Team MotionBased

THE PREP About this time 2 weeks ago, we got that fateful, and somewhat expected notice from CSM Events. The next installment of the Cal Eco series to be held in Downieville was cancelled! Argh! (…among a few other profanities…) was our gut reaction of what had just happened, communicated by all in our virtual conference room. As we were firing off emails and voicemails vigorously tying to regroup, we explored our options as to what we could do to fill this void and get our AR "fix". You can read more about the ethics and bickering of the west coast trend of directors cancelling races here: http://www.baarbd.org/community/forum/view_topic?topic_id=155 We had wanted to do Karen and Paul’s Explore the West – Southern California race since it was announced, but because we had committed ourselves to the Cal Eco series and wanted to participate in a multi-day race this year, we were holding out for Cal Eco's Downieville. Now that it was cancelled, we had an opportunity to take Karen and Paul up on their offer. We had one week, the race had virtually started! It was going to be tough and we needed to scramble, because in exactly 1 week to the day, we needed to be in Big Bear with our team intact, all our gear, a 4X4, and most importantly, a crew! A-Bomb was MIA, goofing off in Tahoe on his mountain bike, and I was on the home front with my 2 year old son for the holiday weekend while my wife was visiting her sister. That left me and Donato, via hundreds of phone calls and emails, to pull together a team, crew and logistics at the last minute. Were we going to make it? Fortunately, it wasn’t hard to find racers out of the ever-growing network of DA’s ‘n friends. Everything was in place, except for that one minor detail…mandatory crew! Talk about make it or break it…I must have made 50 calls and emails, and came up empty every time. Seems like this is *the* weekend for weddings, funerals, and Bat Mitzvahs. Long story short, the frustration continued until Wednesday when we were lucky enough to hook up with Jen and Galen from baarbd.org. Jen would race as our female to round out the team, and Galen would be our star crew, to form Team Dirty Avocados – Skins/baarbd.com. With all the pieces in place, all we needed to do was make it to Big Bear Lake by 6pm Friday. This also proved to be challenging, due to the fact that I was working in Seattle all week, and on top of that, organizing the logistics of this event. I landed late Thursday, went home, packed, loaded the truck, went to bed. In the morning, I hit the road to pick up A-Bomb and our kayak from CityKayak (www.citykayak.com) and then we high tailed it to So Cal! Whew! We were finally on our way. We rolled into Big Bear at about 5:30pm after caffeine fueled, Mario Andretti paced roll down the highway. With time to spare, we picked up some last minute groceries and made our way to the pre-race meeting at a local Italian restaurant. After stuffing our selves with our final meal, Paul and Karen handed out the maps and went over the race rules. The race was to start at 6am, with a check in time of 5:15, in a small town east of Big Bear, in the desert valley called Pioneertown. Approximate ETA, 1.5 hours. By now, it was already almost 10pm. A drive to Yucca Valley would put us to sleep between midnight and 1am. We were reassured there would be plenty of motel rooms in Yucca Valley, so we loaded up the truck with our gear and pizza and high tailed it down the hill so that we’d be closer to the start in the morning. We always like to get to a race early and avoid the rush of a long drive hours before a race. As Jen drive down the mountain, I vigorously plotted the CP’s on the race maps, knowing that once we got to the motel, I was going to need to get as much sleep as possible. We arrived in Yucca Valley, and the first motel we checked was sold out. The desk lady said that actually all motels in town were sold out! What happened to wide open availability!? We got a bit frustrated at this point. Couldn't we have gotten some amount of notice ahead of time so we could secure a room? A campsite? Couldn't a block of rooms been reserved? Anything to avoid the aggravation and the hassle that is eating into our much needed rest only hours before the race start. Did I mention the race already started?... We finally found a vacancy and quickly filed into the room and crashed as soon as our route was plotted. 4:15am came quick. Again, it was hard to wake up DP, but when isn't it. We geared up and loaded into the truck and made our way to the start. It was still dark but teams, were scurrying about with their headlamps preparing their bikes, packs and other race gadgets. We gathered at the start line around Paul and Karen, and after a few final words the race had officially started at 6:05am. THE RACE The order of events in this race was to be; bike, run, bike, run, bike, kayak, run. Paul estimated it would be 90 miles and 11,000 ft elevation gain. This turned out to be an "estimate" alright! ;) We started biking west by north west towards a little town of Rimrock. The roads turned form paved to dirt to gravel. Eventually the road made its way through a canyon, which was nice as it provided shade from the rising sun. On this first bike leg, whatever could have gone wrong, did. First I experienced one of the important lessons in bike maintenance and racing. Never get your cables replaced just before a race. My derailleur was ghost shifting all over the place. I could not stay in a single gear no matter what I tried. It sounded like popcorn coming form my bike. This proved to be very tiring as I tried to maintain forward momentum. We managed to keep our place in the pack in the front quarter. Jen also sprang a leak in her camelback and was loosing all her fluid quickly. Armijo's seat and post didn't want to stay up and he had to keep retightening it. As we shook out the bugs, we picked up CP1, which was a quick run up and around a "lollypop" loop above a bike drop. On foot proved be faster, so we jammed up the hill, got the checkpoint and headed back down to our bikes. One down, and it was off it was to the first TA. We transitioned very quickly and set out on the trek/run. Not sure what team we were behind, but they were wearing blue. We entered a large reentrant with what looked like a trail that disappeared. We decided to let the other team gain some distance on us and we watched them as they tried to make their way straight up the reentrant. From prior experience, that would prove to be very slow moving. We decided to back track just a few yards or so and Jen found the trail we were looking for behind a clump of bushes. This trail took us up to the ridgeline where we caught a 4X4 road down to the next CP. We were just behind Team Fuzzy Logic (I think). After checking the point, they continued up the path out the backside of the CP. Again the maps did not represent the trails as they were, so we had to scrap our plans of catching the Pacific Crest Trail and wing it up and over the ridge to the TA. We ran down to the TA and transitioned to bikes again. Galen had fixed my ghost shifting problem whule we were on foot and it rode like a new bike again! Overall, our transition times were very fast for this race, which is something that we’re constantly working on. Sub 5 minutes! We hopped on the bikes and made for Heart Bar Camp. *And now a brief word from our sponsor... (Jen adds a piece) Upon departing from TA 2 Paul said that we had a "short" hike-a-bike section which he followed up with, "if I were a race director I'd NEVER put a hike-a-bike in a race" and if that wasn't enough sarcasm from one source, he later said that Karen had done the whole section in her big ring! I don't know about the boys, but my mind was hung up on the word "short" despite the other warnings... for the next hour we humped our bikes up loose rock at pitches you could have skied down! Paul alluded to the fact that the reward was worth the price, so we kept trucking until we topped out around 7k. Now, to resume the mechanicals we began with, my bike decide to take part in the festivities. My bottom bracket started to seize. On a bike just over a year old I was shocked - ok, pissed - this was happening. DP greased her up and she held up to the next TA. Felt like I was riding with my brakes on. * We passed a small gate up initially, and had to back track to locate the next CP and the start to the Santa Anna River Trail (SART). The SART, as you probably have read in other race reports, is a fun little trail. It was a rolly-polly trail with an average loss in elevation. We took this trail west for a while, and then down a technical rocky trail that never seemed to end. Armijo and DP loved it! But I shared Jen frustrations in the extreme amount of concentration needed to stay upright, many times almost resulting in an endo. After what seemed like hours, we made it to the end of the trail and to the general vicinity of the TA. At the end of the trail was a TA location update sign. The sign stated "...follow road - turn left and cross bridge and look for TA on left" (…well, something along those lines). So we turned left, uphill mind you, and crossed a white bridge. There was no TA to be found. We rode almost half way to Road 38 with no TA in sight. We headed back to the sign to get a better read of what it was telling us to do. After a second look, it appears we zigged when we should have zagged and headed RIGHT down the hill, and into the TA. Turns out we weren’t the only ones to make this mistake. When we pulled into the TA we caught a glimpse of Mark Richardson, who was racing with Feed The Machine, bound off into the bushes and across a river apparently attempting to make a b-line for the SART up on the ridge in front of us. We decided to take the conservative quick moving route and following the paved road back around and up to the trail ahead. We hit the trail running, turning our headlamps on and off as we spotted teams down in the valley below us working their way up, so that we wouldn’t give away the location of the trail. We ran by moonlight for about a half hour until no team was close enough to pick up on us. We continued trekking and running up to the next TA where we were once again united with our bikes. We were consistiently holding 6 – 9th place throughout the race, which fluctuated as the race progressed due to solos and the unranked. We had a feeling we were doing well. We were feeling strong, transitions were short and we continued to move quickly. Now here's where things got interesting. We set out west on 38, and started to look for a trailhead which was supposed to take us down to the SART. We stopped in a strip mall parking lot under the parking lights and checked the maps. As we did, we caught a glimpse of another team, I think it was Team PETA, emerging from behind the building and headed off down an alley. We rode over and it turns out they had been trying to locate the trail head for almost an hour. As we discussed our plan with the other team, I looked over the shoulder of a PETA and noticed a guy on a smoke break under a light in the alley behind the buildings we were now behind. I rode over and asked him if he knew where the trail head was. He said that he believed it was down at the end of the alley, and then up the hill. PETA had tried this earlier, but didn’t make it very far before turning back. We decided to check it our further. I later found out that Mark and FTM crossed the road and made a B-Line down to the trail. The trail took us more west than we wanted to go. I soon realized we were on a different trail, but it would be ok as it would eventually take us to the SART crossing which would eventually take us right to the CP. This trail was pretty nerve-racking to ride. On the right was a cliff wall going up and on the left was a very steep drop off. The trail was loose gravel and sand in places making it difficult to maintain total control. Once we emerged onto the fire road that would take us to the base of Clarks Grade, we came up on a couple other teams. Hey, it was Richardson! We rode down to the valley floor with Mark and then made a slight right and pulled away. Turns out he made the correct turn to the left and started up Clarks Grade about 10 minutes ahead of us. Clarks Grade was tough! We rode about half way up, and then it just became too steep for us to ride. On the way up we passed a team wrapped in their space blankets taking a nap on the side of the trail. When we finally made it to the ridge crest and checked in at the CP, the temperature dropped drastically! What was left of the bike leg was a single track down to the road and through the neighborhood to the kayak TA. On the way down we froze! When we reached the TA, Galen had the truck running with the heat on. Jen was frozen to the bone. She he got in along with A-bomb and DP and warmed up while I changed, put on warmer clothes and got the kayaks and kayak gear ready for the paddle. Frost covered everything. *Jen again. The decent from 9k on bikes breached freezing temps - frost bite started to set in on my fingers, unfortunately I've had it before so the pain was familiar. Albeit, we made it otherwise unscathed where Doti led us, seamless like a mouse through a maze to the TA. A 30 minute power nap was a long TA, though it thawed the team enough for us to motivate and put on enough clothes to pour ourselves into the frosty boats. The most painful part of the kayak was not only the perimeter course we had to take, but the fresh scents of biscuits and home-made donuts wafting over the water. It was just before 6am, the sun was rising and we had been going for 24 hours, with another 4-6 to go... Cliff bars lost their essence.* After an extremely long transition Galen and I woke up the rest and got them moving. We had a race to finish guys! We squeezed into our frost covered kayaks and took off on the paddle. The water was completely calm and glassy. We were required to stay between the 5 mile per hour buoys and the shore the entire leg. This was painful, as it added a lot of distance on what looked like a straight shot to the CPs. We found CP14 with ease on the dock by the meadow. CP 15 and CP/TA16 were also easily attainable, and before we knew it, we in transition for the final leg of this ever increasing epic adventure. We left the TA at the exact same time as Team PETA, as well as Dean from Team Baja who was now solo. He asked if he could travel with us and we gladly accepted. We let PETA enter and start the steep scramble to Greys Peak ahead of us so they would not see our route choice. Once they were out of sight, we continued across the road and up the hillside a few house down from where PETA began their trek. We found a very fast ascent route on an exposed ridge/boulder field. This was a much better route than bushwhacking through a reentrant again. We needed to climb 1000+ feet from the lake shore to the top of Greys Peak. Every time we thought we had the peak bagged and the CP near, we saw just off ahead of us another peak which was higher. We descended, and then climbed…decended, and then climbed, and so on. We peaked out on about 4-5 peaks until we finally reached Greys Peak. Tears of joy slowly began to blur my vision. Descending from Greys, we found the trail and thought we were home free! We followed the trail down and as it started going more east than I would have liked. It continued heading east and we never came across the fire road that was shown on the map. We decided to take it further and eventually we did pop out on the fire road. This was much further east than we had aimed for. We regrouped and found a single track that would take us right to the finish. We came up over a hill and saw the finish! There were the volunteers, other teams, crew and Paul and Karen all waiting around a bonfire. We all crossed the line as a group, Dirty Avocados Skins/baarbd.org, the Uno-Avocado and Dean from Team Baja/Total Fitness! We ended up placing 2nd in the premier coed division. I technically got 6th in the solo category, but since we raced together as one team, all four of us were recognized on the podium next to Team DART who received first place! THE AFTERMATH After some lunch in the town of Fawnskin, Galen, DP and Jen headed back to the Bay Area. Since Galen was able to catch some cat naps at the TAs, he was feeling fresh enough to drive. A-Bomb and I on the other hand were in desperate needed of some sleep. We drove along the shore, scouting parks and campgrounds that we could sack out and take a nap before we hit the road. When we found the perfect spot, we parked the car, rolled out our bags and crashed. We expected to sleep for just a few hours. We went down around 3pm, and woke up in the pitch dark at 8 o'clock! We needed to get home! We drove to the store loaded, up on caffeine and made our way back up north.

This race was truly epic and loads of fun! The distance was about 90 miles total as Paul estimated, but we calculated the elevation gain at 15,850ft.

Thanks Paul and Karen, for setting up an awesome challenge and in such a beautiful area! --Dirty Avocados – Skins / baarbd.com