Perfect Weather, a Broken
Bike, and a Great Support Crew
August 24, 2003. Six full days
before the start of the race is when I first saw it.
I was loading the van the evening before our early morning departure.
Our family decided to use the trip from Red Lake
A closer inspection revealed the answer. It was not a paint chip. It
was a crack, all the way through on one side and part way through on the other.
I inspected the drive side chain stay and saw that it was also cracked in
exactly the same spot but the crack was not all the way through. This is not
good. How could I enter the race on a bike with a cracked frame?
I went into denial. It's not that bad. It has likely been that way all
summer, I just never noticed. It cracked to relieve some stress and now it
won't get any worse. Pretend that you never even saw it. I loaded the bike into
the van and went to bed.
I dreamt about flying down the mountain in the middle of the night and
the back end of my bike falling off. The crash was spectacular.
At 3:00am I got up. The denial stage was over. I needed a plan. The
first step was to get a expert opinion. My neighbour, Mel, is a maintenance
foreman and was a welder by trade. I know that he gets up every morning at
around 5:00am. I was at his door at 5:05. We set the bike up in the middle of
his kitchen floor. Still covered in shaving cream and before his first coffee,
he inspected the cracks. "Yup, it's cracked."
The only guy at work who is proficient at welding aluminum was on
vacation. The welding machine that is best for this type of welding was out for
repair. The part of the chainstay that was cracked actually has two sections.
Only one section was cracked on each side. The second section looked fine. This
meant that even if the chainstay broke, the bike would likely still be ridable
enough to get me to the pit area. I was now in "educated" denial.
The bike went back in the van. Four days later we rolled into the
beautiful mountain village
of Whistler
August 28th
As always at one of these races, the first order of business is to
pre-ride the course. I did this within a few hours of arriving. This course had
a little bit of everything. Rocky technical root filled single track, short
steep climbs, long gradual climbs, and scary fast downhills. I had to walk in a
few places but, for the most part, I could ride the course without too much
difficulty. Best of all it was really fun. When I finished the course I was
excited about the start of the race just so that I could keep riding. This was
shaping up to be an epic race.
I inspected the cracks after I finished the lap. No Change! My
confidence surged. I was no longer concerned about the bike. It would last. I
was certain of it.
August 30 - Race Day
Jack Lawson was my support crew during this race. I met him the week
before when he was visiting his son Gil in Red Lake
Jack and I spent the morning putting the final touches on the pit area.
At 12 noon exactly, the race was on.
Not much happened during the first twelve hours or so. It was a bit
warm so I was taking in lots of fluids. Jack kept my bike running smoothly by
lubing and cleaning the drive train every other lap.
Night riding proved to be a bit more difficult than normal due to the
constant dust in the air. My headlight reflected off the dust and created
conditions similar to a white out in a snowstorm. It was really difficult and
frustrating to ride this way. I had to ride much slower than I would have liked
but at least I was still riding. I decided that the only way to compensate for
my slow progress was to ride constantly. No breaks. I pulled into the pit area,
ate and drank something quickly while Jack checked the bike and then headed
back out. Less than five minutes each time.
At one point I was starting to not feel so good. My energy level was
down. Jack was keeping close track of how much food I was eating. He told me
that I wasn't eating enough and pulled out a PB&J sandwich. I wasn't the
least bit hungry but I took his advice and ate it anyway. About a half hour
later I felt much better. Wow, this guy is good!
The late night hours are often the most difficult, especially when
there are no distractions like bad weather or cold temps. The mind is left to
wonder and the negative thoughts always come.
"Why am I here?"
"Racing bicycles is a stupid hobby."
"Racing around in circle for 24 hours is even more stupid."
"Why am I doing this when I could be enjoying the hot tub at my
expensive hotel room?"
"I will never do this again. This is my last race."
"No one would care if I just stopped now. I think that I should
stop now."
"This isn't fun anymore."
All of these thoughts raced through my mind between 1:00am and 4:00am.
Each time I had to force myself to remember that this is all normal. I've been
through it before and I'll go through it again. Focus on steering the bike and
turning the pedals. Forget about everything else. The sun will be up soon. I
gave myself these little pep talks every half-hour or so until I could finally
see a hint of blue on the south-east horizon. Finally, the sun was rising.
Jack was keeping track of my placing in the race throughout the night
and this also helped keep me motivated. Just after the start I was tenth in my
age group. By morning I had worked my way up to fifth.
At 7:00am I rode into the pit from my 12th lap and noticed
that my rear wheel had a funny wobble to it. I hoped for a broken spoke but in
my heart I knew what the problem was. Denial was over. My chainstay was broken
in half.
My neighbour, Mel, was right though. The second half of the chainstay
held and I was able to ride the bike in. I'm not even really sure when it
broke.
I thanked my lucky stars that the rear wheel didn't fall off as I was
careening down the side of the mountain. I pulled into the pit area and yelled,
" Jack, my frame is broken. We have to switch bikes." Jack looked a
bit surprised but was undaunted. He pulled out my spare, checked it over to
make sure that it was ready to ride and handed it off to me. I bet we didn't
lose more than a minute due to the broken frame. Amazing when you consider the
potential problems that this could have created.
My spare bike, a Kona Kilauea hardtail, was my only mountain bike until
two years ago when I broke the frame during a training ride. The frame was
repaired but I decided that seven years of racing on that bike was enough so I
"upgraded" to a soft-tail. Well, there I was back on my Kona for the
finish of another 24 hour race. I have to admit that it felt good to be on that
bike again.
I finished the race and the Kona held together just fine (Thanks goes
to Jamie the welder).
As it turned out, the race organizer placed me in the wrong age group
and Jack didn't know how old I was so know one knew the difference. The people
that Jack and I were keeping track of all night were not even racing against
me. It's kind of funny looking back on it but it didn't seem funny at the time.
Once again, Jack came to the rescue and got everything fixed.
Jack was a super human support crew: avid cyclist, mechanic,
nutritionist, statistician, and psychologist all in one. I bet you wouldn't
have guessed that he is seventy-five years old. Thanks a million Jack!
As it turned out, I placed 4th in the 30-34 age group but is
that really important? At the start of the race my two sons asked me if I was
going to win. I told them that I had no idea who would win but I did know one
thing: I would try my absolute best to go as far as I possibly could in 24
hours.
I did that.
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