Ashland Super D
Attendees – Raman, Tina, Nate, Kelly, Mayo, Mark, Sergei, Clinton, J, Rob
Friends of 529 – Steve
Ten of us from The Project made the trek south to experience Super-D Ashland-style at the Ashland Mountain Challenge Powered by SRAM. If you’re not familiar with Super-D, it’s the duck-billed platypus of mountain bike racing. A Super-D is a mostly downhill course that’s much longer than a downhill race with at least one big climb thrown in. Pure downhillers suffer on the climb and don’t have the endurance needed to win. Pure XC racers don’t have the skills to negotiate the technical descents. Someone with the skills and the legs for both dominates.
On Thursday, a group of us met at Ashland Mountain Adventures to get a couple of shuttles in to preview the course. The weather was perfect and we were all pumped to see the 12 mi. course and to see how steep the 600 ft. of climbing was like. Starting on the course with the fire road at the bottom of the Mt. Ashland ski runs, the fire road was really fast with sweeping corners, ruts and jumps. The fire road ended right at the base of the climb where many riders quickly redlined on the steep grade. At the top of the climb the course turned down again with a mix of rolling single track, eye watering fire roads and step single track littered with switchbacks, jumps and brake ruts. At the bottom we discussed key points on the course and the importance of using our brakes wisely. Avid makes the best brakes in the world, but no brake can overcome rider error. Getting on the brakes too much was going to cook them on the course. Sections of the course were steep. Ungodly steep. From there it was dinner at Caldera Tap House and back to the hotel to get some sleep.
The SRAM Chainless race was on Friday and the name is, well, literal. The race is a downhill course raced with no chain, which means no pedaling. On Project 529, we’re used to putting SRAM parts on our bikes to make them faster, so it was strange to be taking parts off for a race. After removing our chains, we all realized the only way to get started as by either pushing the bike and hopping on (cyclo-cross style) or by running from the saddle (Flintstone style). After a quick practice run, we shuttled up for the race. Again, the course and weather were awesome. Loose sand over hard-pack, sweeping turns and some really steep technical sections. As long as you maintained momentum and pumped the back side of everything on the hill, you really didn’t miss the chain. But in case you did miss your chain, SRAM was at the bottom of the course to hand you a brand new chain just for finishing.
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We all met for dinner again, woofed down some Mexican food at Agave, had a few beers with the Avid product team to discuss the changes to the Elixir line for 2012 and turned in, psyched for the racing Saturday.
On Saturday, the weather took a turn for the worse, which just means it was no longer perfect but just really great with clouds and cooler temps. We all tried to keep warm at the top while waiting for our number to be called. Each of us had our own pre-race ritual (including, but not limited to, fiddling with tire pressure, shoes, suspension sag, tire pressure again or endless runs to the restroom). As members of The Project left the gate the excitement built. On the course, the conditions were awesome. Scattered showers kept the dust down and those that followed the advice of the guys at Avid did well using their brakes wisely.
After the race, we all agreed that the Ashland Mountain Challenge is a world class Super-D race. Huge props to SRAM for sponsoring the race and all the support they provided during the weekend.
-Mayo