We at A.C. and Ma Nature Come to Blows: The 2015 Original Half-Growler MTB Race

By Scotty Mac

“Hey guys, think about getting off the bike for this next section! A lot of riders have fallen here!” a well-meaning race course volunteer belted out as I rode by. I watched one of my fellow Ascent Cycling team mates, Marcus, drop in on his bike and I thought to myself ‘how much worse could it possibly be than what I’ve gone through already?’ I followed his line…

Hold that thought. Let me spin things back to the traditional shotgun blast that started the 2015 Original Half-Growler in Gunnison, Colorado at 9:00 a.m. on May 23^rd and- actually, let me spin it back even further, to about 7 hours before that.

That was about when the rain started to hammer my tent. Hard. Rachel and I woke up, but blessedly, the kids stayed asleep. The rain turned to hail, the lightning flashed and the thunder boomed right behind it. Ma Nature, in all her petulant fury, held that storm over the Gunnison KOA campground for what felt like an age: Flash-boom, flash-BOOM, with a menacing, latent rumble that must have crashed and echoed in a boomerang shape from Crested Butte to Monarch Mountain. Already wound up with pre-race jitters, I didn’t really sleep much after that.

The jitters were eating me up. I had blown my first race of the season, DNFing at the Ridgeline Rampage endurance race in Castle Rock a month before the Growler, and I had put in a massive effort after the race to mentally rebound and fine tune a couple things with my nutrition and fitness. Despite assurances from my riding buddies that I was ready, everything was static. The only thing that mattered was completing the race. I had to roll over that finish line, head high, to erase the bad taste in my mouth from the April event.

So that was my mindset, and it’s critical to the rest of this tale: I had to finish. Everything blurred together from there- prepping my bike, eating, climbing into my kit, hugs from my family and all of us A.C.ers pedaling to the race start in downtown Gunnison. I know it happened, but it all ran together, like a sidewalk chalk painting hit by a hose.

Then the gun went off.

350 racers shuffled out of the chute gate and onto the road to start the rollout to the dirt, a dozen or so of us wearing the Ascent red (or purple. Or orange. Or green. Give it up, Scotty. ~Ed.) white and black. I caught sight of Clay just ahead of me and caught onto his rear wheel, ensuring I’d take care of Scotty Mac’s Half-Growler Goal (SMHGG for short. Not to be confused with ‘Shaking My Head Good God’) #1 of 4: stay in the draft all the way to the dirt and avoid having to expend a bunch of energy before my test truly began.

The road tilted upward to the Hartman Rocks trail network and I sat up, letting Clay go. I settled into a pace I knew I could sustain when I turned right onto the dirt for the run in to Kill Hill. There was a slight problem with that plan, though; the dirt was gone. Vanished.

Remember that thing about the rain storm? I guess I hadn’t, or maybe I naively hoped it hadn’t been that bad. It was that bad. In place of the vanished dirt was slippery, slimy mud; mud that oozed with an iridescent malevolence, mud that yanked hard on my drive to see this thing through. I had a split second to panic and then I was in the slop, pedaling like mad to stay upright, my bike’s rear tire canted off-center, hunting for grip. The race group dodged this way and that, searching in vain for a hard-packed line. Tom went by and I saw Lane working his way back to the left hand side of the fire road in preparation for what came next.

So, Kill Hill. Kill Hill is a punch in the mouth. It goes up at such a violent angle that it almost looks like you’re trying to ride up a wall. Add some mud to the equation and it’s a wonder that nobody turned around right then and there. I stayed hard-left on the road, Lane right behind and Tom and Clay a little ways ahead, and grimly set to the task of climbing that muddy monster. I rapidly clicked up through the gears on my Kona Big Kahuna hardtail, settling with an inevitable thud on my 1x11 setup’s granny gear. My legs felt good, but at that point it was all about luck. If anyone stopped in front of me, there was no way I could adjust my line in that much and I would be forced to walk the rest of the climb. People were losing momentum around me, hopping off their bikes and pushing for the top on foot. I watched a rider slipping back with every step forward and hoped as hard as I could for a clean summit.

The train of riders on the left line held true. I saw the end of the climb, grey sky replacing mud, and then I was over the top, spectators cheering us on, cowbells clanging. I allowed myself a moment of elation, realizing SMHGG #2 of 4: ride all of Kill Hill for the first time ever without having to get off the bike and walk.

Somehow we’re over 900 words into this story and I’ve only gotten us to the 5-mile mark of a 40-mile race. Get the feeling that the 2015 Half-Growler has the making of a full-blown, Scotty Mac, multi-part, epic race report? Thought so. Stay tuned for more!

Mac out.

TO BE CONTINUED…

On Hardtails

 By Scotty Mac

When did the hardtail stop being the go-to weapon of choice for the core mountain bike enthusiast?

That’s a great question. 

It’s a great question because up until the last 7-8 years or so, the hardtail was seen in certain circles as the first and only option. Granted, those circles had been rapidly reduced to go-fast, shaved leg, cross-country racers and decidedly retro-hip singlespeeders, but still. Their eyes would glaze as they looked at the exquisite simplicity of a double diamond, hardtail frame in the material of their choice, lost amid thoughts of dominating their local race series or whipping the geared riders up climbs… as my Ascent Cycling buddy Cups once said, “crushing souls.”

Maybe that’s what did it. Maybe your average enthusiast saw what hardtail riders had become, decided they didn’t want to be mountain biking’s version of a “meathead” and went a different route. Maybe they never considered that with the right build, a hardtail could be pretty darn fun. Or maybe, I’m just deluding myself because you and I both know why hardtail sales have dropped off the map in that magic, $2500-$3500 range.

Full-suspension bikes are just flat-out better.

Spec for spec, a fully is one-and-a-half to two pounds heavier than a hardtail. Two pounds is nothing. Two pounds is an extra twenty minutes a week on the trainer in the offseason and one less slice of pizza at dinnertime. And what do you get with that extra two pounds? Brilliance. Full suspension is so good now, you guys. It keeps your wheel tracking true over the terrain even under hard braking, and most models have sneaky-good compression settings to keep the back end from making like a pogo stick while climbing. But we already established you knew all that.

Riding a hardtail these days when you could be on a full suspension bike is like being a Duke basketball fan in North Carolina Tarheels country (That comparison is going to go over like a lead balloon after March Madness is done. –Ed.). You could, but… man… would you really want to? One thing’s for certain, you are in for a bruising.

So, yeah. Looks like I dig me some black-n’-blue.

Here’s the thing: I’m willing to stipulate to all the points above, but I don’t know what it is, I just don’t care. I love hardtails. Always have, always will. I admire an uncompromised design and a hardtail is certainly that. Rear-end cushion? Sure. Whatever you say, Chief. You’ll stay out of the saddle on that rocky descent and like it. You’ll feel the back end of your bike dancing this way and that seemingly of its own accord, like a twenty-something on Day Three at Burning Man. No easy days, no easy rides. You can see the appeal. What’s that? You can’t? Okay, maybe you don’t see it yet, but stick with me here.

We’re in an era where the vaunted, venerable hardtail has wised up to the game, and figured out its angle for staying at the big kid, enthusiast rider table; if you can’t beat ‘em, be such a hoot and a holler that ol’ boy or ol’ girl piloting your trick titanium tubes won’t care. Slack the geometry out, tuck in those seatstays so cornering is right now, rock a big-travel fork, embrace thru-axles, do it all. Swallow those 2.3” tires with clearance for days. Be the wisecracking kid everyone loves because she keeps it real. Appeal to those times ‘back then’ when it didn’t matter what brand you rode, just that you rode.

Bikes like Kona’s Honzo and Specialized’s Rockhopper EVO are exactly all about that. You still have your carbon fiber, fighter jet race bikes, but these models I just mentioned are designed to be simple, stinkin’ fun. Yeah, you can’t pancake a landing and, okay, you’ll need to be smart when picking a line down a particularly nasty, technical section, but you’ll monster it just the same.

I continue to have skin in the hardtail game. In addition to my Kona Unit singlespeed, I just finished building a 2013 Kona Big Kahuna frame I’ve had in its box in my basement for the last two years. It’s a bike that’s aimed predominantly at the XC-racer-on-a-budget crowd, but I decided to go a different way. A 120mm Rock Shox Revelation fork, Roval Fattie wheelset, 180/160mm Shimano SLX brakeset, SRAM X1 gruppo and Specialized Gravity Dropper post later, I had exactly what I was looking for; a hardtail that didn’t take itself too seriously. Its eyebrow is cocked, it has an impish smile on its face, and it’s begging me to be in on the joke. Its level of jocularity is an 11 out of 10.

In short, it fits me perfectly.

Mac out.