kinda tight and I had a dickens of a time clipping in. My course was 9-10 miles of mostly flat on a river dike, punctuated by three dismount points where we had to get off to run our bikes under road bridges and get back up on the dike and go again. Every time I got back on I went many pedal strokes before I managed to get my cleats mashed into the pedals. I started trying to keep count of the riders I reeled in and got somewhere up around ten before the course hit pavement outside Bellingham. Most of the dike was doubletrack-wide with only one real good track, but there was almost always room to pass, thankfully.
About the last two, maybe three, miles were road, with a long upgrade that I passed more people on, but also got passed by a guy on a Specialized S-Works with aero bars on it. (drop bars weren't allowed on the mtbs, but aero extensions were). I sure wished I'd had them! It's tough to do any kind of decent tuck with riser bars. I tried hanging with him, but he was getting away until the road turned down hill toward the harbor. Then I got up in big ring and mashed and tried to tuck as best I could with one hand down on the fork crown.
There was one last dismount down at the beach, where we had to get off and run :eek: and push our bikes in the sand for a couple hundred yards (at least!) to where we hit pavement again.
I was closing, but still maybe 30 yards back from the Specialized rider thru the finish. I don't even think we were in the same division, but it gave me a goal to shoot for.
As it turned out, I did my leg in 39 minutes. The elite teams' MTBers were turning in 29-30 minute legs and I wound up with the 104th overall MTB time (out of about 500 teams) and 21st fastest mtb time in our division.
Our lead over the WWU Outdoor Center held until poor Chris, our sea kayaker, rolled his boat getting out to the first buoy; he wasn't ever able to make enough time back up to nip them back.
We all had a blast though and there's already talk of a comeback next year. We'll see . . ..
This race is about 85 miles long, beginning on Mount Baker and ending up in Puget Sound. It consists of seven legs: Nordic ski, downhill ski, running, road bike, canoe, mountain bike and sea kayaking. My son had the road bike leg, Chris, the other dad, had the Nordic ski leg and I had the mountain bike.
This was going to be an adventure! We all wondered if Evan and Jason, our canoeists, would even manage to work together to get their battered canoe (an ancient, heavy fiberglass scow patched up with duct tape) down the Nooksack River to the finish.
Things went pretty well, actually. We were in the Recreational Open division. Our other Chris, team captain and sea kayaker, said our quest was to beat the team from the WWU Outdoor Center (his coworkers). They'd been razzing him mercilessly and he wanted payback.
I won't dwell on all the details, but I'll relate on what I know. My son's road bike leg was 36 mile long and mostly level - - except about the last 10 miles, where it went UP. He said he was feeling good and strong until about the twenty mile mark and then he had to fight his way in on what was left of his legs. He's a mountain biker and had never done a road race before (he only got a road bike this year). I was very proud of him, though; it sounded like a grueling leg. Glad I chose the mtn bike leg :).
I was ready for our canoers to wash ashore at that leg's finish and I was pumped. The mtn biker could help carry the canoe over the line, so when they hit the beach, I grabbed for the bow and tore the bow plate off (oops!). Poor guys had no arms left to carry so I grabbed the stern and kind of wheelbarrowed the boat up the bank with Jason and Evan tugging on both sides of the bow.
Then it was my turn. I took off on my son's hardtail Trek - - now thankfully sporting the clipless pedals we'd whipped off his road bike (we only had one set between us). That's when I found out he'd set up the springs kinda tight and I had a dickens of a time clipping in. My course was 9-10 miles of mostly flat on a river dike, punctuated by three dismount points where we had to get off to run our bikes under road bridges and get back up on the dike and go again. Every time I got back on I went many pedal strokes before I managed to get my cleats mashed into the pedals. I started trying to keep count of the riders I reeled in and got somewhere up around ten before the course hit pavement outside Bellingham. Most of the dike was doubletrack-wide with only one real good track, but there was almost always room to pass, thankfully.
About the last two, maybe three, miles were road, with a long upgrade that I passed more people on, but also got passed by a guy on a Specialized S-Works with aero bars on it. (drop bars weren't allowed on the mtbs, but aero extensions were). I sure wished I'd had them! It's tough to do any kind of decent tuck with riser bars. I tried hanging with him, but he was getting away until the road turned down hill toward the harbor. Then I got up in big ring and mashed and tried to tuck as best I could with one hand down on the fork crown.
There was one last dismount down at the beach, where we had to get off and run :eek: and push our bikes in the sand for a couple hundred yards (at least!) to where we hit pavement again.
I was closing, but still maybe 30 yards back from the Specialized rider thru the finish. I don't even think we were in the same division, but it gave me a goal to shoot for.
As it turned out, I did my leg in 39 minutes. The elite teams' MTBers were turning in 29-30 minute legs and I wound up with the 104th overall MTB time (out of about 500 teams) and 21st fastest mtb time in our division.
Our lead over the WWU Outdoor Center held until poor Chris, our sea kayaker, rolled his boat getting out to the first buoy; he wasn't ever able to make enough time back up to nip them back.
We all had a blast though and there's already talk of a comeback next year. We'll see . . ..