My Cohutta Race: How to retire and go faster

Team CF had a great showing at the first NUE 100 mile mountain bike race of the year. Dr. Jim was third in Masters, Cheryl snagged a 2nd amongst the women and Christian Tanguy and myself (Harlan) placed 4th in open men and 1st in the single-speed categories (respectively).

I’m not sure about everyone else’s races but I had a great time, despite it being my first 100 miler on a one geared bike. If you don’t know it, I consider myself retired from competitive racing. In order to enforce this lifestyle change I plan to race the single speed more. Strangely enough, I can’t seem to shake the “eye of the tiger” and when I get on course it’s time to suffer. That being said I don’t understand exactly how I managed to go faster this time at Cohutta than the previous two attempts when I had gears. Plus the weather was about as bad as it gets.

I’ll attribute the race to two things. One was the great people I had too hang out with before the race and the other was Charles who came up to me in the early morning dawn to say how cool it was to have us out there bringing awareness to CF. It’s one thing to have your friends tell you “it’s cool, or great”, but to have a stranger who is affected by the issue come and express their gratitude has a whole other depth. It helped me keep my heart light for the day, no matter how close the lightning felt.

That flash from the heavens was close enough to make me tingle as we trucked through the midday rains towards the finish. The race weather had been threatening for days and we all expected to be starting in the rain. Instead, we were greeted by mild temperatures and fog as the heaviest type of precipitation. Many of us jumped on the start line after some last minute shedding of extra layers. Besides an under-tee I was in short sleeves and bibs. For some reason I decided to keep my vest in my pocket, but within the first hour I was scheming to ditch it at an aid station. For some reason I never dumped it and that ended up being a happy accident when all hell broke loose late in the day.

For most of the first half of the race I managed to ride with the two other top single speeders of the day. Mathew Ferrari and Gerry Pflug. Pflug had won last year so I was keep an eye on him to learn a few things. At one point I heard PFlug and Ferrari discussing gear choices and got a little intimidated when they went on and on about choosing the right softer gear. As a single speeder you are stuck with one gear for the day, so proper gear choice is very important. If it’s a hilly course you want to be able to climb, if it’s a flat course you want a harder gear to go fast with. From the opening miles I had already decided I had too big of a gear on my bike and wasn’t sure how I could manage.

“For you non-single speed savvy folks. My gear was a 32/18. That means the front ring was a 32 and the rear cog was a 18. 32 is probably what your middle ring is on your triple crankset. Pflug and Ferrari were running 32/19 or 20. “

Anyways…. My gear must have been okay. After aid station two or about the 40 mile mark Pflug and I managed to drop Ferrari. Using one gear all day has an element of hard manual labor to it. Sort of like digging ditches all day. You get into a rhythm swinging the tool and just chug along. I kept visualizing the bike tours I’ve done where you have to push through a 100 mile day with 60lbs of gear on your bike. I took the time to look around. In the past I had never noticed the incredible views from the heights we managed in the Cohutta race. This year I got to look out over some broad valleys.

After moving on from Pflug and company I managed to start catching some of the lead group. I saw up ahead in the mist two riders and slowly crept up on David Wood and Sam Koerber. We rode together for a while, then it was just me and David, who came along at the perfect time to help me get through some of the flat spots. Thanks David! Eventually when the course started going uphill again, David disappeared to the rears and I motored on like the little engine that could. Before aid station 5 the weather started turning sour and lightning rolled over us with it’s backup band of thunder. Fortunately I had my Team CF Vest! That kept my temperature just right. Through the rain I started to catch a glimpse of a fit looking rider and it became apparent pretty soon that I was seeing another 100 miler. If I passed him that would put me in 5th, overall, which was one spot better than I had ever done. Needless to say I was pretty motivated, and I tried to pass that motivation on to the 65 milers we had started to mingle with as our courses joined back together. After aid station six we hit trail again and I was starting to feel a bonk coming on. I was cold, wet and feeling a little disoriented. I made sure I drank the rest of my fluids, and ate some food. About the time I was pulling myself to together David Wood comes ripping past me looking pretty fresh. I figured my dreams of a 5th overall were over, but I got back on the bike and wondered how many more were going to catch me. Fortunately I managed to have a pretty quick recovery and caught David about 15 minutes later. It turns out he was getting too cold on the downhill’s to go fast If only he had my magic TeamCF vest.

By the time I got to the bottom of the downhill we only had about a mile to go. I was well ahead of David, but the last mile was torture since the rain was coming down steadily and had to finish in a full on 20+mph headwind.

Really it was an epic day on the bike and I’m surprised I had such a good time. Thanks to Team CF and the Charles for giving me some good mojo to finish out strong. And thanks to Marcee, Ricky and all for the good weekend company!"