It’s 5:45 am Sunday morning. I’m
sitting on a water crate outside of a Loaf ‘N Jug trying to eat a questionable
burrito. I’ve got an equally questionable sausage muffin jammed in my winter
coat’s front pocket along with a big jug of OJ. People keep walking by and I
must’ve looked more than a little homeless, but most of the people seemed to
know the look of an underweight racer trying to cram down food before a race.
Still, it left me wondering how I’d ended up here, freezing on a crate.
Like most people that have a need
for food and a desire for shelter I am not able to attend every race that I’d
like. The last few years the big race I’ve been able to attend has been the
Chequamegon Fat Tire. I’ve really liked doing that race and loved stuffing my
face at the Norske Nook pre-race. After hearing the guys from the team talk
about the awesomeness of a race in the Black
Hills for the past few years, I figured it might be time to try
something new. So come April 1st I was sitting in front of my
computer frantically hitting the reload button until I succeeded in signing up
for the 13th annual Dakota 5-0.
After a couple of months passed
the big day was approaching and my nerves were exploding fast. The family; Amy,
the dog, and I; loaded up the wagon and we headed out to Spearfish City
Campgrounds. The campgrounds were perfect with lots of space, clean facility
stuff, and a cool down creek running through the middle. We saw the sites a
little. I rode up one of the mountains looking for the trails. No go on that.
After biting the bullet and asking for directions, a bunch of times since I
still got lost, I found the trail. I guess I found an 800 foot road climb that
lead to a 700 foot single track climb. That was 7 miles from the start, so I
threw a water bottle behind a tree that was marked and headed down the mountain.
Man I was flying! Then there was a bull. I was trying to be aware of riders
coming so I was ready on the brakes, but I wasn’t ready for a giant bull
standing in the middle of the trail with thick tree cover on both sides. I
didn’t really know if I should be worried about a giant horned thing right in
front of me so I decided to be worried. I walked off the trail into the brush
behind a couple of trees. The giant extremely bored looking killer stared me
down for another couple of seconds before he clomped down the trail. I took the
opportunity and sped away, grateful to not have fallen the way so many poor
Spanish folks die every year.
I guess that brings me to race
morning, sitting at a gas station eating aluminum foiled gourmet. After I choked
down some really great food and spilled most of my coffee on the ground I was
nervous as hell and ready to race. I lined up in the back since I hadn’t really
paid attention to where staging would be. It didn’t really matter since the roll
out was Chequamegon style, behind a four wheeler. The four wheeler pulled us
through town and to the base of the 800 vertical foot Tinton road climb. It had
to pull off since no machine could match our pace up that climb. I did my best
to ride smart and keep my tire within rubbing distance of the guy ahead of me.
We cruised along shedding folks until there was about six of us with one guy
another hundred feet or so up the road. Brian Eppin mostly set the pace of our
group. I happily sat on his wheel. As we were about to dive into the single
track the eventual winner riding for Honey Stinger came around me. He looked
strong, especially when he decided to hit some jump off to the side of the trail
and practically jumped over Eppin’s head! I was pretty surprised to find myself
in position with Nathan Guerra still behind me. I held my spot for a bit,
loosing them on the dusty downhills and closing back up on the uphills. Maybe I
was going too hard with lots of racing to go? When I approached my marked tree I
pulled to the side and told Nathan to go past. He rolled by, I looked over and
the bottle was gone. Must have been the bull’s revenge. At that point I was
starting to have some more trouble keeping up. The guys were flying and the dust
they were kicking up was making it impossible to see rocks ahead. I caught up to
Brian one last time going up into some rocky stuff. He asked if I wanted to get
by him since he had really turned his pace down. I told him that I was good,
knowing that passing him would mean blowing up in a couple of minutes to an
hour. I hung with him for a bit until he decided that he was sick of me. Then I
fell off, luckily Jesse was just a bit back. He asked to pass and I sat on his
wheel for most of the rest of the first half of the race. Jesse had a really
strong pace going. I tried to help for a bit but he wasn’t sitting in so I
retreated to his wheel. Around the 25 mile mark I thanked him for setting such a
good pace and he half jokingly asked if I was going to let him pace me, then
sprint him at the finish. I responded, “Yes!” Feeling a little bad, I came
around to pull. I started to go at an alright pace up the hill when two guys
came flying around me. Weird since we hadn’t seen anyone coming. I was able to
kick it up enough to hold on to them. Jesse didn’t. Turned out they’d both
missed a turn and were trying to get back up front. They never made it. I wasn’t
able to stay with them. I did get around a guy named Mark while in tow and put a
big enough gap on Jesse to hold until the end.
The course itself was 7500 feet
of climbing. 4500 of which were in the first 25 miles. Lots of long slow uphill.
Lots of long fast downhill. Fairly smooth where there was dirt, but you had to
always be on the lookout for rocks. Loose or stuck, they were abundant. The
whole place was a photographer’s dream…I took none. You’re welcome for that.
