SF Enduro II - take 2, 2 years later!

About 2 years ago Murphy of the Gestalt Haus infamy decided to put together and event he coined "Mixed terrain Enduro." His original description was something like, it's about 100 miles, with a metric ton of climbing, and any bike you pick will have a disadvantage. As it turned out, the ride left Golden Gate Park in SF, hit a few City locations, then ventured across the Golden Gate Bridge into the land if illegal singletrack, errr I mean Marin. So basically, lot's of road connecting a shite ton of fireroads up, some more really steep fireroads up and some hairball, crazy rocky descents down, and then you had to come back across the bridge. 2 years ago I did it on a rigid 29er singlespeed ouch!


This year...would be different....SF Enduro II
3/21/2010 account


Ouch Ouchie F*ck!

I did not pick the right gear. I shudda known after test riding the gear on a few dirt roads near my house that the gear selection would be too steep. Alas, I was dead-set on not letting the spinny gears( 32x19 29er) that got the better of me two years ago repeat it self.

So I used Sheldon's gear inch calculator and also calculated the more commonly used "gear ratio" in the mountain bike world. I should have let my track experience bias my decision towards gear inches...alas, I'm dumb and that's why I ride a one speed on the mountain ;-)

Since I was riding a 29 inch wheel, the gear-inch conversions are closer to a road\track bike than a standard mtn. bike with a 26" wheel.

So the "gear ratio" for my two extreme gears was:

44/12 = 3.67 ratio OR 106.1 gear-inches
44/34 = 1.29 ratio OR 37.5 gear-inches

typically I run:
32/19 = 1.68 ratio OR 48.8 gear-iches. Hard, but do-able for expert level races, but insane for 100 mile races ;-)

Any who, I figured, the hard gears isn't what killed me in the hills last year, it was the spinny-ness on the flats, so I biased my gears to big bigger and give me an advantage on the road\flat\dh sections:

My thinking....
44\26 = gives me my typical 32/19 ss gearing. So with 44\30 and 44\34 I would have to "easier" gears for the hills and a plethora of hard gears ( 44/23 - 44/12) for the flatter stuff. Well that was plain dumb, especially since all the climbing was pretty much up front, with a road spin back from Fairfax to SF. Just as a gauge, a typically granny\granny setup, with a 29" wheel, gives you: 22/34 = 0.65 ratio and 18.76 gear-inches and on a 26" mtb wheel thatz a 16.8 gear-inch.


Seriously, the race was long enough and I went hard enough in the beginning that there were a lot of steep sections where I was walking. The downhills were fun, cause I chose a 29er mtb with suspension, disc brakes and some selection of gears! However, even the downhill experience was completely untainted. Once again, not being a wise man and learning from people's mistakes, I did NOT run a chain-guide for my single chainring setup. So I must have thrown my chain at the very least 20 times. Fortunately, I got faster at it and I race 'cross so I can remount pretty quickly ;-)

All i all, really, really hard time. Lots of mental battle fought, nausea from who know why, maybe going to hard in the beginning, not enough rest, I don't know. All I do know, is that it took about 70 miles before I started not feeling nauseous?! And no damnit, I'm not pregnant...err...that I know of ;-)

Murphy's put on some really sweet events and some really hard challenge your soul types of events. The first Enduro was really hard...lot's of miles, lot's of unknowns, lots of hills and only one speed, but I had a lot of fitness and so that evens the playing field both physically and mentally. This year's enduro took the cake for insanely hard and diabolical!


There were a few times, when I just felt I couldn't get enough air and I stopped and either laid down or leaned against a tree, closed my eyes and took ten deep breaths, rallied my spirits and pushed on. I was also fortunate to have paired up with my buddy Erik(TWW), whom I've raced with and ridden with. I swear, if Erik hadn't waited for me to put my chain back on 20 times and waited near the top of hills for me, the mental difficulty of this event would have been almost 90% worse. For me part of it was that we had an unspoken team established and I didn't want to let him down and I'm sure part of it for Erik was that he knew he would save more time getting back through Fairfax and SF with me in tow, rather than going it alone, but he was also not "racing" it, but rather out getting some training miles. Whatever the reason, I'm indebted to Erik and want to thank him profusely!

As always, the event was well run, the maps were awesome, the checkpoints were very strategic and the volunteers AWESOME! They were willing to give you a pep talk, get you water food, I tried to get them to put on some chamois butter but they drew the line there ;-)

The map was this beautiful, color, glossy, double sided 11x17 print...it was sooo glossy that in my morning grogyness I thought they were laminated and slipped into my rear jersey pocket, well protect from flying out by my camelback. Lo and behold, when I pulled it out to read it on the way up to CP1(East Peak lookout)...I had in my had one gigantic spitwad....dooh! Thatz what the large zip-loc bag in my backpack was for...oh well, once again Erik to the rescue with his map...whew! Thank you to Jenny O and Sean for volunteering!

As we exited the East Peak checkpoint I was laughing diabolically. Erik asked me what was up and I said I knew this descent from having ridden it with my buddy Josh C. This rocky ass fireroad, Eldridge grade, would be awesome on a mtb and I felt sorry for the poor suckers on 'cross bikes. I said let's show these 'cross weenies why a mountain bike was the correct weapon of choice for the course. Sure enough....we ran into 5 or 6 rides with flat, those that weren't on cx bikes were on mountain bikes with skinny tires. Don't get me wrong, I mean no disrespect, I paid my dues on the flat for rockin' 29 inch mtb tires, 2.1 Motoraptor up front and a 2.1 Prowler in the rear.

We collected a few riders who had flatted and rode together up to the Pine Mountain entrance after making a left on the fireroad. We had Evan(RalleyCat), DFL Dan, Christon, Erik, myself and I wanted to say may a couple more but my mind is blank now as it was then ;-) We made our way to CP2, which was situated some wherez on the Pine Mountain Fire road...strategically, so you couldn't take a shortcut up San Geronimo ridge to CP3 ;-) Damn it! Here we found Jason and Lee, chillin' in a grassy meadow! While I layed on the grass resting up, Jason rode my bike around, checking out the 1x9 and reminding me that the rear end was having some problems shifting ;-)

CP3 was the intersection of San Geronimo Ridge and White Hill Fire road, typically part of the Pine Mountain Loop and the Appetite Seminar, so it was sorta familar territory. There we found Brooklyn and some other volunteers(sorry mind was fried!). We got our bearings and took off quick towards CP4 which was rumored to have water! Supplies were gettin' low!

There were two time bonuses, one was a Tamarancho loop and the other was a ride out the the Radio Towers above Lucas Valley. Before the beginning of the race I already knew I would do the two times bonuses 'cause gosh dang it, I was going do the Enduro justice and do the whole kit and caboodle. Somewhere along the line I talked Erik into the same thing.

CP4 was really cool. It was the first CP where you the option for a time bonus and as such it became the nexus for riders crossing paths. We were in need of water, but only Cliff bars were available at that point, so after scraffing a bar we shot off on the loop. I started fast and excited and soon the fatigue set in and then i was just crawling along and then I ran out of water. Shite! Fortunately Erik saved me with some water. After our lap CP4 had water...thank you, thank you!

Some riders were there before us and skipping ahead, some riders were there while we were re-fueling for the loop and some riders were there after we completed the loop. We saw the Mouse-kateers at this checkpoint, which raised my spirits, Paule, Chris, Russ, and Tommy T. Meanwhile, Sasha, Erica and Nancy? were tending to our needs, all worried about why I was laying on the ground ;- I'm ok, I just need to rest! OH yea and somebody had beef jerkey which was pretty magical! Thanks!

So with the first time bonus in our legs, Tamarancho loop, and then arriving at the Sir Francis Drake intersection from the B17 extension trail of Pine Mountain. We were spit out at the base of Gunshot, which if you've ever been up it on a geared bike, it's a helluv a grunt even in your granny gear and that was only half way up to the CP5. I already knew I was screwed with my gears and then we still had time bonus two which we could opt for once we hit CP5. We were deliberating doing this last time bonus because, you essentially added on another few thousand feet of climbing before heading home on Sir Francis drake and then wiggling back to the bridge. Then Murphy made a comment that none of the faster guys before us opted out of it. Well, it was decided, we're sticking to the plan and doing the whole shebang!


We hit CP5 and I literally collapsed on the god damn ground to rest. My buddy Ed Lagrando was their to heckle me and jump start my spirits, while he and Joel captured my agony on film.They told us only a few people had gone off to do time bonus two. At this point we already knew we were doing it, it was just a matter of getting some food, water and rest before taking off. It was a daunting task to see the Radio Tower a whole valley away :-(While we were fueling, Tommy T, Chris and few others were around.

And we're off. As we are hitting' some pretty high speeds, easily 30mph, I'm starting to second guess or choice to descend all this fireroad, to climb up another double-track to the Radio Towers and then double back to go home. As we 'cross the rode and headed up to the Radio Towers, I felt good about completing both time bonuses and it was about the only thing that kept me going. I paused in a grove of tree to rest my head against a tree while still clipped in. I took a few deep breaths, enjoyed the shade and continued on.

We could see one person snaking their way up to the Towers and we ran across another person coming back. The checkpoint was really quite a prettty grassy knoll. The lovely checkpointers were Ryan+friend, Arena and some other peeps whom I'm totally blanking on. We waved hello and they said go circle the Towers and come back to get checked off, some how I knew they were going to say that and continued over down and up the small climb to the towers.

Upon return, we had a pseudo Mexican fiesta, Margarita Cliff blocks, corn torilla chips and salsa. It was at that momement that I could a glimmering flicker out of the corner of my eye. The sun was getting low in the sky and the angle of the light was just right to make the bottle of Knob Creek look like it had descended from the heavens. Since I'm on the wagon, I had the true sense of knowing what hell will be like ;-) And off went, bidding our goodbyes and giving thanks. We were almost home free, now to climb all that god damn fireroad we came down to get here!

Finally, cresting CP5, I felt elated, knowing it was pretty flat from here back to Murphy's crib. Meanwhile, one of the volunteers(sorry forgot her name) got me some cheese and bread which pretty much saved my life at 65 or 67 miles into this EPIC! Joel and Ed snapped some more pics, why I blabbed on deliriously about who knows what? As we were getting ready to rock'n roll we picked up Kentaro and Justin.

Both these cats were crushing it with us in the lead group for as long as I can remember. They eventually separated from us. Justin I think we kept catching due to his flat on a cx bike and also to the fact that he couldn't bomb the rocky shite like we could...mtb win again ;-) Kentaro on the other hand had been crushin' it on a 26" cannondale hardtail and was getting tired of riding alone I suppose.

We took off down the fireroad and we lost poor Justin as soon as we started bombing down hill; Kentaro, Erik and I were all on mtb's! We made our way out to Sir Francis Drake, after getting a little bit twisted around, then pacelined our way back thru Fairfax, San Anselmo, Ross, somewherez around Larkspur or Ross, we came across Julie Bates, Liza, May Woo and Kaitlin. I yelled hello and gave Jules a nice little push. She's battling back from injury #507 and she'll still out there whoopin' it up on the 70 mile version of the Enduro! Yea!

Erik was a monster pulling at the front. We tried gettin' somewhat organized to do some rotations, but with all the Stop signs, stoplights and general fatigue it was just too complicated and Erik, like a big German diesel, would be back up front!

Finally, we cross the bridge, we wiggle thru the Presidio and we see Kentaro fall off. We can see he's fiddling with something about 100ft away. I say to Erik.,"lets do one final make sure Murphy's house is indeed the final checkpoint." Much to our dismay, it wasn't on the big map....it was actually on the small piece of paper that was given out at the beginning of the race which tolds us where to pick up the "big map" or manifest for the race. We'll I counted ourselves fortunate for 1 having kept the little scrap of paper and two for knowing where Murphy and Emily's crib was...wheew! Kentaro made his way to us and was like, I 'm bonking, we made sure he had food, a map and knew where he was going. Then I said, follow us. He stayed with us until we turned on two California as we wiggled over to the last stop. The slight uphill on California and we lost him. Erik and I continued on feeling confident since we knew he had a map.

We roll-up, it's fairly dark, I'm checking to make sure it's the right place and yup, sure enough, the green subarua wagon is parked outside. I yell to Erik this is it man! In we go. Toss our bikes down and somebody tells us to go check in with THE Sheila Moon. We walk back and find her by the fire. I collapse in front of the fire and proceed to sleep with my head propped up on my camelbak ;-) Not really, I was so tired I couldn't sleep, but from my prone position I handed Sheila my checkpoint card and was warmed by the fire.

It felt so good to be done!

For the full Enduro(two time bonus included), Erik and I tied for second, but seriously Erik was top dog for fitness, I just brought survival skills and navigational skills.

And here's somemore numbers:
92.2 miles,
~12,000ft of climbing
10hrs40mins elapsed from the start
and according to Strava only 9hrs and 7 minutes of riding! So either all my rests added up or I was walking to slow for the Garmin to register ;-)

And the GPS track....
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/27616549

Pictures will be forthcoming I'm sure....

Thanks for reading,
Isaias

http://sfenduro.blogspot.com/2010/03/results.html

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