there were so many options for the “aka” part of this post title. Here are a few others I considered:

“aka Why I Stopped Riding After only 24 Miles”
“aka A Lesson in Stalking Your Prey”
“aka The Rise of the Locals”
“aka Why I Skipped the Kaibab Monstercross”
“aka How to Blow Up 4 Miles Into a Race”

Are you starting to get an impression of the race so far? I’ll spare you the speculation and fill in the details for you.

I showed up at Buffalo Park around 9:00 to make my rather sizeable donation to the MBAA in the form of my “I don’t have an mbaa license or a USAC license, and I’m registering the day of the race” fee. It was a bit painful writing the check, but at the same time, it’s my own fault for not making up my mind until the night before the race. I haven’t paid for too many races this year, so we’ll just chalk this one up to increasing the average.

I spent the first 1/2 hour watching the kids race, which was pretty awesome. I saw 8-year olds with better bike handling skills than I have, and I saw kids who were lacking in that department hit the deck, bounce, and jump back up faster than I thought was physically possible.

I would like to think that I had that enthusiasm for riding 15 years ago, I try to have it now, and I hope that I can have it for at least another 15….or 30….or 60 yet to come.

After a bit of warm-up, we lined up for the 10:36 start time. The SS advanced field was 11 people deep, and several of the flag local familiar faces were there. Per usual procedure, I hammered WAY TOO HARD off the starting line with three other folks and cranked through the first descent out of buffalo part.

As everyone settled down a bit on the climb up jump, I caught onto a wheel of a guy named Daniel. As he slowly ramped up the pace and we slowly dropped the rest of the group up jump and onto elden road, I remembered that Bryan Antol had warned me about “some guy from telluride who is ridiculously fast” before the race. I noted that we were going WAY too fast for me to even attempt to keep up much longer……. right as I noted the Telluride kit that he was wearing……

Needless to say, he dropped me pretty quick into elden lookout road, and a few more people proceeded to pass me as I settled into a steady pace. That steady pace turned out to still be a bit quick, and my legs started to get a little tinge of cramping. Luckily, the homefield advantage played into the climb, and I scaled it back just enough to make the last 1/2 mile without cramping.

As expected, sunset and little bear were absolutely amazing. I was passing people left and right, and recovering nicely. I ended up passing one other singlespeeder on the way down who was repairing a flat, and started the climb up little elden in 4th place.

Little Elden is a great climb on the gear that I run. I can sit for long sections at a time and spin, and there is only one short pitch that I don’t consistently clean. I was feeling good, recovering nicely, and had pretty much settled in for what I thought was the rest of the race in 4th place.

At the top of Little Elden, there was a section where we had to jump out on the forest roads for a bit. Apparently, there is a nest of spotted owls near the trail, and so we were diverted to avoid it. As I pulled onto the road, I caught a glimpse of a familiar jersey rounding the bend ahead. Instantly I recalled that the jersey I saw was one that had passed me on Elden Road during the first part of the race. That realization brought back some strength and I added a few more watts of output to the pedalstroke.

The plan was to catch this person by the top of schultz, and then use the fact that I ride shultz several times a week to my advantage.

As I hit the top of schultz, everything was going according to plan. I caught Kaolin (from Cave Creek, I later discovered) by the time we went through the lincoln logs, and passed him soon after the quick steep downhill at the top of schultz.

Not more than 30 seconds later, I kicked the back wheel out around a turn, and burped almost all the air out of the tire. The curses were flying as I pulled off the trail, flipped the bike, dug through my pockets for a CO2 and crossed my fingers.

As I slipped back into 4th place, a miracle occurred and the tire re-seated on the bead. I drained the full CO2 into it, flipped the bike and took off like a bat out of hell down schultz.

I didn’t see that familiar jersey again until I hit the road heading up to rocky ridge, and by that point the cramps were in full-force. I ate the remaining shot blocks I had, drained what was left of my 2 bottles, and mentally prepared myself to balance on the cliff edge overlooking the dark abyss of muscle cramps.

Try as I might, Kaolin kept his distance up the road. Fortunately for me, I knew what lay ahead, and knew that if I could keep him in sight I held a couple ‘local knowledge’ trump cards.

Sure enough, I inched closer on the downhill, and only about 100 yards separated us as we started up the climb to Buffalo Park. I remember the exact sequence of thoughts that went through my head:
I know I can make this climb clean. I’ve done it before. If he gets off and walks, it’s over.

I focused on the movements, and as I hit the technical section near the top, I saw my opportunity. Kaolin stepped off his bike and fell in line behind the other two people walking up the hill. I managed to muster enough breath to barely get out “Riding Through!”, and as everyone jumped out of the way to the side, I executed one of the most painful, yet most graceful climbs up to Buffalo Park that I have ever done.

I knew, as I hit the top, that I was in a solid third place. My head went down, the pedals kept spinning, and I crossed the finish line, 2 hours and 13 minutes after I started.

It was a great day, and I have to thank everyone who put the effort into putting this race on, and I have to thank Kaolin for keeping my motivation up and making it a great race. It was a lot of fun, and I usually don’t get anything remotely like that in all the endurance races I do.

Daniel from T-ride took first, and Blair took second in the SS advanced division in front of me. Other notables include Bryan Antol who took the Cat 1 race; Silverman, who demolished the marathon field; and Timmy, Scot Keller, and Josh Kelly who went 1,2,3 in the Pro field. Like I said, it was a good day for Flagstaff.

Here’s a pic that Koss snapped of me on the podium with his phone. I feel like it says something that I decided to bring my beer with me up there. Gotta represent…..