We will use this page to let the world know (if they care) how Velo Sapiens riders are doing. We will also include our impressions of the race organization, course, food and prizes, etc, to help you decide where you want to race next year.
Information is still a bit sketchy on this event. At a later date we should get a write-up from one of the guys who raced, but right now all we have to go on is word of mouth.
Velo Sapiens sent teams to both the first and second 24 hours of Moab races. As the entry fees climbed and the schwag and fun and organization level at Moab declined, we decided it would be better to let Granny Gear Productions get rich off someone else. Maybe they can get together with Mark Lowenstern and have a 24 hours of Knobular, where you pay $1000 per person, get no shirt, no food, no prizes and are guaranteed to get lost on the course
Anyway, everyone decided Moab was lame and far away, so why not try the 24 hrs of Adrenaline right down the road in Monterey. So Karsten Hagen, Keith Kuykendall, Dan Garcia and Dan Sovereign put together a team for the elite division. Apparently not so many people showed up, or else our team was totally awesome, because they won! They claimed to have had a good time also, although Karsten was seen afterwards shaking down the promoter to get more prizes. Unfortunately for the promoters, they scheduled their race for opening day of the Surf City Cyclocross series. Certainly the 300 or so people that showed up for cyclocross drained the talent pool somewhat,since many of the Santa Cruz area cross racers are 24 hour veterans.
Knobular promoter Mark Lowenstern scored with this course, at least in my opinion. Unlike Mammoth (see above) the course at Eagle mtn provided some technical difficulties, i.e. rocks and deep sandy dusty stuff. The race was contested at approximately 5000' of altitude, enough that you can feel it, but not enough that the flatlanders all die.
The course used a 7-mile loop at the popular cross-country ski resort, starting with a middle ring climb on a roomy double track for a mile or two, then veering off into the single track. The first section of singletrack (grandma's boneyard) had a couple sections that were more or less rideable, but definitely faster to run. That was followed by another climb, a rocky but fairly straight descent and then a crazy, steep, twisty, dusty, deep, rocky, ugly descent right in front of the lodge. I don't know if anyone rode the whole thing. I ran the first 20 feet or so every lap, then rode a bit. The first lap someone from the younger expert pack was stopped right after a nasty drop-off in a switchback, causing me to abandon ship and soar into the air. Fortunately a tree presented itself to me and I grabbed it as I went by, losing some skin off my arm in the process, but at least I survived. After this descent there was about a mile of flat fire-road, then a mile or two of fun, twisty, rocky, rolly singletrack. This last section had several points that were barely,if at all, rideable. In my opinion this is the funnest course of the whole Knobular series, but I like rocks and I like to run.
Former Pro and present KHS sales rep George Theobald (a truly amazing bike handler) got a little gap while I was soaring through the air, but I caught him at the end of the first lap. We rode together until the last lap, when I used my skills as NorCal district cyclocross champ to get away from him on the last singletrack section. I stacked in a corner about 200 yards from the line, but still had enough cushion to barely hold him off for the Expert Vet win. Velo Sapien Paul Janney had a typically great race to win the Expert 27-34 class
Unfortunately I had to miss the 50 mile Eagle mtn epic the next day. Steve Jakubiak raced and picked up 3rd in the Expert 27-34 class. He said it was the awesomest course in the history of the universe, although there was a 45 minute push up a viciously long hill. If you can ride for 5-6 hours, feel comfortable in serious rocks and you don't mind pushing a bit, this is a killer race. I'll be there next year for sure
Fewer and fewer are the great epic races of years past. Whiskeytown is no longer with us, the Revenge of the Siskiyous is gone, The Lemurian is still hanging on (barely) and the Humbug Hurry-up is going strong, but the huge, 1-loop courses are falling out of favor with organizers just because it takes much less land and planning to put on a circuit race.
Thankfully the fellows at Team Gianni are willing to fill in the gaps. For the past few years in September they've had a Ring of Fire race on private land just outside Occidental (10 miles from Sebastopol). This race was characterized by steep, technical, semi-insane descents and vicious, leg-bursting climbs over 2-3 laps. It was also characterized by massive amounts of poison oak, beer, swimming and general partying down. The multi-lap race will still be held in September, but now they're also doing a single lap ring of fire in July.
With hard work and diplomacy the Gianni boys managed to gain access to 8 different properties and link together a single loop race of approximately 30 miles and 5500 feet of climbing. The course starts and finishes in Occidental and in between covers the usual insanely steep climbs. For me it was pretty much a granny gear fest. Team Gianni is in the habit of labeling certain memorable climbs and descents. Particularly vivid in my memory was the climb they called "Sasquatch," which takes you pretty much to lunar altitude with about 25 demoralizing false summits on the way. To add to the fun, about 8 miles from the finish some joker was saying "3 miles to go." Fortunately it was 8 miles of straight up and down, so it wasn't necessary to pedal all the time
Besides myself, Velo-Sapients Keith Kuykendall, Steve Jakubiak and Dan Sovereign took advantage of Gianni's hospitality. Keith was 3rd in sport with a time of 2:48. Due to a mixup and his own timidity, he didn't get recognition or prizes, but we know the truth. Dan Sovereign won the Vet Sport class with a time of 2:57, for his first big victory. Steve got pretty much rocked in Expert with a time of about 3:01, but had a good time anyway. I finished in 2:35, good enough for 6th in a very strong Expert Vet field. The legendary Tom Ritchey was in 3rd place, only a couple minutes in front of me.
After the race we proceeded immediately to the festivities. Each racer gets 1 pint of beer (local micro-breweries) free, and since many of my companions don't drink they were kind enough to donate their beer to me, earning countless karma points toward their next emergency wheelbuild the night before a big race. There was food, a live band, every fast guy in northern California. All in all, pretty perfect. Someone should make Mark Lowenstern (the Knobular guy) race a Ring of Fire so he can figure out how to do it right.
Five various Velo sapients made the trek down to the birthplace of mountain biking for the Marin Knobular on 6/28/97. The race, part of the famous Knobular series, was held at Camp Tamarancho, a boy scout camp on the fringes of Fairfax. The land is all private, but by coughing up $25 and joining the "Friends of Camp Tamarancho" you can ride there all year. Like most of Mark Lowenstern's Knobulars the race has a good course, crappy prizes, average food, average raffle and a free tire with entry.
The course was a 6-mile loop, which experts did 4 times and sport riders did 3 times. The start was located a few hundred yards from the finish chute and expo/barbeque area. Coming out of the start chute the riders had to cross a field, go up a little hill, turn left onto a dirt road, then circle a couple hundred yards around to join the course right before the finish area. From there the riders proceeded directly to singletrack. A motivated sould could pass a few riders on a short fire-road section after the first bit, but then it was back to singletrack for a few miles, gently climbing through switchback after switchback. This part was almost impossible to pass on unless the rider in front of you flailed in the turns, or decided to let you by.
The trail pops out onto a fire road for about 1/2 mile back toward the finish area, goes close enough for your friends to cheer you on, then heads up a fire-road. Racers are going both directions on this road, on opposite sides. In fact right at the bottom they have to cross, which the organizers handled by installing a forced dismount. This seemed to me like a creative and effective solution to keep riders from pasting each other at high speeds.
The road goes up only for 1/4 mile, then turns to a loose fireroad downhill for a mile or two. Then comes a vicious climb called "Dead Heifer" which is about 1/2 mile long maybe, and steep enough to be just barely rideable for normal humans. This is where most of the passing occurs, so if you can't climb, get used to being stuck behind guys who can. At the top it's more singletrack with switchbacks, up and down until you pop out about 1/3 mile from the finish and go down through the dismount and back to the finish. I thought the course was really fun riding, but it was hard to pass if you didn't get a good start.
Paul Janney, who converted his bike to a 3spd by jacking up his rear derailleur somehow, finished 5th in the expert 27-34 group. He claimed to be just joy-riding after his mechanical, but we all know he is a big, fat liar. Mark Weaver crashed on the first lap and sprained his thumb, ending up in 4th place in expert vet. The series lead in vet class now passes to winner Marty Cunningham. Dan Garcia flatted, then stared blankly at his quick-fill apparatus, willing it to work without his intervention. After a long-ass time, he finally got it fixed and started to work his way back up. Pulling up beside one of the Masters class riders who had passed while he was fixing his tire, Dan who rides for Fisher noticed the Gary Fisher team togs on the other rider and said "Hey, are you on the Fisher grass-roots team too? The rider in question responded "It's my company, you dork!" Dan finished in 18th, retaining the series lead, then crawled into a hole to hide from eventual masters class winner Gary Fisher.
In the sport class, Dan Sovereign took 12th in vet, then proceeded to hammer everyone into the ground on Sunday's social ride in Auburn. Ride faster at the race, eh? Keith Kuykendall got 7th again in sport 27-34. So far Keith has finished 7th at approximately every single race he has ever entered, regardless of how big the field is. If we had sent him to the olympics he'd a blown away those losers Don and Tinker.
At the East Bay Knobular on 5/31/97 Dan Garcia and Mark Weaver defended their Knobular series leads in their respective classes. Dan, racing expert 19-26, was soundly schooled by Owen Murphy, finishing several minutes back. At the same time though, Dan was several minutes ahead of third place. In the Expert Vet (35-44) class, Mark watched helplessly as his Pro-Flex teammate Marty Cunningham flew up the first climb. Marty ended up finishing more than 6 minutes up on Mark, who had another 6 minutes on 3rd place. Both riders retain their points leads, Dan by a healthy margin, Mark by a mere 5 pts over winner Cunningham.
The course relied on massive amounts of climbing to separate the men from the boys. There were no technical difficulties whatsoever, as the entire race was conducted on open fire roads, even including a short pavement section. Thankfully, organizer Mark Lowenstern charged $4 less for this race than for the rest of the series, but next year Mark and Dan will both probably skip this one. The La Grange Classic in Weaverville Ca, and the Peavine Classic in Reno NV were both held the same weekend, and both of these other races are funner and more serious mountain bike endeavors.
On 6/15/97, Mark Weaver, Dan Sovereign and Paul Janney made the trip down to Santa Cruz for the Trees and Breeze. This is a pretty fun course on private land with good organization and eats. We recommend it Highly.
The course starts out with a short jaunt across a grassy field, leading to a long, steep climb in the trees. A short pavement climb waits at the top, followed by a a few hundred yards of fire road. After that you turn off onto some killer singletrack through the trees, complete with occasional roots and logs, a short very steep, loose climb, then a ripping single track downhill, with alternating manzanita (to soften you up) and poison oak. This downhill is a screamer, fast, buff and twisty as all getout. There are a couple of sketchy and dangerous sections if you're really going fast. At the bottom, you cross the creek and climb up the other side of the valley in a series of stair steps under dense forest cover. Many sections are too steep to ride under race conditions. This is followed by a bumpy descent which ends at a big log across the trail. Crowds gather here to watch hapless racers try their luck. The cyclocrossers will dismount and jump the log, often passing riders in the process. Every year many riders attempt to ride over and end up doing the full-on high speed endo instead. From the log it's only a couple hundred yards to the finish.
Paul Janney ended up 4th in expert, vanquished by many of the riders he beat up on at the Lemurian. Mark Weaver flatted on the first lap, but fixed it quickly and still managed to chase up to 4th place in Vet (35-44). Dan Sovereign managed 16th place in a Vet field which combined sport and expert. Dan said afterwards he could've ridden another lap, so now that he knows the course, watch out in '98
story by Mark Weaver
100 miles of off-road racing. It sounds crazy, and it probably is. How about if you throw in 15,000 feet (!) of climbing? That would be a little tougher, but the riders could still coast down the hills. How about if you make all the downhills vicious, twisty, rooty, rocky, steep, gonzo singletrack from hell? Now your talking about the Cream Puff
The Cascade Cream Puff 100 takes place near Oakridge, Oregon. The surrounding mountains of the Willamette National Forest contain some of the sweetest singletrack in the explored universe. Promoters Richard Sweet and Scott Taylor made excellent use of the terrain in putting together their course. The race consists of a one mile promenade plus three 33 mile loops which start and end at the covered bridge in Westfir, a tiny village two miles from Oakridge. The first lap has 2-3 miles of pavement before the climbing begins, the 2nd and 3rd laps travel the same distance on a rolling singletrack on the other side of the river. After the gentle warmup begins a climb that can best be described as really long. An hour of grinding up a dirt road takes the riders to aid station #2, stocked with food, drink and smiling volunteers.
Another 40 minutes or so of rolling and climbing on dirt roads brings the riders to aid station #3, which is where the fun really starts. Now that you've climbed for almost 2 hours, going up somewhere near 4000 feet, you turn off onto a damp, narrow trail into the deep, dark forest and climb some more, only steeper now. The next hour is all rolling, semi-technical singletrack, punctuated by unbelievable views of the surrounding valleys and by a vast assortment of colorful wildflowers. You might as well look at the views since you can't see the trail in many places due to overhanging vegetation.
Eventually you get dumped back out and aid station #2, going the other way, and you head off down the dirt road for half a mile, cheerfully anticipating the upcoming descent. The trail turns off into the forest again, and riders are treated some more climbing, a short hike around a fallen tree then some flat rocky stuff. Then, finally, the descent begins.
It's not all one descent. There are several places where you have to pedal for a hundred yards or so, but mostly you go down at blinding speed, dodging in and out of trees and roots, carving switchbacks, bouncing over rocks, skillfully avoiding the poison oak and attempting to stay in control. Cramps in the hands and arms become as much of a problem as the ones in your quads. Just at the point when you think the tendons in your wrists will snap from squeezing the brakes, you plop out onto the pavement for a quick 2-mile spin back to the covered bridge. Depending on your fitness and skill 3-5 demanding hours have elapsed. Now go do it two more times and you too can get a hat.
This year VeloSapiens racer Steve Jakubiak and I went to our 2nd Cream Puff. I had checked the weather on the web and I expected rain, so when he pulled up to my house to pick me up I asked if he had brought a jacket. "I brought another jersey, it's nice out" was his reply. Luckily I had packed an extra since the good citizens of Oregon apparently forgot to pay their sunshine bill again. It was pouring rain when we arrived at midday on saturday. The miserable weather caused us to abandon our plans to pre-ride the lower half of the course. Steve retired to the hotel to nap and my wife Stacia and I went off in search of the local hot springs, where we lolled about for the rest of the afternoon. We were joined by a contingent of Santa Cruz racers including last year's winner Rick Hunter as well as this year's winner Matthew Potter. Later, we picked up our entry packets and chowed down at the pre-race dinner and meeting.
Maybe it's because one of the promoters, Scott Taylor, actually races the event, but organization and schwag were top-notch in every respect. All entrants received 2 dinners, t-shirts, a souvenir water bottle, a custom button, post-race massage and custom laminated number plates, with the racers' names printed on them as well. Except for the Gianni Cycles Ring of Fire, I have never been to an event where I so completely got my money's worth. Entries have doubled each of the last two years and since participation is limited to 100 riders, interested parties should plan to enter early for '98.
At 5:15 a.m. 60 sleepy riders gathered in front of the school for last minute instructions. Fortunately the weather was giving us a break for the time being, dry still, but cloudy and threatening. At 5:30 we rolled out to the cheers and encouragement of family, friends and race staff, and to the complete befuddlement of everyone else awake at that hour. I had planned to keep my heart rate below 165 for the first climb, but unfortunately Steve was raging up the hill like a madman. I couldn't stand the thought of being dropped by him, no matter what the excuse, so I pushed a little harder to stay with him.
The rain had left the ground sticky and soft in parts. Fortunately I was equipped with Bontrager Revolt semi-slick tires, which don't have enough tread for mud to stick to. Unfortunately they don't stick to the mud too well either, so when we hit the sketchy singletrack we had to quickly devise new strategies for dealing with the lack of traction. I chose to slow down and be a little more careful and steer well. Steve chose to crash more often. At the end we both concluded that my approach was more successful.
Steve and I separated at this point, due to our divergent steering standards, and I forged on, passing three overeager riders on the way down. At the bottom, I discovered that I was 15 minutes behind the leaders, including crazed single-speeder Stuart Hardenburger. I usually beat him, so I was pretty sure he'd blow up soon and I could reel him in. I was already thinking of witty things to say when I passed him. Alas, it was not to be. Although I got within 10 minutes of him, he pulled away again, earning much respect from all of us. To add insult to injury, local Sacramento single-speed god Scott Shipman caught me just before the descent. I figured I'd at least make him work for it, so I descended as fast as I felt comfortable, taking full advantage of the suspension and steering of my Pro-Flex 857.
I figured he'd catch me on the climb with his 19 lb bike, and hoped I'd be able to stay with him. My lower back was screaming and my legs were hammered, so started climbing in a big gear, standing more often than not, hopping from pedal to pedal with almost-straight legs and letting my weight drive the bike forward. I must have hit upon a particularly efficient technique because I found myself climbing at the same speed as the previous lap, but my heart rate was 15 beats lower. I kept looking back, expecting Scotty, the master of pacing, to come flying up behind me, but somehow I held him off. By the time I reached the top I was so tired it was faster to run up most of the hills than try to ride. At least I could give my quads a break. I was starting to get serious tricep cramps on the descents, so I was riding with my elbows locked half the time (don't try this at home). At this point I was really glad I'd gone with the steering strategy instead of the crashing one.
Somehow I made it through to aid station #2. Stacia said I looked pretty awful at that point, but I felt great. From that point on you can feel the finish line. I didn't know much about Scotty's descending skills, so I still kept an eye out for him, but I flew down the descent at warp speed, following the perfect lines we had laid out on the first lap, before the soft ground had set up a little. Now it was tacky and bermed and just plain fast, so I railed down it with my spirits high. It's hard to describe the feeling of accomplishment you get from surviving something so difficult. Last year I really wasn't sure I'd be able to finish, and when I did I just burst into tears. This year I was pretty sure I could do it, but I knew I'd be mighty proud of that hat that says "finisher" on the back, so my legs found new life for the last few miles.
At the finish I asked who won. Stacia said "It was one of those naked guys." Relative unknown (to me, apparently not to Stacia) Matthew Potter completed the course in just over 9:40, slower than the course record, but in much slower conditions. Defending champ Rick Hunter had to settle for second. I was 7th overall, and first vet, one minute faster than last year. Steve was 14th, about 40 minutes faster than '97. For some reason he was unsatisfied with his crashing approach to the singletrack, so on the last descent he tried flopping on the ground and launching his bike 20 feet through the air into a tree resulting in yet another jacked-up wheel. I strongly advised him to learn how to steer a bicycle before next year's race. Of course we're going back. To find out about next year's event send a SASE to Cascade Cream Puff, 1689 Charnelton St, Eugene, OR 97401-3913.