Monday, May 9, 2016

2016 Montana Hell Ride

The hell ride I've been talking about happened a little over a week ago, on april 30th. Put on by The Cycling House, it covered about 83 miles of Montana roads, which means plenty of dirt. The ideal bike for something like that is fast and light, but also durable, and has big tires. If my road bike had been back together, I would have seriously considered riding it with 27-28mm tires. For about 90% of the course it would have been fine, but the other 10% was rocks and mud. Mostly passable on a road bike, but I was stuck with my cross bike so I went and bought another set of tires just for this event- Clement Strada LLG, in 32mm width which is new for this year. 


The race started at Owen's parents' house on Mullan near Kona ranch road and then headed west. Things were a little cool and rainy to begin with, but it was drier than roubaix. The starting group was about 60 people with a few only doing a 50 mile version that skipped the out and back climb up petty creek road. We all mostly stayed together until past frenchtown, and then after the dirt climb up six mile road things broke up and we had a smaller group of 10 or so. After a quick stop at the aid station for water refills and food a few more caught up and we had more like 20 starting the climb.

One of my goals for the day was to conserve energy, in order to make it over the climb near the leaders and also to not blow up along southside road. I found myself pretty far back in the group going up the pavement which was possibly a mistake. I had to go around a few people and bridge gaps, and then when we hit the dirt and things accelerated, being on the back just made me that much farther behind at the top.

I ended up crossing the top with Ian, and we chased but couldn't catch the lead group of about 10, although we did pick up Brendan and Jesse, and after grabbing some food and water handups we hit the southside road together. For some reason, I had basically given up on catching anyone at that point and was happy to ride to the finish at a moderate pace with friends. But Jesse took off on his own and Brendan decided we were going too fast, so it was just me and Ian. We seem to end up as road riding/racing buddies every spring and then when MTB season starts he's suddenly on another level.

Starting out, the southside road was in really good condition. The rain had even packed down some of the really loose and rocky sections we encountered on our pre-ride a few weeks earlier. But then for a few miles things turned super muddy. We were sliding all over the place and I fell down at slow speed after getting my tire on the wrong side of a rut. The ground was harder than I expected. I didn't get a full count of the crashes on the day but four out of the top ten went down through there, including Toby, the winner.

I'd been doing a decent job of drinking, eating, and getting in electrolytes so I felt pretty decent all the way to the finish. No one caught us, but it turns out that if I'd pushed a little harder I might have caught a few guys. As we got to the final climb out of deep creek I could see a rider ahead of me (Jesse), and it turned out I was only about 2 minutes behind a few other guys, which I think I could have made up if I had been trying. Still, I finished 10th overall which is as well as I could have hoped for given the guys who were signed up. It would have been easy for me to wind up 5 or more spots farther back.


Jesse and I at the finish:


Josh Tack and Orion


Two weekends in a row of coating a bike in mud and grime:


Jed took care of post ride grilling duties:


Lots of great food and free beer from Big Sky:


 Good post shower turnout at Dram Shop


Here are the results from competitive timing:
http://competitivetiming.com/montana-hell-ride-results/#unique-id-2016

And a gallery by Tom Robertson:
https://tomrobertson.exposure.co/montana-hell-ride

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