Leesburg Bakers Dozen 4.21.07

Leesburg Bakers Dozen
13 Hour Solo
Leesburg, VA
April 21, 2007

Friday I packed up the Soob and headed off for the 3.5 hour trip to Leesburg for my first race of the year. The Leesburg Bakers Dozen. A 13 hour race from 11 a.m. to Midnight.

Made it down to the the venue and hooked up with my old friend Fernando. Back before I started doing the Solo thing, Fernando and I had been teammates on a couple teams for Snowshoe as well as a Duo at Lodi Farms once.

Fernando, his wife Loretta (also a race junkie) and their daughter Jenny had generously offered to let me be a true racer dirt bag and surf their couch at their home near the venue and in their RV on race weekend. Thanks guys!

Anyway, I made it to the venue and hooked up with Fernando and Matt (Loretta's Duo teammate) for a pre ride.

The 7.5 mile course was set on a private farm and I'm not sure why, but I expected a boring course, but oh no! The course was a nice mix of open fields, that included a LOT of cow patties, tight wooded single track, and some neat rock formations to ride over and or drop off. No real climbing at all. but an interesting course that kept you on your toes.

After the pre ride, we set up some gear and head back to the house for some bike talk, carbo loading and hydration.

Slept great and we all headed out to the venue early to get set up and checked in.

I wanted to make sure all was good with the Dos Niner. My mechanic buddy Tom gave it the "all clear" during it's race week check-up last week, but since I would have no back up bike in case of "bike catastrophe" I was more than a tad nervous. All seemed good though, so I just crossed fingers and mounted up for the start.

The 11 a.m. start was thankfully void of the usual Le Mans style run to the bike. (Thank you!) and the mass start headed down a .25 mile or so of double track to the wooded single track.

I was in the front of the pack and in a comfy position. Not the super fast group, but a group of folks that knew what they were doing, thus no back ups.

There was a big urge to really put the hammer down, the course begged for it. But I just went my own pace and hoped for the best.

After my 3rd lap I stopped in the pit, loaded up with some fresh Heed, Perpetuem and a couple Endurlytes. Just to be safe a munched some Advil too. This would pretty much be the routine till about the end of lap nine when I realized my rear tire was loosing air. So I stripped of the Rampage 29er and changed out the tube as fast as I could after close to 70 miles of racing, which needless to say is NOT very fast.

Through the next couple laps I started to develop a horrible blister on my left hand (my "other woman" hand). It was hurting and I struggled to find a comfy position on the grips/bar ends. I just kept plugging along, hoping some recently popped Advil would dull the pain.

Soon it was time to get my light on. I wasn't looking forward to this. Not a big fan of night riding or I should say MY night riding abilities, but at least I had a spare helmet all set up with my NiteRider HID so a simple switch and I was good to go.

Now here is were I made some mistakes. After I was done with the light, I ate some Jelly Belly Sports Beans. I've never ate them during a race before (Mistake! Mistake!!!)) but I do love the taste of them. That didn't sit well and I felt like I needed to let a out a burp to get going. So I took a couple sips of Coke (Mistake! Mistake!!!)

I clearly violated The Gospel According to Hammer Nutrition and mixed simple sugars (jelly beans and pop) with Perpetuem. I was burping up (ok, it was vomit) a Jelly Bean/Perpetuem mix all through my 12th lap. Through this I got to experience a new pain. During one heave, my stomach muscle cramped. Yep, just like one's legs might, my stomach did! I must say it hurt just a tad.

Temps had dropped now too. Going from about 75 to 45. I put a jacket on, but it was a bit too warm. I wanted to take it off but knew I'd be too cold. I figured I'd rather error on the side of too warm at this point.

I was getting mentally drained from the vomit/night lap/cold combo. Got to the pit, jumped in my car and blasted the the heat for a while. Too long. I just sat there warming up, listening to Modest Mouse. I made my game plan- Get as warm as I can, get my stomach under control, then jump out, grab my bike and get one more lap in.

I knew I was wasting time in the car, but I was trying to salvage this race, and warming up and stopping the Jelly Belly Vomit Belly was part of the plan.

So after about a half an hour of this I shut the Soob off, jumped on the Dos Niner and headed out for my last lap.

I pulled in just short of the check in at about 11:45. I asked the director if race rules would require me to wait or go out again. He just said "heck no, were not doing it like that. Cross the line, give me your timing chip and go grab yourself a beer if you want."

Thank you very much Mr. Race Director. I finished with 13 laps and felt good about my 10th place out of 31 solos. Had I not had to taken the time for trails side stomach issues (vomit) and the time warming in the car I'm sure I could have got 15 in. But you race, you learn, you throw Jelly Belly Sports Beans in the garbage.

I got back to the pit got out of the race gear and tried warming up some more. Ended up falling asleep in the car and didn't wake up 'till the awards were about over. I staggered up to the bonfire, grabbed some pizza from one of about 70 boxes and tried getting it down my dehydrated throat. As I walked back to the car I found it impossible to swallow and ejected a hunk of pizza out of my throat like hair ball. Shame. It was damn good pizza.

Bike notes: Aside from the flat, the bike held up for the most part. I think I had too much air in the tires and felt like I was getting bounced around a bit. I think my oil is gone in my Reba too. I was getting minimal quality travel for the second half of the race. I hope this isn't too major. Another race draws near.

Hope to have Tom take a look to see what the damage might be. I hope it's just a low oil issue. PSI is fine in both the positive and negative chambers but only some inspection from someone who knows what they're talking about will tell.

Also noted was that the Panaracer Rampage 29 x 2.35 mounted on the Bontrager Mustang rim will cause some slight chain stay rubbing. My guess is that the tire is mounted on a rim narrower than my Salsa Delgado rims making the tire "taller" and forcing the tire further into the narrower part of the Dos Niner's chain stays under certain pressures.

The race itself was outstanding. Great trails, free camping, accurate electronic timing, post race pizza feast from Z Pizza, bon fires, blue grass band, nice size field of racers and sweet pay outs for the winners, great swag for the racers. Truly a top notch event that I hope is going to go annual. The folks at Plum Grove Cyclery gave racers a great event at a low cost. Thanks!

Congrats to Steve Schwarz who not only won the Solo field, but also scored the fastest lap prize. Also congrats to my friend Fernando who's NCVC 3 person team took 1st place.

Now. It's photo blog time:


Yep, that would be cow poop in my tire.


The Start. (photo by J. Folliard)


In the single track. (photo by J. Folliard)


Later in the race. (photo by Greg/Bikecentric.com)


My fave pict from the race. (photo by J. Folliard)


My attempt to one up FatMarc's wound. I think I won.
Maybe I DO need those fancy grips all the kids are using.


So long vomit beans. Into the garbage with you.

Thanks for reading.

Later.