Brazilian ramblings

How is it possible that dreams sometimes are prescient?

Even at my age, each day can bring a learning experience. Sometimes the lessons are hard.

Today started with excitement for me. I felt really good, like I’ve been feeling all this championship season. My warm up confirmed my race preparation was right. I toed the line as the first call-up to this year’s Master Mountain Bike World Championship in Brazil and the race started with an explosion, like it always does.

It’s the dead of winter here. I pre-rode the course for three days earlier this week but stuck to the trainer yesterday as once again it rained hard and I’d had enough of riding in the nasty stuff. The course was a muddy mess each time I rode it, not what I am used to in the dry dusty races I do in the Bay area. I wore my training pads and for good reason, I think I hit the deck 20 to 25 times in the mere six laps of the course I completed in practice over my three days outside. The pain of those times face down in the mud convinced me how to ride (nay, run) the dangerous parts of the descents. As a point of reference, those dangerous sections made up at least ¾ of all descending on the course. I expected these descents to be the daunting challenges come race day.

I was wrong.

Now common sense and good thinking suggested making sure all your equipment has been tested prior to a big race. I always do this, until today. After today, I always will.

As I always do for Mountain Bike World Championships, I bring two identical bikes, one for the race and one for training. This year I put an all new drive train on the race bike before I left home; chain, cassette, cables, cable housing, new wheels, tires, rotors and brake pads too. I wanted everything to be perfect, no worn parts. I rode it around on the road at home to see if everything was working, it seemed fine.

At the race venue, I always do one lap on the race bike at quasi-racing speed to do a final test. This year I didn’t. The course was too much of a mess and I was constantly crashing while practicing. I didn’t want to risk going down and breaking something on the race bike or taking a chance of gumming up the cables and risking bad shifting. Even at 56 years of age, we make bad decisions.

The first 200 meters of the race course is flat, the next 300 meters climbs on pavement at 20 percent, the perfect way to start a race for me. Somebody jumps by me as we hit the climb. No problem, I kick a little bit and drop him easily. Benny Anderson, the current Swedish National champ and reigning European champion pulls up beside me. He beat me for the first time in four tries two years ago in France when he won his first World Championship. I knew he was the one I needed to beat today to win.

I’m riding tempo and decide it’s time to test Benny. I shift down one gear and get out of the saddle to attack. Pop! My chain jumps a gear and tweaks on an angle as the rear derailleur lurches down the cassette. What the f@#* just happened. I put a little pressure on the pedals and realize I am about to break the chain as the rear wheel locks up. I stop and get off the bike, pick the rear end up with one hand and spin the pedals with the other, the only way to correct the problem.

Benny’s put 50 meters on me and I know he heard the crunching of my chain, opportunity knocks or should I say crunches for him.

I pedal and the chain jumps again on the cassette, and again, and again, and again. I realize that, at this point, I can ride nothing more than tempo as any more pressure than that yields the same troubling result. How do you win a world championship riding tempo???

We crest the top of the start loop and hit the first tricky descent. I can see Benny cautiously finding his way down to the start/finish line about 75 meters in front of me. I see his strategy given his knowledge of my circumstance.

To hell with it, I’m going to rip this descent and take my chances. My heart’s in my throat a couple of times but I get back to Benny by the bottom and we’re on to the first of two full laps.
Now I can pedal again but fear the outcome. Sure enough the problem persists, I need to make a barrel adjustment for the rear derailleur on the fly and see if it makes a difference. The first climb of this lap is 50 meters in front of me.

Twist the barrel adjuster, pedal. Nope, that didn’t work. Twist the barrel adjuster, pedal. Uh oh, I’m on the climb and my amateur attempts at a mechanic’s work have failed. Not only that, but I have adjusted my way out of even being able to ride at tempo on the climb. Even the easiest of pressure on the pedals is now unworkable.

This is an easy climb I can do in my big chain ring but with every pedal stroke the chain jumps. I get off the bike and start running as I watch Benny sprint away from me. I crest the climb and I realize that caution needs to be tossed. I scream down the descent, but this is the easiest of the 10 to 12 descents in front of me. I fear trouble lies ahead but what choice do I have.

Immediately I’m on the next climb, I see Benny in front of me climbing with speed. I have no choice but to run again and the first challenging drop is up next. I cut it loose and crash! Not bad but it shakes me up. Unhurt other than a trickle of blood down my knee and elbow, I remount and let it go again.

Next climb up, next piece of running and I no longer see Benny in front of me. Someone at the side of the road says he has a minute on me.

And so it goes. Run up each climb, take my chances on the descents. Other than that one crash, this strategy (it’s all I can come up with at this point) is working.

Through the start/finish and the bell rings. Again someone says “one minute to the leader”. A surge of adrenaline hits me as I realize I’m still in this race, in the last 15 minutes since that first crash I’ve haven’t given up a thing to Benny.

Now I know what Benny’s thinking as he has a friend out on the course who may have seen me running up climbs that make no sense to run, unless you have a mechanical problem. Benny climbs hard and takes no chances on the descents, probably off the bike on all of them. My only chance is that he continues this strategy while I take even more chances on the descents.
I now hit that descent I crashed on in lap one, this time though I go even faster.

Usually I act rationally, in fact, it’s been years since my days of irrationality.

This is the world championships and, given the circumstances, I need to take chances to even have the slightest hope of winning. It’s that slightest hope that puts rational thinking into the dust bin.

I make it past the point of the crash last lap but I am going much too fast and I’m headed for a tree. My front wheel is in a rut and I the brakes aren’t slowing me down. My choices are slowing down by putting my face square into the trunk of that tree or dive off the side of this descent down the embankment.

It’s not like you actually make a decision given those choices. Survival instinct takes over and I’m off the side of the trail careening downward. Suddenly I flip and come to a sudden stop. I’ve fallen into a 4 foot hole filled with vines and broken tree branches. I shake my head, neck seems okay. I move my arms, they work, legs work too. Okay, now what? I look up and my bike is across the top of the hole. I pull myself up grabbing vines until I get to my bike. I push up and throw the bike back onto the hill and struggle to crawl out of the hole. Suddenly the Columbian that finished third behind me last year after I broke my pedal is coming cautiously down the descent. I lost 8 minutes to a broken pedal and beat him by 3 minutes on top of that, this tells me just how costly my mechanical nightmare has been to me today.

He goes by me as I get back on course. Thirty seconds later we cross the road to start the next climb. The Columbian is 50 meters in front of me and Benny’s friend is there and tells me Benny’s 3 minutes up the road. Sounds like I was in that hole for about 2 minutes.

The race is over for first but damned if I’ll give up fighting for second. I am running up the climb with every last bit of energy I have. I catch the Columbian and push by him. I am seeing stars.
Now that I’m in front of him and bleeding from both knees and elbows , with many bruises I can’t even see, no more chances on the descents. I take them all cautiously, top tubing it. We’re back on the road and he’s back on me. Up the final climb of the day and I’ve gapped him with my running.

For some strange reason, I decide to try pedaling the bike as I hit the only gentle part of the last climb knowing the Columbian will be riding it much faster than I can run it. I put it in the 36 on the back but as I put it in the gear, I don’t let up on the shifter paddle, thinking that keeping the pressure on the cable might stop the chain from jumping. This only works at the top of the cassette as such pressure on the paddle in any other gear would just move the chain up the cassette. At the top, it butts up against the set screw and can’t jump. Why didn’t I think of this earlier? Sh#*!

My legs are fried from a race spent running up every climb. Constant pressure on the paddle is taking all my will power as my thumb is cramping but I am nearly to the top of the course and I’ve put another 30 meters on the Columbian. The last descents to the finish line are tricky and he’s behind me far enough that I think I can top tube each one.

I’m on the last tricky switchback drop before the finish and I see he’s ten meters behind me. Okay, get off the top tube and let it go!

Bad idea, down I go into the mud.

Just as I get back on he goes by me. Seventy five meters to the finish and one last dagger enters my heart. What a day or should I say night(mare).

Two days ago, I had a dream. It woke me up in a cold sweat. It was one of those dreams where you absolutely believed it was actually happening. I dreamed I was racing in today’s championship, I was battling it out for first, second and third. Believe it or not, Benny was in the dream. I had trouble with the details but Benny won, someone unknown to me finished second and I was third. I swear it took me 5 minutes to realize it was just a dream. How weird is that????