I arrived in Port Angeles on Friday afternoon to take advantage of the $15.00 mid afternoon shuttle. This might not have been the best idea given the rainy-wet-muddy conditions, but what the hell, it’s not everyday you get the chance to ride these great trails.

 

I wandered over to the sign in booth manned by none other than local pro Lars Sternberg, procured my license, and paid my money. I was representing One Ghost LLC. and duly noted this on the race application.

 

USAC pretty much has it set up that no matter your personal feelings about your riding ability, you are going to do your time, and earn your right to move up in class. Fair enough I reasoned. Being that I am new to the race scene, I decided to just flow with their logic, and enjoy the racetrack I had laid out before me.

 

In this instance I would be racing sport on the White Knuckle to Cakewalk race course. I made a mental plan to simply focus on learning the trail, picking my lines, get used to the new Iron Horse Sunday, while learning to cope with zero visibility runs. The mud was so incessant that half way down the course goggles would be completely covered over. My tear offs quickly revealed how worthless they were, as water permeated between the tear off layers and the goggle face itself. So after 2-3 runs of low visibility I relented and simply went without. Nothing like having dirt particles thrown into your eyes at high speed. Feels like having your corneas sandblasted. This was the lesser of two evils as it was inevitable that you would probably drift off the course and into a tree without some type of sight line.

 

The Olympic Dirt Society had beefed up the wooden start ramp, and by the looks of things had maintained the courses quite well.

 

Turn out on Friday was fairly sparse turn out compared to Saturday and Sunday, but it was big enough that I saw some faces I recognized. In particular, it was cool to see some of the other riders I’ve gotten to know this year through racing, including Trey from GL6 racing, who beat me at the Capitol Forest Super-D after he stomped his 2nd run negating our 2nd place tie from the 1st course. Trey and his partners from GL6 signed on to expert class, so they practiced running White Knuckle, Motoguzzi, to Pro Course. I was jealous, because I had ridden these trails several times on the shuttle day, and found them every bit as immersing as the trails in Whistler, British Columbia. However, like I mentioned, I was committed to my own task at hand, and didn’t want to distract myself by pining away for a track that wasn’t going to happen.

 

Some other notable riders I recognized from industry publications, included Cameron Cole and UCI WC hopeful Luke Strobel of Team Maxxis. I had a conversation with former Canadian DH champ Katrina Strand without even knowing who she was. Geoff Gulevich showed up with a crew from Pinkbike, which surprised me because I always associate him with North Shore freeriding. Seeing ‘Guly’ there was a good chuckle, because he remained reticent and aloof, and I took note that no one really seemed to take notice at all. I don’t fawn over athletes, but it’s notable that they would show up. It bodes well for the efforts that outfits like Fluidride, ODS, and Hurricane Racing are putting into the events.

 

Anyway, Fridays practice runs left me wet, muddy, and honestly feeling a bit miserable. I managed to get some directions to a pressure car wash in Port Angeles, and resigned myself to the cardinal sin of blasting all the grease out of my bearings in the interest of losing 5 pounds of mud off my bike. I took off from Dry Hill skipping the opportunity to get in a few last minute runs, and went and checked into the Red Lion. Afterwards I took off in search of a car wash which in case you’re actually reading this is located off Lincoln on 8th street. I cleaned all my gear and headed back to the hotel, stowed my equipment, cranked up the heater to full blast with all my wet stuff directly underneath, paid my $12.99 to watch ‘Juno’ for the 1st time, and nodded off to sleep at a reasonable hour. The next two days were the real meat and potatoes. Today was just a freebie, but I managed 6 good runs.

 

Saturday

 

I took my time getting going on Saturday, as my plan was to get 4 training runs before 2PM, and then chill for the rest of the afternoon. I arrived on hill scoring a great parking place above the start of the dual slalom course. Got my gear in order, and sort of hemmed and hawed around before riding over to get in the line up. Yesterday I had noticed that it felt like my front brakes were fading, but I ignored it figuring it was going to last through the weekend. Well, I was wrong. Learning point number 1. ALWAYS get your bike FULLY serviced before heading out to the race. After my 2nd practice run on Saturday I knew my brakes were toasted, and at the very least needed bled. So I did what all non mechanical folks do and headed down to Port Angeles for a little mechanical assistance. I quickly located a bike and paddle shop off the main street right across from the Red Lion and swapped out the brakes on my other DH bike. Total time off hill was probably right around 2 1/2 hours. Heading back up I knocked off 2 more runs for a total of 10. I took note of the main line choices, the peddling sections, and tested the waters on a few new points in between. On my 4th run I stacked it pretty hard on a berm when I came in too high, and my front tire washed over the top. I smacked down hard enough to crack the visor on my helmet, and for a little while I was pretty certain I had broken the pinky in my left hand. I decided to call it good for the day, and wandered over to watch the dual slalom racing. The local pros pretty much dominated on their own track, which everyone knew they would, so for me I found it pretty anti-climatic.

 

Sunday: Race Day

 

Sunday morning I set my alarm for 6am to make it on the hill for 8 o’clock practice. Problem was my phone time was an hour fast and I actually ended up getting up at 5. As I checked out, and wandered around a strangely dark town heading to the Starbucks I became aware that it was indeed 530am, and not 630 like I had hoped. All Port Angeles has going on at 530am on a Sunday is a bunch of drunk teenagers hanging around in parking lots looking disheveled.  So I got to the hill early, and the 1st person I see is one of the ODS shuttle drivers with a pillow in one hand and a Corona in the other....at 7am!! Scott and I think Paul were there laughing their asses off at this sight, and cameras came out. They invited me up the hill with the work crew to scout and make repairs, and I headed up with them, enjoying the chance to get to know some of the ODS guys better.

 

Walking the course is something a lot of top pros mention as being a necessity, and after walking it on RACE DAY, I learned lesson number 2. ALWAYS walk the course. Lines you never saw before, because you’re following the cattle herd of tire tracks at speed, jump out at you. I noticed one line in particular in the root section, which jumped out at me. I tried it for both my practice runs, and blew it both times. If I had scouted on day one I am certain I would have nailed it, along with 2 or 3 other sections I didn’t notice. I feel this mistake combined with mistake number 1 cost me at least one placing.

 

After practice the waiting game started, and I was fortunate to hook up with the guys from Wheel Sport East to pass the time. In particular it was great to get to know the Miller brothers, Coy and Caleb. Coy and I share similar professional backgrounds, but more importantly it turns out Coy was a bit of a self effacing sandbagger. Nice one brother. NEXT TIME I’LL KNOW BETTER. Haha, never listen to someone who is trying to butter you up, while talking themselves down. Never saw it coming. Also out for the day was Canadian rider Evan Palmer who provided humorous revelations about his state of intoxication whilst waiting for his turn to race.

 

Most interesting was the folding back in of the all the non licensed expert category racers into sport class. So my 1st instincts regarding trying to get into expert class were right from the beginning. It actually turned out to be really cool, because all the sudden there were like 2 times as many racers in the class, hence more competition, including Neil Clay of GL6. I felt kind of bad for those guys though because they had probably put a lot into learning the other line, and with only a few runs under their belt were now having to compete on somewhat unfamiliar territory. Oh well, Say La Vie!

 

So with sandbagging Coy Miller, and Neil Clay, and the irascible Jim Gouin all in a line we eased into the 30 second start gate position. I was 3rd in line for Sport 30-39 year olds, with Coy right behind me. He was cool enough to tell me my goggles were still on the back of my helmet, but I had decided to race without them anyway.

 

So right off the start my plan start going to shit. There were some rolling sections right off the ramp, that had given me peddle feedback in practice, and I had resolved to pump through them before hammering the rest of the straight before dropping into White Knuckle. So what do I do? Pedal hard, and get pedal feedback bouncing me all crazy. Race mistake #1, then I came screaming into the root section and almost overshot the hard right over the rock face, mistake number 2. The flat cutty which divides the race course was where I had reasoned the race could be won or lost. If you hit the small divot cut in by everyone tires just right it would shoot you right where you needed to be, and then pedal like hell. Well I think I hit it pretty good, but it was right about that time a little voice in my head said something like

 

“YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE A FEW HARD PRACTICE RUNS”

 

Because I realized at this point that I had been a little lazy in training. Now I was breathing kind of hard, and my lines I thought I had scrupulously picked out were kind of falling apart because I was going FASTER than I had trained for. Unfortunately this ended up costing time for not being smooth. I also had hit all the little jumps in the cakewalk section during training, and somehow in the race run I just blew right past them peddling the whole flattish stretch to where it reconnects with White Knuckle. Coming into the final stretch I must have been pinning because I remember doing a little wobble connecting the two berms together just short of the little bridge. Mistake number 3. Keep it smooth. Smooth is fast.

 

Phew! Just across the finish line I was like “Holy shit, my throat is burning from riding so hard”. Nate Hoch was standing right there, and asked me how I did. I think I said I made 3 mistakes, but had fun, which was totally true.

 

From there it just sort of became a haze of jerseys coming down the track at around 30 second intervals until I had to leave. Headed back overseas yesterday, and needed to spend as much time with my family as possible. So not really knowing where I stacked up, feeling a little disappointed at not winning, but happy all the same I reversed my route back down the Peninsula and home safe.

 

All in all the experience of this 1st downhill race was totally immersing, and I can already feel the tendrils of addiction creeping down my conscience, and into my spine. I know I’ll be thinking about it every day from now until I get to France to race the Megavalanche in July, and I’ll of course be really looking forward to getting back home to race another Fluidride Series, and seeing all the new friends I’ve made in this little circle of cycling.

 

Oh, and I just saw the results. I got 5th out of 22 racers in my class. Coy Miller beat me by 7 seconds for 2nd place. Fat, slow kid MY ASS!

 

He said something to me that day about buying a moto race timer, and mounting it to my bar. Well you better believe I’ll have one of those next time out Captain Miller.

 

Neal Clay placed 7th, and Jim Gouin 11th. Caleb Miller placed 2nd in his class.

 

PHOTOS Matt Patterson of Dirt Corps. Reprinted without permission.