Prescott diaries

We look across at each other – its now official, I’ve set the record. Never before have I pushed my endurance this far, and I’m sure this is a new experience for Jason, too. It started just after Noon, and now the sun is arching its way towards the pine clad hills in the distance. I take another sip of coffee, I can’t believe I’ve been sitting in the same cafe for five whole hours.

The Whiskey 50 provided me with some unique challenges; what do you do in a riding mecca when you’ve already done all the riding that you can do before race day? How can you take in the beauty of the town that is Prescott without being on your feet and wasting energy?

We chose a combination of caffeinating, chocolate cake consumption and people watching. Along with exhausting the outer limits of the interwebs to stay occupied. It was certainly a challenge of endurance.

The Whiskey 50 is an event, not a race. To view it as the time between the start and the finish of competition would be to miss 90% of proceedings.

For me, the event started with leaving Boulder on Thursday morning. Although the Interstate highways of the western US pass through some amazing countryside, they really do not do it justice, and 80 mph fatigue can set in really quickly. Instead of wander what is on the other side of the cliffs, canyons and hillsides, the passing scenery becomes a blur of desolations and beige colours. The weather on the drive did not help – waves of red sand being blown at force across the road and dancing in patterns I normally only see during ski season. It was a bleak and windy journey, but I had to remember the beauty of those places when viewed outside of the car.

Things improved greatly when Blake suggested a diversion; potentially quicker but potentially getting us lost in a sparse square of Arizona. We turned off I-40 and into the ‘town’ of Winslow, past the people walking slowly down the derelict streets, and out the other side. The question of '”what do people do for employment in Winslow?” was answered when we drove right by the Winslow correctional facility; a sprawl of barbed wire and low slung, flat roofed buildings. We drove out into the desert, and slowly it transformed into trees, and from small trees into big trees that eventually turned into a beautiful pine forest. As we climbed and gained the ridgeline, we drove 2 hours through the green and lush Sitgreaves national forest.

I was surprised. My only previous experiences in Arizona have been the Cholla of Tucson and the dry Grandeur of the Grand Canyon. This was different and new, and more like the descriptions I had been given of the Prescott area. We dropped into Camp Verde and made the short haul to Prescott on some busier roads. As we drove up through the valley with the sun setting, the shape of the rolling hills belying the trails that must snake through them.

Riding bikes on a budget of approximately zero dollars also provides some challenges, including the dirtbag scrounging involved when you drive 900 miles across the country with only a vague idea of where you’ll be spending the night. The Jamis factory team gave up some floor space for our tired bodies on day one, and some hospitality of the highest order from Ben Jones, a friend of a friend, allowed us a bed on days two and three.

With the drive out of the way, and an eight hour sleep to refresh, we awoke on Friday to take in the view across Prescott Valley, and a date with a course pre-ride. After much breakfasting, we finally pull ourselves out of the house and into town. We’re soon pedalling our way through spread out neighbourhoods of large houses interspersed with pine trees that would dwarf anything in Colorado. The trail starts and I realise the Whiskey is a real mountain bike race.

The beginning trail is fun, and I soon turn off my ‘pre-ride’ brain and firmly engage in ‘riding’ and eventually ‘trail-riding’. The trio of Jami (not sure the collective noun for Jamis riders) bring me back to the task at hand and soon we find ourselves sprinting the last 5 miles into town for the mandatory riders meeting.

This is where it begins to hit me. This race is big. The town theatre has been converted to briefing station, and the 200 or so gathered pro’s sit in awed silence as we’re told about the accommodations the town has gone to for our racing. I’m amazed by every little detail that's been thought out. I’m amazed that the whole town is willing to shut down for three days to allow bike racing. I suddenly realise that maybe I’ve been in Boulder too long, when I assume that anyone who doesn’t ride bikes hates bikes. It turns out that down here in Prescott, there are people who don’t pedal, but LIKE CYCLISTS. Is that such a crazy notion after all?

Somehow it gets to 3pm before I know about it, and its time to think about the Crit. Its being touted as a ‘Fat Tire Crit’ which is seeming more and more perverse as I see everyone else around me fitting the skinniest tyres they can to their Mountain Bikes. As I pedal around the town pretending to warm up (My legs were tired and I’d just eaten a pound of pasta…) the crowds grow – The last half of the women's race sees deep crowds around the entire three-quarter mile circuit, and by the time Bruce Dickinson on the microphone has wound up the crowd for our race, the atmosphere is charged. Jason and I had managed to slip on the front row and get a few good photos out of the deal, but as soon as the gun (Shotgun, obviously, this is the wild west) went off, the idea of being in the lead pack died rapidly.

A narrowing of the course and a 22% hill brought me to my senses, and I sat up as people flew by me. With each lap lasting just over a minute, I knew I would have plenty of time for the lactic to accumulate without encouraging it. As the laps drew on, and the crowd went from polite cheering to heckling, and finally beer feeding, I worked my way through the field until I could see the leaders again. Progress. Short lived progress. With three laps to go and no chance of being pulled, I eased back and spun around the course, narrowly avoiding being lapped as the leaders screamed through to the finish.

A wilfully inadequate warm down was followed by a hastily consumed burrito and then quickly to bed. As I lay there with calves twitching, I was dreading waking up to sore legs and lots more energy expenditure on the Saturday ‘off day’.

It wasn’t as expected. Jason and I were on the same page with pace of movement, and we slowly made our way to a coffee shop for some breakfast. Reading the newspaper and watching the stream of lycra’d and leg shaved people coming in and out, I wondered to myself what it must be like for the people who live here. Their little corner cafe swarming with high energy and strangely dressed people. A town with almost no through traffic seeing thousands of bicycle-adorned cars lining the streets.

We finally dragged ourselves away from caffeine and newsprint and went for a ride. We found a trail map and solicited some advice on where to stretch our legs – a strict criteria of an hour and a half ride time and not too much climbing.

With advice in hand, we blindly ignored it and headed for the longest blue squiggle on the map.

Prescott sits in a bowl, and the ridge is riddled with trails. The one we found, known to us only as 9415, looked freshly cut and unused since the last rain. It was a blast. A 5 mile, 2000 feet descent of a blast.

A check in the box for bike ride, next was calorie hunting.

So now here we are after sitting in the Wild Iris cafe for 5 hours. It turned out to be the local cool kids hang out, probably attracted by the same combination of free internet and comfy chairs as we were. The day was a success, and although it was hard to stop pedalling and relax, I was feeling rested and calm – where did those race nerves go?!

Dinner was an experience. As with any mountain bike race anywhere in the US, most of the Boulder crew can be found in town. We met up with Brandon, Ben, Amy and Brett for an Italian experience at ‘Rosie’s’, most likely served by Rosie herself. After eating a massive slice of chocolate cake at 3pm, I wasn’t overly hungry and chose lasagne to fill the small gap. Good choice, as I went to bed feeling great – sleepy but not aching and nothing to distract myself from racing.

After reading this far, I’m sure no one is interested about the details of my race. There are more important things to pick out anyway. Like why a thousand people had also woken up at 8am to watch us start… or why the geriatric police crew lining the roads, however well intentioned, were so terrible at separating competitors from traffic.

Once we were out of town, the race was on. The road gave way to single-track, and the single-track gave way to steeper single-track. I had one thought running through my mind the entire time: DONT TURN YOUR BRAIN OFF. It worked. I didn’t make any silly passes or expend any energy chasing back onto the fractions of groups. Panic struck as I realised the spray coming off my front tyre wasn’t from the trail but from the Stan’s sealant spewing everywhere. I just kept riding – It sealed, I breathed deep and pedalled some more.

The famous 16 mile climb from skull valley was about as horrendous as everyone had warned me, but I made progress – perhaps not on the leaders who put a good 3 minutes into me on that section – but the people that mattered were going backwards as I was going forwards.

The race finished better than I could have imagined – after passing a lot of people in the final stages of the climb, I held on and pedalled through some cramp to finish 13th. I had set a rough goal of Top 20 and 3:10 for the time. 7 places and 7 minutes up was a great way to finish the weekend.

Although, the weekend wasn’t really over… we regrouped, piled into the gas-mobile and headed off for a shower. It was difficult to get the motivation to get on the road, especially with the temperatures approaching 80 degrees and a constant sweat appearing after every movement. As we settled into the drive, though, it went ok. We took shifts, I tried to sleep, tried to take in the buzzing scenery that I hadn’t seen on the way out, all that land that was now bathed in a golden evening sun.

We stopped at McDonalds. I didn’t enjoy it, but at 11pm on a Sunday, in Santa Fe New Mexico, there really wasn’t much choice. I spilled Mcflurry all over myself in the process of eating and driving.

We got back to Boulder at 4:30am on Monday morning, a solid 4.5 hours before work. I slept really well.