Bearscat '16

I will give another check at the weather in the morning tomorrow, but a good chance I will ride the course tomorrow instead. No disrespect to promoter or anyone looking to be competitive. I just do not feel like riding in the rain when I am not feeling well. Good luck to all!
 
It is looking like the rain will hold of till noon at least.
 
I did it. Didn't know if I had it in me with the bionic knee. I certainly wasn't one of the fast kids - and that wasn't my goal. I wanted to ride consistent and finish. This is my longest and roughest ride since surgery. The knee definitely made me stay reserved on some of the sections in self preservation mode but outside of that it functioned well. I'm just fat and out of shape.

There was lots of traffic on lap 1 but it thinned out on the second lap where more technical features were more "attemptable." It never downpoured but the course was wet from the start, then it seemed to be drying out, and then it would drizzle and rain on and off making each rock and root slick and greasy. The best thought process when riding every inch of trail was to anticipate sliding. With that I kept it upright - most of the time. I did take one or two easy spills. But I was riding well on the second lap and got the pumphouse bridge and jim's bridge so that made me happy.

I have no idea my finishing time or placing as I had to run out ASAP to get to a child birth class. Nothing like sitting through an hour and a half class with no food in my stomach after a ~6 hour effort on the bike. Still a great day. Got my socks and a new bottle opener.
Thanks Black Bear Cycling for a great event as always! Wish I could have stayed around for the festivities!
 
xc62701 said:
I did it. Didn't know if I had it in me with the bionic knee. I certainly wasn't one of the fast kids - and that wasn't my goal. I wanted to ride consistent and finish. This is my longest and roughest ride since surgery. The knee definitely made me stay reserved on some of the sections in self preservation mode but outside of that it functioned well. I'm just fat and out of shape.

There was lots of traffic on lap 1 but it thinned out on the second lap where more technical features were more "attemptable." It never downpoured but the course was wet from the start, then it seemed to be drying out, and then it would drizzle and rain on and off making each rock and root slick and greasy. The best thought process when riding every inch of trail was to anticipate sliding. With that I kept it upright - most of the time. I did take one or two easy spills. But I was riding well on the second lap and got the pumphouse bridge and jim's bridge so that made me happy.

I have no idea my finishing time or placing as I had to run out ASAP to get to a child birth class. Nothing like sitting through an hour and a half class with no food in my stomach after a ~6 hour effort on the bike. Still a great day. Got my socks and a new bottle opener.
Thanks Black Bear Cycling for a great event as always! Wish I could have stayed around for the festivities!
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Nice recap. Tough race for sure! Great job for completing the whole 50 miles - and conquering Nature Jim's Bridge twice. I hope to try again next year, skipped this one. Congrats to all who entered, competed, finished, or at least attempted.
 
truthfully (and im not trying to sound like a badass, since i barely made the time cutoff) it wasnt as hard as people chalked it up to be. id ride the course again on my own time when its not a goddamn rainforest.



i went out kinda hard in the beginning, knowing that i was gonna slow down on the second lap, so i tried to gain as many places i could from the jump so i could fall back and not be DFL.

as @Johnny Utah would say "loooot of roadies out here" - i tried to clean as much tech as i could but every rock and root was like riding on ice. i was slipping and sliding everywhere, making me extremely frustrated especially on the second lap. i walked a lot of shit and that made me even more annoyed.

neutral rollout was fun and fast and we hit singletrack, 2 seconds in and im already walking that gnarly rock bridge. i could probably ride it dry but today i just didnt want to fall and shatter my patella on a rock so i walked, with the 20 people that walked.

this happened aproximately 9374 times today. every time i got more and more pissed.

i felt nice and strong till about mile 20, i flew past the aid station cuz i didnt need anything right there, and because i misunderstood the whole aid station arrangement i thought my drop bag would be at the halfway point, and the 17/40mi aid stations just had water/coke/heed etc.

at this point about 800 people have passed me because suckmode is just comin in hot.

then the rain comes. light at first then heavy. my glasses fog up completely and now i have white shields over my eyes. whats this? technical downhill. awesome. oh and now the rain has sweat dripping into my right eye, so i basically have flaming oceanwater in one eye and my vision is reduced to one eye that can see 1/4" above my glasses and the burning is making me blink uncontrollably.

i have to stop just take off my glasses. my shitty vision is better than what semblance of sight i have with the glasses anyway.

a billion more poeple pass me.

get to the halfway and i ask

"where the dropbags at?"

"uhh at the aid station at mile 17"

well fuck. noones fault but my own. some nice racers at their car fill up my bottles so i can survive long enough to get to the aid station at mile 40. where i have some nuclear pre workout caffiene drink waiting to keep me from falling asleep.

i pretty much just drifted further and further into my dark place the longer the second lap went on. i was walking even more stuff that i was totally destroying on lap one and that was pissing me off.

id ride a few hundred feet and almost eat it trying to maintain control as my front tire slipped off every angled rock and off camber root. over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over again. I wish i could go into rage mode but i just dont have the energy.

im all alone for like 15 years and finally the downhill to the mile 40 aid station. i chug my kidney destroying caffiene poison and a 3 cups of water, smash whatever food i grab first out of my bag and haul ass.

for like 10 seconds. then i resume my 5mph pace and continue to get more and more frustrated at how little i can actually ride stuff.

at around 20 years in i notice my shifter is hard to throw. its not broken, my hand is. my grip has been reduced to that of an 80yr old woman in boca raton. i have to straighten my thumb and basically stab my shifter every time. which happens about 50 times a minute.

my forearms are on fire. im getting cramps. in my fucking forearms. wtf.

the last ten miles consisted of me all alone periodically cursing out loud, because i have nothing to direct my anger at. the course isnt hard, i just am sucking ass bigtime.

finally i rip the downhill that leads to the road, i can see light coming into the rainforest. thank jeebus. just drill this road section and were done.

soon as i start seeing cars my left inner thigh starts to cramp up, hard. fuck you thigh i dont give a shit right now. i crawl up the road and they record my time.

6:40 says the garmin. i think i can manage under 6 hrs if i dont fuck up on the feedzone and the course isnt a slippery deathtrap.

my hands still suck. i had to open a new bottle of bronners and i had to use my teeth to get the seal off because i cant grip anything.

i only ate it once and it was nothing, i didnt break anything except maybe my hands for a while, the climbs were no big deal. just the wetness really screwed me up, and the mental hit i took when i realized i had no feedzone for an hr and a half screwed me up some more. then my hands. goddamnit my hands.

id do it again.

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I wanted to ride this race faster then I did and in doing that I crashed alot.
Refused to walk rock gardens and wanted to ride wayway not hike a bike.I ended up with 8.4 average and 3:20 mins with prolong after lap 1.
My legs were feeling good but being that I was soaked and cold I packed it up after one lap.... boo im lame.I just got over being sick so i played it safe for once.

If anyone wants to ride this loop soon send me a invite.I forgot how good wayway is.
 
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I did this last year for the first time. It took me 7:37:30 to finish, and I was totally dead. I made both time cut offs by less than ten minutes, and I walked pretty much every hill on the last ten miles. I've been doing some longer rides since then, so my goal for this year was to finish stronger and considerably faster. Then I saw the weather report, and my goal was just to finish. Once we got on the course, my goal was just to not die, and I was figuring on just doing one lap since the course was treacherous and thunderstorms were expected in the afternoon. If this was any other race, I wouldn't have gotten out of bed, but I really wanted to repeat my finish from last year.

I was slipping and sliding off everything and really not having that good of a time. I kept having to get off my bike and walk, and my right pedal is broken on one side, so getting back on fast doesn't work too well. It doesn't bother me at all when I'm out riding normally, but it was definitely costing me some time here. Eventually it rains pretty hard for a while, and then it clears up. I started riding a lot better after the rain for some reason. Toward the end of the lap I realize I can probably make the time cutoff for another lap, and the weater didn't seem that bad. I made it out to the road and buried myself trying to make up some time. I finished the lap about eight minutes before the time cutoff.

So I start lap two, and I'm able to ride most of the stuff that I was slipping on earlier in the morning somehow. I made it about 2/3 the way across the pump house bridge before I almost slipped off into the water. I'll have to look at my strava, but I think I was considerably faster on lap two in many places. I realized I actually had a good shot at making the time cutoff on lap two, so I continued on. Coming out of Sitting Bear, I thought I had a fifteen minute cushion. I get to the aid station with another dude at 3pm and thirty seconds or so, and they told us we were done. I thought we had until 3:15 and was super bummed. But I didn't ride six hours in the rain and mud not to finish, so I reminded them it was a state park when they tried to tell me I had to go back, and I went and finished the race. The irony is that I could have made it in time if I didn't think I had an extra fifteen minutes. I was taking it nice and easy after Sitting Bear to recover. But whatev's, I was only racing against myself anyway.

With the exception of a few bobbles on wet rocks here and there, I rode all of the last 10-12 miles, including all of the climbs on Red Dot, Plymouth, and Hoeferlin that I walked last year. After the race I went to the scoring people to let them know I didn't make the time cut off and it was recorded as a DNF. Then I stuffed my face still with my helmet and camelbak on, and then went home for a shower, second dinner, and beers.

Even though the race didn't technically count, it counts to me. I finished 20+ minutes faster than last year, which I think is crazy given that the weather sucked and I was going very easy on the first lap. I also finished much stronger and feeling much better than last year. Both goals accomplised. My hands were hurting a little, but my legs were still feeling pretty good at the finish. Today my quads and lower back are a little sore, but I feel way better than last year. I'm really glad I decided to finish the race even though it wouldn't count, because it showed me the vast improvement I've made over the last year. Now I just need to learn how to ride faster so I don't have to worry about things like time cutoffs.

Huge thanks to Black Bear for putting on this race, to the people manning the aid station, and to all the course marshals out there. It was pretty rough riding in the rain and mud for over seven hours, I can only imagine how hard it was just standing around out there. Can't wait til next year! My goal is sub seven hours.

Did anyone get a picture of the makeshift drum set @pinkshirtphotos set up at the top of the gas pipeline?
 
@Mumonkan Very entertaining recap! It was ironic that you start with "...it wasn't as hard as people chalked it up to be..." and then proceed to detail your death march.

I don't race, but I ride Waway a lot. I don't think it is super-technical overall - though there is some great techy stuff if you want it. Anyway, I don't look at Bearscat50 and think "oh man, Waway is tough". Its more so the 50 miles of Waway that commands the respect. Any given 10 -15 mile stretch may be quite manageable. Now do it 4-5 times over. Then add in wet conditions and I'm impressed with anybody who crosses the finish line.

Nice job with write up and completing the race.
 
it was my first time at wayway and i really liked it. technical but not suicidal. plenty of elevation but not soulcrushing climbs, fun downhills

it probably comes out worse than it was, i liked the race a lot and im excited to do it again next year. if i hadnt nearly died countless times in AZ on much worse stuff i wouldve had a horrible time yesterday. next year im setting up my own lil dropzone at mile 25 and if it rains im putting sticky ass DH tires on my bike. there were a few times i wished i actually ran the fat wheels, but tbh im not sure it wouldve helped

+1, great job on your time improvements in spite of conditions @JimN - i may have a picture/video clip of the drumset i havent looked thru my gopro yet. theres a good chance 90% of the stuff i captured is just a leaf in front of the camera since one of the guys at the aid station took it out for me, lol.
 
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