Natural Bridge Caverns Duathlon

On November 20^th, I did a duathlon at Natural Bridge Caverns near San Antonio. My wife and 8 of my friends also did duathlons this day and we walked away with a ton of awards!

The event had a total of 4 races:

·         Cave Bear: 2 mile run, 15.5 mile road bike, 2 mile run

·         Sabertooth: 2 mile run, 12 mile mountain bike, 2 mile run

·         Wooly Mammoth: 5K run, 26 mile road bike, 5K run

·         T-Rex: 5 mile "very challenging" run, 26 mile road bike, 2 mile run

Shayne, Bernice, Jay, Jacky, Ron, and I chose the Sabertooth race. Darlene, Dave, and Helen chose the Cave Bear. Sebastian chose the Wooly Mammoth.

All races started off about 400 yards deep in the cave and then headed out to a dirt road. For the Sabertooth race, we transitioned to mountain bikes and hit the newly formed trails. The trails looked like they were just cut with a brush mower, so there was a lot of chopped brush on the ground. This proved to be very difficult to ride through because it wasn’t packed. I felt like I was riding through mud or I had flat tires. There were 2 sections that were marked with 3 down arrows, indicating sketchy descents. On the first descent, my rear discs weren’t grabbing and I slid out of control and went over my handlebars. I landed on a bunch of rocks and the bike landed on me. Not much fun… After putting the chain back on my bike and turning the brake levers back to their original locations, I jumped back on the bike and continued riding. At the second triple down arrow section, I got off my bike and walked it. There were 2 really big uphill sections and I passed a lot of guys walking up these hills. The second run was on the same dirt road as the first run, but we didn’t get to run in the cave this time.

As for the Sabertooth racers, I finished in 3^rd place and Shayne finished about 2 minutes ahead of me in 2^nd place in our age/gender classification (out of 8), Bernice got 1^st (out of 3) in her class, Jacky finished 1^st (out of 2) in her class, Jay got (5^th) out of 10 in his class, and Ron got 3^rd (out of 10) in his class. For the Cave Bear racers, Darlene got 2^nd (out of 10) in her class, Dave got 3^rd (out of 13) in his class, Helen got 4^th (out of 7) in her class. Finally, Sebastian finished 2^nd overall (out of 28) in the Wooly Mammoth race.

Overall, it was an awesome day. I always knew my friends were a bunch of badasses! Those other chumps at the race didn’t know what hit them!

Showing off our award rocks.

From left to right: Darlene, Ross (me), Dave, Shayne, Sebastian, Jay (holding Bernice's award rock), and Jacky.

Help! My chain fell off! The hands-free "Latch-On" Method

Just before doing my first 24 solo, the cage on my front derailleur broke. I used JB Weld and duct tape to hold it together. This worked, but shifting occasionally resulted in the chain being thrown off. After the race, I learned a nifty little trick called the “latch on” and I wish I had known this before.

Dirty Fingers Method: Stop the bike, get off the bike, and use your hands to put the chain back on.

Latch-On Method: The latch on method is really nifty. If the chain falls off to the outside of the chainrings, shift the front derailleur to the smaller chainring and start pedaling. The chain magically pops right back on. Likewise, if the chain falls off to the inside of the chainrings, just shift to the larger chainring and start pedaling. No stopping, no greasy fingers, not much lost time… sweet little trick!

Here's a video:

24 Hours of Rocky Hill - My First 24 Solo

The 24 Hours of Rocky Hill race is held near Smithville, TX at Rocky Hill Ranch (about 45 minutes southeast of Austin). For those not familiar with the area, the trail starts with a 1.5 mile climb from the start/finish area to a fantastic pine forest with lots of loose rocks and sandy spots on the trails. The race loop was about 9.5 miles. I’ve done this race a couple of times in the past on a team of 4. This year, I decided I would do it solo. If you’re not familiar with the term “24 solo” it basically means that you’ve completely lost your mind and decided that you need a way to invoke pain upon yourself by riding a mountain bike for 24 straight hours.

If you've completed a 24 solo,
get a cool sticker to show-off.
Why let all those sissy marathoners
hog the fun with their 26.2 stickers?



About me: I’m 40 years old and have been doing adventure racing for about 7 years. I once paddled a kayak 100 miles just because it sounded like it would be a challenge (it was). I'm good at running, paddling, reading a map, staying awake for long periods of time, and enduring pain, but I’ve never considered myself a very good mountain biker. A good friend and former trainee of Lynda Wallenfels’, Bernice Pierson talked me into trying a 24 solo. Bernice has done a ton of 24 solos including the World Championships (not to mention the tons of week-long adventure races all over the world). I think she was really trying to say "you suck at biking and I'm not going to do any more adventure races with you until you get better." I thought this would be a good way to get better on the bike.

My Training: I purchased Lynda Wallenfels’ “24 Solo Finisher” training plan, which is a 12-week program designed to get one through his/her first 24 solo. The training plan required me to ride 5 times a week. The Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday rides were about 2 hours and a mix of mountain and road biking. Saturdays were reserved for long mountain bike rides and Sundays were reserved for relatively shorter road rides. The plan started with some “short" rides of 3 hours and built to the longest ride of 8 hours. If you value spending time with your spouse/significant other and non-biking friends, don't do a 24 solo. If you do decide to embark on this journey, tell your non-biking spouse/significant other/friends that you will see them in about 3 months. Also, come up with a good answer for the question "Why do you want to bike for 24 hours straight?" My friends Shayne and Bernice accompanied me on the vast majority of these training rides and I couldn’t have done this without their help. They didn't always stay for the entire rides, especially when they got long, but I appreciated every minute they rode with me!

My Equipment: For the race, I rode a 2009 Titus X with SRAM XX 2x10 drivetrain and brakes, Crossmax SL wheelset with IRC Serac XC UST tires, and Ergon grips. I used a “bento box” that attaches via Velcro to the stem and top tube to hold my food so I could eat while riding. I used Ay-Up lights (2 x 6-hour Epic batteries and 2 x 3-hour Mini-Epic batteries).

My Plan: The plan was to ride 15 laps. The daytime laps would be 1:25 and the nighttime laps would be 1:30. I planned to have 5 minute pit stops except for 2 stops when I would be getting my lights or dropping them off (10 minutes) and one stop around 2 AM for a dinner of hot chicken noodle soup (20 minutes). I was going to fuel with salted baked potatoes wrapped in foil (good source of carbs and potassium), bananas, potato chips, cheese, cashews, Hammer Sustained Energy, Hammer HEED, chelated calcium and magnesium supplements (electrolytes to help against cramping), ‘lil smokies turkey sausages, watermelon, grapes, Boost, and V8. I would alternate between water and HEED on every lap.



JB Weld & duct tape hold my top-of-the-line
SRAM XX front derailleur together.

Day before the race: I arrived at Rocky Hill on Friday about 4:00. I trained here several times during the 12 weeks while following Lynda’s Solo Finisher training plan. I did my longest ride (8 hours) here so I had a really good idea of the pace I needed to maintain in order to make it through the race (that’s how I got my lap time estimates mentioned above). I wanted to do one last pre-ride before the race the next day. The ride was uneventful until the last mile when I broke the cage of my front derailleur. The bike still shifted fine, but the problem was when the chain bounced out of the cage it would fall off the chainrings. After finishing the ride, I ran into the race director and he said he would call Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop and ask if they would bring a SRAM XX front derailleur to the race when they came out on Saturday. They said they would be there an hour before the race started and said they had the derailleur in hand and would bring it. But being the "gotta-have-a-Plan-B" guy I am, I looked for an alternate fix. The race director had some JB Weld so we put that on the derailleur, clamped it together and let it sit overnight. I wasn’t overly hopeful that the JB Weld would hold, but figured it would have to serve as a last resort if the Mellow Johnny’s guy forgot to the bring the derailleur. The other option was to ride my backup bike which was a Niner MCR steel hardtail… Not the ideal choice for me on a course with lots of rocks and roots. In my mind, people who ride hardtails on the rocky and rooty trails of Texas need professional counseling because they enjoy pain a little more than normal people should.

Race Day: I got my pit all set up. The Mellow Johnny’s guy arrived and didn’t have the replacement derailleur. With no other choice and in true adventure racer form, I added some duct tape to the JB Weld and figured it would have to do.

The race started at noon. It was a fantastic day. The high temperature was somewhere around 85 and we had a bit of rain shower around 4:00 PM. The nighttime low was about 65. It was unbelievably humid, though.

My first 6 laps were faster than I had planned. I was turning about 1:10 to 1:15 laps. My pit stops consisted of throwing off my pack, grabbing my other pack, shoving whatever food was handed to me into my bento box, and riding away -- NASCAR fast! Bernice rode laps 1, 3, and 5 with me and despite her telling me to slow down, I kept a steady pace and felt like I was barely pedaling. At the end of lap 6, I was about an hour ahead of my schedule. My biggest fear was not being able to hold things together for the duration of the race. Well, my BIGGEST fear has always been being attacked by a bear, but that doesn't happen often in Texas, so I figured I could put that fear aside for the time-being. My hands went completely numb, which I wasn't expecting. I thought Ergon grips were supposed to prevent this from happening! It’s really hard to type this without being able to feel my fingers (3 days post-race)!

The night laps were tough. I hadn’t slept well the night before the race because I was worrying about the front derailleur issue. Plus, my stomach was going south on me. Most of my night laps were about 1:20 and my longest lap was 1:32 (my plan was to do 1:30 laps through the night, so I figured this wasn’t too bad). Having completed lots of 24-hour adventure races in the past, I was looking forward to some fun hallucinations to break the monotony of riding, but alas, it was not meant to be. I’ll try harder to be more sleep deprived next time.

At 3:40 AM I distinctly recall laughing out loud all by myself in the middle of the woods. I thought, "I'm 40 years old and riding my bike around in the woods at 3:40 in the morning. Most 40 year-old guys are probably at home dreaming about their mortgages, 2.1 kids, Audi whatever, and punk-ass bosses. They definitely weren't amusing themselves by coming up with stupid names for trees and bends in the trail -- Oh, this is the turn where Bernice was telling me that cool story about Primal Quest... I call this 'Primal Quest turn'." But I digress...

When the sun came up around 7:30 AM I felt renewed. I didn’t know how I was doing relative to my competition and up to this point, didn’t want to know. I wanted to focus on my plan and ride my own race, rather than burn myself out trying to catch faster guys in front of me. Before lap 14, I found out that there were 2 guys who were riding together the entire race and were in front of me by about 30 minutes. I knew I couldn’t ride faster than they were, so I figured I’d have to ride longer. My hope was that they would stop at 15 laps and I would go for a 16^th lap and win by virtue of outlasting them. Bernice rode laps 14, 15 and 16 with me and pushed me as hard as I could go. I think I heard her say something about me being a giant sissy and something about me putting a cute flowery basket on my bike at the end of the race, but I'm not certain about that. My last lap was 1:18, which was slower than my first few laps, but still faster than what I had anticipated in my plan. So, I felt that I finished as strong as I could.

The end result was that the 2 guys in front of me finished their 15^th lap and were worried that I would go out for a 16^th lap, so they jumped back on their bikes and did a 16^th lap. I finished my 16^th lap at 12:06 PM and took 3^rd place. I should look at this experience and say that I got a podium finish in my first 24 solo and exceeded my goal of 15 laps. But being the "gotta-have-a-plan-B-AND-competitive" guy I am, I can’t help but think I should have trained harder, ate better during the race, taken less time in the pit, pushed a little harder at the beginning of the race, finished that 16^th lap a little faster so I could’ve done a 17^th lap, succumbed to the pressures of blood doping, etc. I finished 16 laps in the same amount of time I had planned to finish 15, so I feel great about pacing and fitness. Lynda’s training plan rocked! I can’t wait to do this again next year! I saw a 72-hour solo mountain bike race that I may need to try next year. Now that sounds like a great way to lose my wife, friends, and sanity.

Things that worked:

·   Having help in the pit was fantastic! Bernice, having completed lots of 24 solos, had amazing insight and always seemed to know exactly what I needed. My buddy Shayne came out for a couple of laps and it was great to hear his words of encouragement (usually in the form of “man-up”, “get back on the bike”, “stop standing around the pit”, “why are you still here?”). My wife helped out during the daytime. She kept saying things like "I don't know why you do this to yourself..."

·   Ay-Up Lights are awesome.

·   The Bento Box that was attached to the top tube made getting my food really easy. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have fueled properly during the race.

·   Having 2 packs: one devoted to straight water and the other devoted to HEED. When I pulled into pit, I just tossed down my pack and picked up the next one. This saved a ton of time as opposed to swapping bladders in the same pack.

·   iPod – Solo riders were allowed to wear iPods in one ear for this race. This kept me going through the lonely night laps. An iPod Shuffle’s battery life is about 8 hours. I took 2 iPods and recharged using a portable USB charger called the “Pebble.”

·   Butt Butt’r is great stuff. Apply it often. My pit was relatively near some port-o-potties, which gave me a nice, private place to re-apply.

Things that didn’t work:

·   I used to be a huge fan of the SRAM XX drivetrain that I’ve been using for about 6 months. I love the simplicity and economy of the 2X10 drivetrain, shifting is crisp, fast, and accurate, the spacing of the gears, and its weight. However, 5 days before the race, the bottom bracket started making lots of noise and I had to replace it (after only 6 months???). The day before the race, the front derailleur cage broke. No one at the race site had ever seen a derailleur break like this before. My only guess is that in an attempt to make the component as light as possible, they skimped on the amount of metal used in construction. Plus, the rear hydraulic disc brake went “flat” several times… the lever would reach all the way to the handlebar. The brake still worked, but didn’t instill confidence. It eventually worked itself out and returned to normal functioning. I have always used Shimano XT and XTR components in the past and never had problems. I may go back.