Ashland 12 Mile Super D
First off, a tip of the hat to Bill Rousell and the crew at Ashland Mountain Adventures for picking up the ball and keeping the show going this year! With only a month to prepare, Bill was handed the responsibility of coordinating the event. From a riders perspective, it seemed to go off without any hiccups, esp. with timing, the most critical aspect of a race like this one!
For those that haven’t raced a Super D or Enduro yet, what are you waiting for?! With cross country races, you’re going to get ruined if you haven’t been training your brains out. Plus, most people show up for their race time and leave shortly after finishing, not leaving much time for catching up with friends. With downhill, if you make one or two minor mistakes in your race run, you’re unlikely to finish well. A complete downer when you’ve just hung out at the hill all weekend making practice runs. Not that all Super D races are perfect, far from it, especially when the course is the downhill section of a cross country trail. See Santa Ynez Valley Classic or the Sonoma US National Championships (2007) for some horrible Super D races!
The great Super D races, the ones with purpose built courses, take the best of cross country, the best of downhill, and mix them together. You get plenty of time to ride your bike because the course is typically 15-45 minutes long and probably 5-15 miles in length. A few practice runs, a race run, and you’ve gotten a full weekend of saddle time. You get a chance to hang with your friends. Whether it’s while you’re taking your practice runs (a much more casual affair than a DH race), hanging at the campground, in the pits, or grabbing a brew at the awards, it rivals a weekend at the downhill races. Most of all, the races mimic the type of riding that most all of us got into mountain biking for… fast, flowy, technical, turny… permi-smile inducing singletrack.
The Ashland 12 Mile Super D course is amazing, indeed permi-smile inducing, and rumor has it they’re replacing some of the fire road sections with more killer singletrack in 2011. The course itself can be broken down into 5 sections… the Bull Gap Trail (fireroad and climb), haulin’ ass fireroad, Catwalk Trail (downhill), Catepillar and Alice in Wonderland (the final lung buster), and finally BTI (jumps, berms, and flow). You can get the full scoop on the individual trails here. Here’s my take…
- Bull Gap Trail – Get the heart rate up-to-speed on the initial fireroad in preparation for the big climb. While the initial part of the climb is steep, that’s not the tough part. It’s the 1.5 miles after the steep climb, the section of ‘false flat’ that hurts.
- Haulin’ Ass Fireroad (to be replaced in 2011) – Hit speeds of 35-40 mph! Tuck and go, go, go!
- Catwalk Trail – They run the Spring Thaw DH on this portion of the course, but don’t be confused, it’s a pretty tame downhill course and perfect for 5-6″ bikes. Fast, flowy switchbacks.
- Catepillar and Alice in Wonderland – Hope you saved some of your lungs, cause this next section is just slightly uphill and slowly climbs just enough over a mile or two that it hurts.
- BTI – Similar to Catwalk, but a bit tighter with bigger berms and some cool little jumps, really little. This portion was super dry and slick come race day.
By the time race day came, I’d taken 4 runs and 2 of those were with a group of friends (the Northstar/Giant reno gents). Frankly, it didn’t feel like practice at all. It felt like a great day on my bike, hanging with friends, enjoying some of Oregon’s finest trails. I’d estimated that I could throw down a 43 minute run and therefore set a 42:30 as my goal. Nothing particular to talk about during my race run. It was mostly uneventful except for one minor crash where I went into one of the switchback turns towards the end of Alice in Wonderland and slide the front tire out. I nailed a 42:00 minute flat time. I was pretty happy with the result. Here’s a snapshot of my race run for those looking for a bit more detail…
Done with the racing, I went over and hung out at the SRAM tent. Dalton was nursing a sore back and Dawson was running around making sure the tents were set-up appropriately. Later that evening, we hit up the awards ceremony at the Caldera Brewing Company followed by a bite to eat with the SRAM folks and their event planners, Western Spirit. I mentioned that Super D races are fun, right?! We capped the night at the Pabst Blue Ribbon party back at our campground on Emigrant Lake.
Awesome event, killer trails, great friends = good times.