My riding buddies will know this feeling, but pretty much anyone who has played a sport or has a hobby can relate as well- sometimes you have a good ride that stays with you. During and after the time spent on the dirt, it just feels different, and it's worth remembering. That was my experience at Chaparral Open Space trail the other day. It's not an epic trail by any means, but everything just sort of came together. Below are my recollections of the ride, written the day after as that good feeling would not leave me alone. Enjoy!
The
best thing about riding at Chaparral Open Space on June 4th, 2012? The weather conditions. There was only a slight breeze that morning and
the temperature was comfortably in the low 70’s. What I don’t get is why I would feel better
there, where no shade can be had, than under the exact same conditions on
Falcon Trail the previous Friday, where one rides beneath the trees for the
majority of the lap. I guess it’s true
when they say the day makes the difference.
Or something to that effect.
I
did 5 laps of the 2(ish) mile loop, and my times were as follows: Lap 1 –
10:57, Lap 2 – 10:53, Lap 3 – 10:10, Lap 4 – 10:02, Lap 5 – 9:40. My goal on the first time out was to do
around a 12 minute lap, in order to get the blood flowing. Even though I felt like I was taking it easy,
I still came in under 11 minutes, which I took as an indication that I was
feeling good and the trail wasn’t as loose as it sometimes is (thanks to a
quick rain shower the night before). I
decided on the fly to make each successive lap faster than the opener, and as
stated above, I met my goal and then some by going “negative” on each lap.
Lap
2 was hampered slightly by hikers, joggers, and their dogs, forcing me to slow
down and/or move off the trail until they passed. My rhythm was thrown off just enough that I
was unable to clear the last switchback on the backside climb, the only time
that happened, and I’ve got the nasty scratch on my left arm from a stubby
branch on the inside of the turn to prove it.
That anomaly aside, I have to attribute my newfound ability to clear
that switchback as having come from the time I recently put in to doing track
stands at Gunnison last week. Working on
my balance by doing track stands makes tight turns like that seem less
daunting.
Laps
3 through 5 were within 30 seconds of each other and would have been a bit
closer had I not decided to go for broke on the final lap just to see what I
could do. I focused primarily on not
coming into the corners too hot, and staying smooth so as not to have to push
my single gear unnecessarily. The Open
Spaces lap rewards fluidity much more than it does violence in all mountain
biking aspects: braking, cornering, accelerating, climbing, and descending. In other words, your “tiger style” is good,
but my “dragon style” is better.
When
I pulled off a 10:02 on Lap 4, I knew I would go harder on 5 to break the 10
minute barrier for my first time this year.
I was still relatively fresh, so I knew I was capable of going sub-10. I attacked the opening climb section, since
other than a couple corners that require some braking, it’s fairly
straightforward. Cresting the ridge, I
added a little more speed than the first 4 laps, but not a lot because of the
loose, off-camber turns. Flowing down
off the ridge, I stayed in control, and passed the marker on the back side
where the switchback climb begins and is also where I take my time “hack.” I was approximately 30 seconds ahead of my
Lap 4 time at that point, and felt good going into the climb. The climb itself is pretty short, but the
switchbacks add an element of difficulty, exacerbated on a singlespeed. The first redirection is pretty benign, but
they grow increasingly tighter until the last one, a left which requires you to
come to almost a dead stop before making the turn. On a geared bike it’s not hard; you simply
click to a gear you know you can spin up and out of the turn. With only one gear though, the situation
becomes a “grunt and gasp” sort of affair.
With two agonizingly slow pedal strokes, I left the switchback behind
for the last time. Topping the climb and
crossing over to the front side descent, I was still 25 seconds ahead of my Lap
4 pace, so I settled into the run. It’s
a short one, with a hard, scrubby left robbing most of the momentum right
before the bottom. From there though, it’s
a fun series of corners and kinks of varying arcs which really let you practice
digging in, leaning over and understanding what your bike feels like when it
takes a set. It also serves the purpose
of letting you recover from the backside climb.
The final 300-400 meters is a climb back up to the start point, but
excepting one corner it’s wide open; you crank as hard as you want. When I saw 9:40 on my stopwatch, as stoked as
I was, I was also a little surprised. I
knew I was ahead of my Lap 4 time the whole way, but I had figured that my
penultimate lap was about as clean as it was going to get. In truth, it was cleaner than my 5th lap, as I had to dab a foot on
the 3rd switchback due to an error in judgment.
Knowing
the shape (for the record, round is a shape) I’m in now, and knowing how blown
out that trail can get, I’d say that was about as good as it’s gonna be for me
until I improve my conditioning. That
being said, on a singlespeed at least, I think the ceiling for lap times for me
is going to be somewhere around 8 minutes, though I’d love to prove myself
wrong on that score. Because of the sandy,
off-cambered nature of some of the corners on the flats and downhills, there
aren’t many spots I can go much faster, so time will have to come off the
climbs. As I get stronger, I’ll be able
to hammer that one gear on my Kona much more effectively, and the time will
fall away on the opening climb (Climb 1) and the finishing climb (Climb
3). The switchback climb (Climb 2),
however, will be the most difficult of the three to improve upon, as it
requires hard, energy- and soul-sucking accelerations out of each switch to
really do damage.
I
was happy that I cleaned the last switchback on the backside climb more often
than not that day. The trick seems to be
to stand up slightly and then let the front wheel clear the switch, which is
probably not rocket science, but it finally clicked for me there that day. After getting through the hairpin, I put the
power down and got my singlespeed moving, back to the ridge.
Chaparral
Open Space is most definitely a non-technical, fitness lap, but I think it’s
also a much underrated “flow” lap. So
much of the 2 mile loop requires a deft touch that maintaining smooth inputs
throughout is the key to being quick; less effective is going after a fast lap
using a “hammerhead” approach. If I can
keep that frame of reference, this easily-accessible trail from my house and my
bike shop will hold a ton of value for me in the years to come.
Scotty
Mac
