On the road to Worlds

You don't even know how crazy this last week has been for me. Preparing for a very important mountain bike race,,,,and then finding out I'm going to live in Alaska for a few months...& I leave the FRIDAY after Worlds! (more on that later) Not to mention having to train others to do my job while I'm gone...AAAAAAGGGHHHH! Talk about running around like a chicken with its head cut off!

Well, even though I completely forgot to pick up my primary bike from the shop and now I have to travel without it and wait for it to meet me there, I DID get the MOST IMPORTANT thing done:


The Princesa toes are pedicured and ready to race. Whew! Just could not manage riding for 24 hours without the pretty toes. (Aaaah, back off,,they just make me feel good, alright!) And feeling good & being mentally strong is what it takes to ride around in circles, non-stop, for 24 hours!

24 Hour US National Champions Mixed Duo

24 Hour US National Championship Start

Many of the big names in endurance mountain bike racing were at the 24 Hour US Nationals in Wausau, Wisconsin. Eatough, Sawicki, Ross, Rusch, Merenchin, Musto, Hendershot, Kaufmann, Collier, Namrita........not to mention Super Mario & Princesa Bern! ;-)) Super M & I had been discussing this race since the beginning of the year so we finally decided to team up and race the Mixed Duo category. After training hard all year with Josh and racing the 12 hour duo races with him, I felt ready for my first 24 hour duo. And Super Mario was the perfect teammate! He is so strong and so experienced in endurance racing and always has the game plan perfectly drawn out.

The Winning Team: Super Mario, Crew Captain Matt, Princesa Bern, Pit Chief & Mechanic Shawn Hauser & rookie crew Jenna

Matt Nourmohamadian is the youngest member of the Sho-Air/Rock N Road team and he agreed to support us in Wisconsin. His entire family lives in and around Wausau so they were nice enough to host us for the long weekend. His cousin Jenna also agreed to help us at the race. She had never been to a bike race before so it was a totally new experience and boy did she get a rude awakening! She had no idea it would be so much work! Unfortunately she hadn't had the "Warning" discussion that Josh (my teammate & support at Old Pueblo) gave to Matt......I think it went something like this:

Josh: "Hey Matt, you know there's a reason Bernice is called the 'Princesa.'" ...Etc, etc, etc!

Anyhow, Jenna learned fast and managed to put up with me and Mario for the entire 24 hours getting no sleep at all! She and Matt did a fantastic job keeping us cool during the day, warm at night, fed, and informed.

I must also mention Shawn Hauser and the Stadium Bikes teams. I met Shawn on-line when I was seeking help from the local riders. He offered to wrench for us and share his pit with us so that we wouldn't have to ship and/or buy all the pit necessities. He's a very experienced rider and mechanic and he helped us tremendously. He didn't race this one so he was constantly looking after our bikes and helping Matt and Jenna with the stove and anything they needed to keep us going. There were a few other locals that were ready and willing to help us in any way and I must say that the folks in Wisconsin are so nice and I hope that they will come visit our mtbike trails/races in Cali and that we will get to host them as well as they did us!

Super Mario, Aunt Pam, Cousin Jenna & Bern

Our wonderful sponsor Sho-Air took care of shipping our gear for us so we had a stress-free flight to Milwaukee on Thursday. Our Specialized bikes with our trusty Ergon Grips, our Hammer supplements, our Dermatone sun & bug block, my warm Ibex clothing, and my new Numa Sunglasses all made it to Milwaukee on time. We rented a truck with a Garmin GPS and drove about half an hour to Sussex where we stayed with Matt's aunt Pam and cousin Jenna. They have a lovely home that Pam designed and built. She made us a yummy dinner of pasta salad, chicken and fresh sweet corn. Matt's grandparents also came by the house to visit the nutty folks who were in town to ride their bikes in circles for 24 hours. They are a great couple who've been married for 57 years! It was so nice to meet them and have them wish us well.

The farm house near the race course in Wausau

On Friday, me, Mario, Matt, and Jenna drove 3 hours to Wausau where we stayed at Craig, Donna & Dillon's farm house. Doris (Donna's mother) and 11 year old Dillon were there to greet us and make us feel at home. Mario and I left Matt and Jenna there and we drove the 15 minutes to the course for a pre-ride. We checked in, met our Stadium Bikes pit neighbors, rode the course, and visited with some of our fellow mtbike friends. We hung out with Ron and Pua for a bit while Ron fixed the rotors on our bikes. That was super cool of him to take time to help us get them just right.

Our magnificent hosts in Wausau: Jenna, Matt, Doris, Dillon, Donna, Craig

Doris is a very lovely German woman who went out of her way to tend to our every need. She even made sure we had Mario's favorite pancake breakfast before the race!

Pit row

This is the second year in a row that the US National Championships were held in Wausau and I can tell why. It was a great course with great attendance. There were over 700 riders there!

Our pit with the Stadium Bikes gang

There were 3 other teams in our pit and they all made the podium also! There was the 4 man clydesdale team, the 2 man father/son team, and the 4 man junior team. This was definitely the WINNING PIT!

Shawn had the pit so well organized

Our table got a little messy though

Although he hates it, Super Mario did the very short LeMans start and the first lap. The course was about 14 miles with probably 85% of it being tight singletrack through the woods. It was super rocky with a few roots and logs in some areas. It definitely took some concentration to go over the rocks and not into the trees. And the best part was that the course was completely shaded! Very different than the terrain we usually ride here in SoCal. BUT THERE WERE NO IPODS ALLOWED! I was kinda bummed at first that we weren't allowed to have anything in our ears during the race, but it turned out to be a good thing because the trails were so tight that we needed to pay full attention to the trails and the other riders. Although it would have been fun to jam to some cool tunes whilst zigging and zagging through those trails. They did, however, provide a DJ with a Disco Ball and everything. About halfway through the lap the DJ was spinning his tunes and at 3am it was fun to hear the music and see the Disco Ball with flashing lights.

My Garmin recorded about 1000 ft of elevation gain through the 14 miles, but it didn't even seem like that much! The hills were just a bunch of "false flats" really. It was super fun and I really, really enjoyed the technical singletrack. I'd have to say this is one of my top two favorite mtb race courses.

The weather was perfect! I was dreading a very hot and humid day, but a "cold front" moved in on race day and kept the temps in the low 80's. A little warm but never too hot. Definitely not as humid as I was anticipating. And I didn't get a single bug bite!.. in fact, quite the opposite....I ate 3 bugs! (Ha, that's what you get you pesky suckas! evil laugh)

It did get a bit chilly at night for us SoCal folks so Mario and I sat in the truck with the heater on in between laps. During the early AM hours, while I was at the transition tent awaiting Mario's arrival so we could switch off, all the Wisconsin people were sitting there with their short sleeve jerseys and shorts while I was bundled up from head to toe and still shivering!

During one of my later laps, I was desperate for a little snack. I remembered that there was a makeshift "aid station" where someone had put up a table with Twinkies and a few other snacks. The sign on the table read, "CHRIS EATOFF STOPS HERE!" Yes, they spelled Eatough wrong...which made it even funnier. So I couldn't wait to get there for a Twinkie. Oh, the angel food cake with the white, creamy sweet filling was gonna taste so good at 2:37am! But when I got there, the only things left were some pickled eggs and a few pretzels. Well, I was hungry, but I wasn't desperate...soooo no pickled eggs for me! But I must have shown my disappointment because a fellow rider who was stopped there handed me a Powerbar from his pack so I grabbed it and rode off. (Thanks to you Powerbar guy!)



All went really well during our race.............well, except for when I totally cut off Chris Eatough! Yup, of all the 700 riders in the race and I cut off THE MAN! Double big OOPS! Oh well, it was an accident and I apologized and he was nice about it. For the full story,,,,...see me on the trails.
Anyhow, Mario and I had no mechanicals nor flats. We both had a few crashes, but nothing too bad. As the race went on and I got a little more tired, it was harder to clear the rocks without hitting the trees or stalling out and I have a few bruises and scratches to show for the effort. But overall, we had a clean and solid race. We ended up coming from behind and winning "in impressive fashion!" (so they said in Cycling News. :)

The coveted Stars & Stripes jerseys!

Super Mario was a wonderful teammate and I am so grateful to him for inviting me to this race. I never thought I would own a "Stars & Stripes" jersey!

Matt, Bern & Jenna

We definitely could not have accomplished this without all the support from Matt, Jenna, Shawn Hauser, Cindy Karch, Pam Oelhafen, Doris & Larry (thanks for the post race popcorn!), Donna, Craig, Dillon, Lynda Wallenfels our coach, Josh Smith my training/racing partner, and of course our sponsor Sho-Air/Rock N Road Cyclery.

The Brewers baseball stadium in Milwaukee

Aunt Pam and Cousin Jenna took us to Lake Michigan in Milwaukee

Mario walking past the Art Museum near Lake Michigan in Milwaukee

Bern packing it all up to go home

The Write-ups for US 24 Hour Nationals

http://www.mbaction.com/detail.asp?id=2357

http://www.cyclingnews.com/mtb/?id=2007/jul07/us24hrnats07