The Hampshire 100 was yesterday and a great race it was. It is amazing that each NUE course can have such a different personality, and this one was certainly that. The first 20 miles were relatively flat and fast as advertised, then the next 40 miles were frenetic. It seemed like we were never riding anything more than a few minutes -- a field crossing, single track in the woods, out on a paved road, turn on a side road, now it turns to dirt, now it becomes a jeep trail, now we are back on single track, then through someone's back yard. It never settled into any rhythm. There were no big epic climbs but tons and tons of small punchy ones, and most of them seemed to be about 20% grade on loose sandy, babyhead rock surface. Lots of hike a bike. Lots of bog holes with thick gooey mud.
I can't believe how many people's properties we rode through. I know what a headache it is to get permission from a small handful of property owners for some of these races. That they could get 80 different people to say "yes, I'll be happy to have 300 psycho bike riders come through my yard" just blows me away. There must be a real spirit here of sharing access to old right-a-ways and such ... much like England's famous lanes.
The single track must not get much play there. It all looked immature. Clearly some of it was just cut the week before (gee, I think I'll make a 50 yard connector trail through here). Some of it seemed very new until you hit a bridge that's been there for more than a decade. On parts of the course we looped twice, the single track was nicely dug in on the second loop. A lot of these trails are short bits and pieces; no epic 15 miles of continuous, flowly single track to be found. It was all hard earned grunting and roots and rocks and rough going.
We started in waves at 6:45 and I went off in the men's open, which was first. Given that my strategy is to start very slowly, I wasn't real happy about that as I was going to get intercepted by the fast guys in subsequent waves. Fortunately the first 20 miles of the course were very open and it was easy to allow everyone to self sort. We did a loop around the camp ground then out to a gravel road. The first 3 miles were all wide, fast gravel and downhill to boot. A narrow bridge crossing backed things up for just a moment. Then lots of gravel rail trail. We hit the infamous section of riding along the rail bed. Sure enough, a guy 4 spots in front of me clipped a pedal on a rail tie and flipped up and off into the woods. Unfortunately his bike stayed on the trail so we all had to dismount and walk around.
Then more rail trail, dirt roads. Some climbing helped break things up a bit and then we climbed up the backside of Crotched Mountain Ski resort. We did some single track through the woods to come down the front side. Then a very long section of rail trail then went for many miles. The last bit of it paralleled an old airstrip and was full of deep sand. Slogfest!
Then we hit the two big climbs: the wall and the power line. Both were hike a bikes. The wall started out nicely but then got too loose and too many babyheads to be worth riding. But this was the first of much hike a bike -- most all of it you could probably clean if you wanted to, but the effort needed to climb it wasn't worth it, better to walk and conserve your matches. This was all at 25 miles and I was beginning to think this course was going to be really hard. I had no idea.
The next 20 miles was very rough. We hit this long section of logging path that was very crude and difficult to ride. Lots of bogs and water crossings and slippery roots including one section where I carried my bike above my head through waste deep pond crossing. I was off and pushing the bike lots. I gotta say this was the dark section of the race and I was worried about having the chops to actually finish in a reasonable time. The last 10 miles had some nicer single track and I managed to get back to the park in about 6:30 ride time for the first 63 miles.
I then realized that I wasn't in that bad of a position. I had beaten most of the 100k riders back for loop 1 and I also knew that I had 20 good fast miles to get back in the groove. I think the constant struggle in the muddy single track had taken more of a mental toll than a physical one. I replenished my food supplies and set off on loop 2.
My goal was to pick up 10 places in the last 36 miles. That was pretty conservative but I didn't think there were that many riders in the 100 miler. I got my first five in the 15 miles of rail trail; they weren't coming back at me that fast. We finally hit the cutover section and I was starting to feel good again. I was climbing well and picking up some slower riders. I got to 10 and then let one get past me from behind. We rejoined loop 1 and I started railing it. Riders were coming back to me in waves and I even reeled in the guy who went by me before. In the last 10 miles I kicked it up another notch and was humming way faster than I had been through here previously. I got up to 32 riders I caught and just 1 that got by me and I think stayed out.
I crossed the line in 9:59 of ride time and something like 10:24 on the clock. It was a very good success and I can't believe how good I felt at the end. I had even more kick than I had at W101 and didn't feel as wasted as I did with that effort. I really think my conditioning is coming along!
A short two weeks of rest before I head down to SM100.
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