A.C. Race Series #2 - Sometimes, I think it's a sin...

By Scotty Mac

Far as I'm concerned, Gordon Lightfoot is the man. The. Man. I grew up on his music, an inherited love from my parents, and thirty-odd years later, it still speaks to me. Weird way to start a race report? Sure. But I've gone and done it anyway.

The reason the Canadian bard merits mention is because a lyric from his song "Sundown" kept rolling through my mind as the course official at the top of the Bear Creek Terrace race course hollered at us that the race was cancelled due to the driving rain and the stabbing lightning:

"Sometimes, I think it's a sin/When I feel like I'm winnin' when I'm losin' again."

Because, up until that point, I had been comprehensively crushing the race. Easily, without a doubt in my mind, it was far and away the best I had ever done with a number plate on the front of my bike. I was in second, maybe first place in my class and I had the gap to stay away. And then, *poof* Ma Nature appeared with a full dram of righteous wrath.

"Sometimes, I think it's a sin/When I feel like I'm winnin'..."

The race started as well as it possibly could, even as the rain picked up its sense of urgency. I got clipped into my pedals and kept tight to the initial leaders in my group. I had just pre-ridden the course and though I was eager to apply my lessons learned from the first Ascent Cycling race, I retained a little patience. There was a nice, wide climb after the first left and I thought that would be the place to make my move.

And sure enough, even as I thought it, it was real. The first guys to hammer out for my race sat up and I motored right by, kept the throttle down for the rest of the climb and stormed through the opening lap in good shape.

"Sometimes, I think it's a sin..."

The elements continued to punch well above their weight, as has been the case here through the months of May and June. During the first half of the second lap, the course transitioned from slightly damp, to really damp, to slime. Same old song, I know. Believe you me, I'd love to sing a different tune.

And then, on top of the ridge, still away and still feeling okay, the course marshal gave us the "shut 'er down" spiel, and that, as they say, was that. I cruised back to the start/finish, took a moment to look down sadly at my poor, mud-caked Kona Big Kahuna hardtail and then beat feet for the truck, thoughts of a warm dinner spinning 'round my head. But I was smiling. The race was cut short, but I had an absolute blast.

"Sometimes, I think..."

Mac out.

2015 Gunnison Original Half-Growler Pt. II: A Small Matter of Perspective

By Scotty Mac

I mean…

It was just…

Sweet baby Jesus, there was a lot of mud. I’m writing this with two weeks’ distance between me and it, and that’s the abiding memory.

Topping the Hill, it was slimy, brown stuff as far as the eye could see. I slithered and slid, taking my time on the next bit of fire road, eyes locked forward, teeth clenched to the point of grinding. I couldn’t relax. Pete rode by and I tried to ride with him, but I couldn’t hang and let him go. I had to recover a little bit before the singletrack, especially if it was going to be more of the same.

The first ribbon of trail came into view, Josho’s, and I sighed with relief. A couple more riders went by and then we were single file down a fun descent. The mud wasn’t incredibly bad there, and I allowed myself a small smile. The smile faded as we hit the next climb and I saw the grooves. The back tires of the bikes in front of me started to drift sideways as their pilots struggled to maintain direction and then I was in it, too.

Stuff blurs for me from that point to about an hour and a half later, and that’s just about all I want to write concerning the mud, anyway. I can hear you saying “We get it, Scotty. What else ya got?” I remember it started to hail somewhere on Josho’s and I regretted not wearing leg warmers for about five minutes. Marcus went by right before we turned onto the Skyline trail to start that silly climb. It’s a long race and I’m not fit enough to stay cognizant of each trail.

Oh yeah, the guy. I lead with this in Part 1. So this guy is standing in the middle of what used to be a fire road and now looks more like a hillbilly’s idea of a muddin’ good time and is yelling himself hoarse, cautioning us to consider dismounting. I had caught back up to Marcus and he dropped in right in front of me. The pitch was steep but doable, so I followed his line, dropper post one click down. I was sort of in control of the descent for about 2/3 of the way, right up until the front wheel decided to augur in. A quick dismount followed by a frantic, breakdancing handplant later, and I had just managed to make a Mac angel in the mud. I guess maybe the dude was right. I would have to walk the rest of the way.

The mud took on a peanut butter-like quality at that point and efficiently packed up every crevice between the wheels and frame. I tried to hoist the thing over my shoulder to discover that, yes, mud weighs a lot and why weren’t you lifting with your legs in the first place, Scotty?

I nearly quit right there. I plodded and squelched the 50 or so feet to firm(er? Ish?) ground, slammed the Kahuna down to try and shift some of the mud, gathered myself mentally and soldiered on.

Another fire road. This one led to the one bit of road on the course and as I came down it, I caught a whole lot of Ascent Cycling red, white and black out the corner of my eye. Clay, Tom and Lane were on the side of the road, clustered around Clay’s bike.

“Everything all right, fellas? What’s up?” I asked.

“Mechanical!” Clay called back, shaking his head. He was done.

I nearly quit again. It would have been so easy to give in right there. The road would take us back to the campground and the sheer amount of abuse my bike had taken, along with the daunting mileage left made me strongly consider calling it a day. That spot was the last, best place to do it, too. If I continued down the road to the next climb, I would be past the point of no return, if only in my mind.

I rode down the road a little, vacillated, turned around and headed back to my friends. Lane asked how far back Justine was. I responded that I hadn’t seen her since the start of the race. He said he was going to wait for her and ride and I nodded. It made sense. I and my bosom debated awhile more.

And right when I was ready to pack it in, one of the Growler course volunteers looked over. “Hey man, get going! It gets better from here on out!” He yelled at me, waving his arm forward. I would have been more inclined to believe there was a million dollars at the finish line with my name on it at that point, but the bitter result of the Castle Rock race poked back into my mind.

I nodded at my friends, wished them well, turned around and pedaled onward.

I wanted the finish line.

Mac out.

TO BE CONCLUDED…

Ascent Cycling Race Series #1 Report – Lesson(s) Learned

By Scotty Mac

I’m lined up at the 3 June Ascent Cycling race at Palmer Park. Category 3 (beginner), age group ‘None-ya.’ Marcus is on my right, and he’s dressed appropriately for the occasion: Ascent trail jersey, baggy shorts. I look like one of those red-white-blue popsicles that are such good fun right around the 4^th of July, but that’s how I roll and you shouldn’t be surprised: A.C.-flavored with a side of Mac n’ cheese.

The whistle blows and we’re off, chugging up a fire road to give a little bit of separation before we hit the singletrack. One poor bloke’s chain goes off the rails, prompting a headlong dive by the guys following him over to the left line, the good line, the line I was enjoying mostly unimpeded. Lesson learned: drop the hammer early and avoid the shenanigans.

I slot in behind a few riders, and Marcus moves into the clean air of the class leaders. I see him once more as we hit the first technical climb in the 3-mile course and then not again. He’s off to a good start, I thought as I surveyed good areas to try and affect a pass.

The Palmer Park course is not a smooth course, and it rewards decent bike-handling ability and punishes ham-fisted attempts to climb step-ups or rail step-downs. I become absorbed in negotiating each obstacle, keenly aware of the sheer number left turns. Those lefts come in all shapes, sizes and angles, like a boxer mixing up her punches: hard, tight lefts, lefts with rocks that necessitate a lift of the wheel, lefts that fall away. It’s a short course, but it’s a fun challenge.

The pack thins to nothing and I ride some of the second lap and all of the third alone. I clean every climb and nail every downhill line, my Specialized Stumpjumper FSR EVO most definitely the appropriate choice for the terrain and my comfort with it.

The start/finish comes into view and I see the USAC folks have packed in the lap counter, signaling the end of the race. I’m somewhat relieved, but still wound up enough to want more. Good thing too, as I’ll need that energy for the long, slow grind up and out of Palmer Park and back to my house.

I finish 5^th in class and have an amazing time doing it. The venue, course and Wednesday evening vibe was absolutely the perfect way to spend the end of Hump Day. I look forward to more.

Pics? Natch.

Mac out. 

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.

Sedition Cuts: Ch. 4 - Let's Just Make it Out of Town

I cracked open the throttle on the big Beemer, doing a buck-ten down the dotted center line.  I figured it would take another three minutes at that speed to reach the bridge.  I had brought a handheld radio that was supposed to have twenty mile range, but one never knew with those things.  I had a pistol strapped to one leg and my long knife strapped to the other, but was otherwise unarmed.  I wanted to get eyes-on the bridge, make sure it was sound, and then get back to the group.

Two miles out from the bridge, I spotted the first car.  It was a mid-‘00’s sedan, and it was halfway off the right lane and onto the shoulder, canted inward.  I released the throttle a little, and the motorbike instantly responded, slowing down.  110 became 95 became 80.  There was another car behind the first one, arrayed in the same position, and one on the left lane, also pointed inw-…

I got hard on the brakes then, back end skidding lightly as I brought the bike to a halt.  One of those cars like that was explainable; somebody abandoned it, maybe ran out of gas, maybe someone was infected in the car and snapped, something like that.  Three though?  That was an ambush.  Memories of the sweep night came back full bore and I was on instant alert.  I slowly swung around until I was parallel to the interstate, and looked for movement from the dead cars, occasionally giving the A rock came from behind the cars, hurled with enough force that I heard it whistle through my helmet as it went by.  Four throttle a twist.  Between revs, I drew my pistol.

Beloved came charging at me, hurling rocks.  One of the rocks was on target and I lifted my arm to block it, the stone glancing off the crash guards sewn into my riding jacket.  The padding saved me from a shattered arm, but the force still caused my arm to go instantly numb, and I dropped my pistol.  Shit!  My fingers wouldn’t work, and I couldn’t grip the throttle.  I would have to fight four Beloved one-armed.

I got off the bike and put it between them and me as I drew my long knife, cursing myself for not bringing my katana with me.  I thought I could handle four with two good arms, but I wasn’t so sure with the way things stood.  Damn, I was barely outside of Boise.  D.C. was a million miles away now.

I gripped my long knife in my left hand as I banged my right with futility on my side, trying to get feeling back in my digits.  They were closing fast as they always did, and I couldn’t hit them from distance like I always did.  But I still had to win.

The first one came leaping over the motorcycle, arms outstretched, teeth bared.  I went with his momentum, gripping him by his shirt and slamming him down.  A boot to the skull stopped his threat.  The remaining three came on.  I backed up, giving ground and trying to make them rush me one at a time.  It worked.  Sort of.  One of them charged, and the other two approached behind her slowly.  Okay, then.  Baby steps.

Sedition Cuts: Ch. 1 - It's Real Now

“Brandon, she is bitten.  She will turn.  We will not be able to control her and she will kill someone here that much is certain.  There is not enough food here or at your mother’s to satisfy her.  You’ll see her change.  Her eyes will go hollow, she’ll complain of her hunger, her temper will fray to the breaking point, and then she will be unredeemable.  I’ve seen it happen, witnessed the metamorphosis first hand while I was East,” Jacob calmly explained, though a small catch in his throat betrayed his scholarly diagnosis.  He turned and walked toward the hallway.

I slumped down in a bullet-riddled couch, hammered there by his words.  My little sister would be gone in a matter of weeks.  I couldn’t believe it.  There was something my dad had said that didn’t stack up.  “Wait a second.”

My dad paused in the hallway, and looked back at me.

“Wait a second, Dad.  What you said before, when you were back East, you watched this happen?”

My dad pulled his glasses from his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger and sighed.  “Yes Brandon.  I witnessed the early clinical trials of the XS-044 serum on the first human participants.  The transformation averaged four weeks.  At the end, we realized the… untenable nature of the serum and the study was terminated.”

“So if the trial ended, how come we’re still in this doozy of an apocalypse?”

“The XS-044 trials ended, Brandon.  The studies continued.  Unfortunately, the XS-045, -046, and -047 trials yielded very similar results.  The issue was rooted around the connection of the human metabolism to the human ability to make high-order decisions while stressed.  The increase of the metabolism by an order of magnitude had equal and opposite effects on the neurological process.”

“What happened to the test subjects?”

“Terminated.  Quietly.  Medals of valor were sent home to the families, informing them of their loved one’s ultimate sacrifice in service of our country.”

“You sick sons of bitches.  And the program kept rolling, even with the failures?”

“Yes.  The need for a super-capable breed of warfighter was too great.  The talks between our research facility, the Pentagon, and the White House took a disturbing turn.  The Pentagon believed that there was enough variance in our research to suggest that the transformation our subjects had undergone would be controllable in a real world environment.”

“You’re shitting me.  A one hundred percent failure rate was explained by variance in a controlled, precise science lab?” I yelled.  I wanted to pull my hair out or strangle my father or eat a bullet, I couldn’t decide.  I realized the safety was still off on my handgun, and clicked it back on to at least slow down my decision to do something that rash and useless.

“That was their conclusion.  I excused myself from the test at that point, citing my belief that I could not approach and create the test with the fidelity they required of me.  After I signed the standard round of non-disclosure agreements, I returned home, and we began preparing…” his voice trailed off, no doubt thinking of the messed up decision tree that had lead us here.

“And that’s it, then?  Your daughter’s a goner?  Dad, there has got to be some way to keep her alive,” I said, any hope I had stored drawing away even as I said it.

His eyes regained their focus, widened for a moment and then narrowed, thinking.  He had remembered something.  He shook his head.  “No.  It’s too much of a longshot.”

“Whoa, Dad.  Wait.  What longshot?  Come on, this is Sheilah’s life on the line.  What longshot?” I repeated.

“When I left, a separate group of researchers was working on a serum schedule to mitigate some of the effects we had seen with the first test cases.  The talk was that a balancing serum would be manufactured that would drop a soldier’s metabolism back to a normal range.  The idea was that a soldier would take the XS serum before deploying, then cycle off of it before the transitive effects were permanent while still retaining enough enhancement before his deployment ended.”

“Like steroids.”

“No Brandon, not exactly like- well, actually, yes, quite a bit like steroids.  But I have no idea if they actually developed the serum before the President enacted his Beloved mandate, or if it got developed too late.  I wasn’t there long enough to get a sense of its viability.”

Hope crept back in, though I tried to hold it down.  “But there’s a chance it was produced.  Right?”