The Dragon's Tale

I've been a little remiss in my blog updates, so here's a little somethin' before the onslaught of blog entries this summer.


I've always considered myself a great hiker...hell, I used to hike for a living, guiding troubled youth through various and sundry wilderness areas across this great country all the while carrying a backpack with over 100 lbs of gear. Rarely did that get the best of me.  But it was during the 37 mile Dragon's Tale mountain bike race, that I painfully realized I am no longer the hiker I used to be.  In fact, it was all I could do to just push my bike up the next to last "hill" of the tortorous race course, let alone pedal up the stupid thing.

The notion of racing the Dragon's Tale started in January of 2012 as I stared at the computer screen trolling for crazy adventures that would push me to the limits of my ability.  The Dragon's Tale looked to fit the bill perfectly and it was really early in the season for the length and amount of climbing.  The course involved 37 miles of racing, over 7,000 feet of elevation gain...half of which occurring in a 1.5 mile climb that racers would ascend twice.  This promised to be a tough one!

I was paid up, better-trained, and had the plans finalized to make my down to New Castle, VA to race this last April.  My mother's heart attack and immediate quadruple bypass had other plans for my weekend. I contacted Chris from Shenandoah Mountain Touring and let him know the situation and he generously offered me an entry into the 2013 edition of the Dragon's Tale to make up for my inability to race in 2012.

The Dragon would have to wait another year.

Fast forward 12 months.  I confirmed with Chris that his offer still stood and made plans to stay with my in-laws who live less than an hour away from the race venue.  I loaded the bike, helmet, shoes, team kit, food, hydration, and everything else I might need in the car and meandered my way down winding country roads and over two mountain ridges to fight the dragon.

I arrived in New Castle in plenty of time to confirm I was indeed on the list to race this year, grab my race packet and load the gallon-size ziploc bag with goodies that I would pick up an aid-station set up on the race course.  As the grassy field serving as a parking lot began to overflow with cars, bikes and people, it became abundantly clear that some racers were taking this very seriously, and by the looks of some of them, were there to win.  I was just hoping to finish.

I parked immediately across the field from the finish line so if necessary, I could crawl to the car after crossing the line.  I suited up, checked the bike over one last time, warmed up, then chatted with other racers at the starting line.  The start was uneventful.  I and the mass of other racers followed the lead truck through the sleepy town of New Castle, down several miles of paved road, and then as the lead truck pulled off at the start of the dirt forest service road, those truly there to race hammered it.

We cruised the dirt road for several more miles, until we came to the first of many stream crossings.  We all churned up the waters of the freezing mountain stream and carried on.  Some of the crossings were casual affairs that could be ridden through, while others where thigh-deep and required bikes to be carried as we forded across.  The stream crossing took a very quick toll on my left pedal.  I must have had a bad bearing seal and the water caused my pedal to seize up on the spindle.  I pulled to the side and watched at least 20 riders speed past.  The pedal wouldn't budge, so I grabbed the nearest stick and began wailing on the pedal to break it free so it would spin...success...not perfect, but success. 

Back to riding, I finally made it to the first checkpoint at mile 13, where the support trucks and volunteers were ready to fill water bottles, hand out sandwiches, bananas, cokes, and words of encouragement.  It was here the course left the dirt road, took a violent turn upward and began the 1,500 vertical feet ascent to the top of the dragon's tail.  It took over 25 minutes of relentless climbing to reach the crest where we turned right onto the ridge for a mile, then dropped off the ridge back down to the paved road.  The descent was almost as bad as the climb, with tight turns and steep dropoffs that made you wonder how far you would tumble before stopping if things went wrong.

The course stayed on the dirt road back to the first support station.  I stopped at this one, filled up my water bottle and hydration pack, ate 1/2 a pb&j samich, shotgunned a coke, then tried to oil my pedal so it would spin more freely, but no go.  The course repeated itself up the steep climb to the ridge once again, this time a tad slower and broke left at the top.  The local forest ranger was on hand to shout encouraging words and direct racers to the correct direction on the ridge.  This is where the misery began.  I'll take a gut-wrenching climb any day compared to what I was about to endure.  The rocky, steep, soul-stealing demon that lived on that forsaken ridge was out to play, and I was too naive to recognize the signs.

The ridge was the next mountain ridge north of the Appalachian Trail.  Sounds awesome doesn't it.  Well it wasn't...at least for me during the race.  I was already tired from the amount of climbing I'd already done, and I wasn't even to the half-way point yet.  The ridge from a distance looks relatively benign, but up close it reveals it's true nature.  The miles and miles and miles of ridge riding were interspersed with gargantuan rocks, steep downhills, steeper uphills, flowing knife-edge singletrack through stands of mature forest, and many naturally beautiful features inherent with anyone's picture of a wild forest.

In the beginning of the ridge I found myself enjoying the views and the riding.  The trail was rocky and often challenging, not from a fitness aspect, but from a "holy crap I hope I don't fall of off that ledge onto those pointy rocks" or "DON'T CRASH...DON'T CRASH...DON'T CRASH...DON'T CRASH...WHEW THAT WAS CLOSE!" aspect.  After 4-5 miles of this I was physically and mentally worn out.  There were so many spots I had to walk the bike that it became a chore.  It was on several of these sections I thought of my buddy Nate who raced this on his singlespeed bike the previous year and how impossible it would be for me to ride without my easy gears to fall back on.

Toward the end of the ridge, the climbs seemed to grow taller and steeper.  I began to crack on one of the last climbs, but as I began to whimper I caught sight of some other racers up ahead, so I found a small nugget of motivation to pick up the pace of my crawl to a slow walk as I pushed my bike up the rock ledges to catch up with the group.  When I caught them, we all agreed we were ready to get down off the ridge and to the finish, but I would soon realize that descending off a high ridge down a steep rocky trail at my current state of mental and physical acuity would prove the most difficult.  The descent seemed to take forever and I could feel my brakes lose power as the brake fluid heated up from the constant friction.  The descent spit racers out at the 2nd and last support station, where I shook out my forearms, which were pumped from squeezing brake levers for the last 15 minutes, filled up on water and fig newtons, topped off my water bottle and was off again.

I've learned that the longer I spend at support stations, the worse I feel when I get back on the bike, so I try to keep stops to under 2 minutes.  Just after the support station the course jumps back into the woods and I felt great for another few minutes as I hurled my bike up a low-grade climb, passing racers already walking their bikes.  In my mind, the race was nearly over and I was ready for it to be over, but the course had one last diabolical twist.  As I pedaled up the trail, I could see the images of racers well above me struggling up the 1 mile climb to the next ridge top.  I was warned of this climb by another racer, but I couldn't remember how big it was.  It turns out the climb is over a mile long and steep in many places.  I got to a point very early in the climb where my legs refused to pedal any further.  "FINE!", I said to myself, I'll just push my stupid bike up this last stupid hill and get this stupid race over with.  After all, I used to hike for a living and my bike is much lighter than a 100lb. backpack.

Walk, walk, walk, push, push, push, breathe, breathe, breathe, repeat!

At the time, I had no clue how long this climb was.  It felt I had already been walking forever.  I began to really crack at this point.  My legs were like rubber, my ankle hurt from walking in my bike shoes up the off-camber slope, and my back was tightening from being in a bent position for close to 5 hours at this point.

It was there, halfway up a climb in the middle of nowhere that I realized I was no longer a great hiker...not even mediocre...in fact I sucked at pushing a bike while walking and hated every miserable second of it.  I stopped, draped myself over the handlebars and prayed for a pack of coyotes, bear, mountain lion, or in my weakened state, even a surly chipmunk, to clamp it's fangs into my neck end my suffering.  Sadly, no killer chipmunk appeared and I was destined to push this bike up this hill for eternity.

But push I did and I caught up with another racer who was also pushing his bike.  He was on a rigid (no suspension) singlespeed and so had a good reason to be pushing.  We chatted up the remainder of the climb until the grade mellowed out enough to try pedaling again.  He was off first and I followed.  I passed him on a rocky section and made it a hundred yards up the trail when both legs seized up and sent me off the side of the trail in agony.

Normally, when cramps set in during a race, I have to keep pedaling to keep them away, but this was different.  I sat on the side of the trail figuring dehydration had finally taken it's toll and slammed 2 GU Roctane energy gels and drained my hydration pack of what remained of my GU Roctane drink and climbed back on the bike to finish this horrible race.

The singlespeeder had disappeared down the other side by now and I tried to keep the torque to the pedals to try to catch him.  Even though I was not a contender to win or place in this race, it was still a race, and I was racing the guy in front of me.

I really can't remember much of this part of the trail, only that it climbed over one more, albeit "smaller" ridge and descended back to the valley floor and began crossing this annoying little stream.  I caught back up to the singlespeeder at one of the numerous stream crossings and we chatted some more.  The trail finally flattened out and I hightailed it to the finish line.

I crossed the line in 5 hours 49 minutes, suffering through the 37 miles to 52nd place.  Oddly enough, I was extremely happy with my placing and my effort.  I don't think I could have ridden any faster or harder.  I was in one piece and so was my bike.  The awards for the top finishers had come and gone and the promoter was grilling hamburgers and had fresh kegs of beer on hand.  I stayed long enough to take a picture of my standing posted on the race results and left New Castle behind me.  I was proud of my effort and glad to have done the race, but I'm not sure I'll be back down, but the pain and suffering associated with hard races like this is soon forgotten, and new plans for tough races are always in the works.