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Kit Cischke's Journal
2008 Great Deer Chase
posted by KitC at 12:55 AM on August 20, 2008
- Region:
- Midwest
- Location:
- Calumet, MI
- Country:
- United States of America
- Ride Type:
- Mountain
Ride Description
Another weekend, another race. This is my second major goal event for the year, after the Chain Drive. It's also the craziest event I do -- in every other race, I choose the shorter distance (16-mile Chain Drive, 28-mile Ore to Shore, 13-mile Copper Harbor Fat Tire Fest), but for the second year, I rode the 25-mile Deer Chase. One of the oddities of this year's race was that the 25-mile race was really more like 28 miles, though it was "officially" 27 miles. My computer said 28.5, so I don't know what causes such a considerable discrepancy. Oh well.
What's so fantastic about the Deer Chase is the copious amount of singletrack in the race. It's such a tremendous difference from the Ore to Shore. The latter race spends a lot of time on pavement, gravel roads and doubletrack cross-country ski trails. The Deer Chase, on the other hand, mainly traverses prime UP singletrack. There's a running joke amongst Keweenaw mountain bikers about the "Caution: 50 meters of singletrack ahead" sign on the Ore to Shore course.
I tried to line up closer to the front this time, but still managed to fall back as the rollout progressed. Part of it is just heads-up cycling -- as we got into Calumet's downtown, there were parked cars serving as a choke point, and to keep cyclists from hugging a Chevy, I dropped back. I really wish I was capable of having a better start, but such is life. It's not all bad though. One of my closest competitors hung with the front-runners through the leadout and then into the rest of the race course, and was totally thrashed about 8 miles into the race. As I caught up to him, he expressed regret about trying to hang with the big dogs while at his current fitness level.
The doubletrack was pretty uneventful, and it was great to hit the first bits of singletrack. Going up the big, sandy hill from the Swedetown chalet was pretty horrible, as always. There were two consolances though: first was knowing it was going to be there, and getting into the middle ring to climb it. The second consolation was that the Fast Traks didn't slip and slide the way the old Small Block 8's did. For a while after that, it was just cruising the singletrack. I did get caught for a while behind someone who just couldn't hack the singletrack like I could, but I couldn't get around him. When we finally emerged onto the core access road for the whole trail network, I had a chance to pass, but I was really in need of a drink. I got out my bottle and then the road got a little nasty and I couldn't get a drink or get it back into the cage. Instead, I hung on for dear life, and the slow guy passed me back. Bummer.
Eventually I did pass him back and left him behind. As we headed into a section of trail called "Muggun's Creek", I moved the rear shock from Pro Pedal mode to fully Open, based on my experience from Wednesday's pre-ride. It was a perfect idea. I came out of the section fresher, and rode it faster. Bueno.
The second lap was more of the same. The sandy hill was killer, I got stuck behind a slow guy through the initial singletrack (who almost went off the trail at the exact same turnas the guy during the first lap) and the open shock through Muggun's was much needed. One thing that was interesting was getting passed by one of the best female mountain bikers in the UP, Lori Violetta. I hung with her for a while, but eventually she dropped me -- about the time we were coming out of Muggun's Creek. I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing until I looked at the results today; she was riding a singlespeed. I know a lot of people say they're just as fast on a singlespeed as on a geared bike, but it made me feel really slow. I did eventually pass her back when we hit the final pavement section leading to the finish line.
The race seemed to go on forever, which it almost did. It was advertised as being 25 miles, but really dragged on for 27+ miles. I almost bonked near the end, but popped one last Gu packet that drove me to the finish line. When I hit the pavement, I just kept shifting into harder and harder gears, put my head down and pedaled like crazy. Final finish time: 2:16:50. Officially 10 seconds below my goal time, but given the extra 3.5 miles we rode, I feel like I smashed that goal.
I hadn't really planned to be doing alot of racing next summer, as I hoped to be doing an extended charity ride from Miami to Copper Harbor. Since it doesn't look like that will happen, I'll need to re-examine my goals for the racing season. The 2009 Deer Chase will feature heavily, I would think. I really want to see a top-10 age group finish, which should only require a few minutes of improvement.
Goals met, new goals to set. It's a good life.
categories: General
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