2006 24 Hours of Big Bear Race Report

by Meredith Erlewine

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The 2006 24 Hours of Big Bear was awesome. Here's how it went down.

Thursday
Joey and Atira picked me up in the van and we packed it full. We brought a glider, a bike rack that could hang five bikes in our camp repair area, about five coolers, six bikes, tons of containers full of dry goods, equipment for a stocked repair area, tents, big camp stove with propane tank, etc. The van was really full.

We arrived at Big Bear Lake Campland and scoped out a fantastic site – we flagged out a space that would fit all of the people we were expecting over the next two days. Instead of camping up on the flat, long, gravel airstrip where most people set up their pits, we flagged out a low wooded area next to the airstrip and enjoyed a wind-free, idyllic campsite all weekend. We set up camp and welcomed Thursday’s arrivals: Aaron Burk (a shop team-mate who was racing on a five-person open team), Cheryl Sornson (my team-mate, aka Churtle le Turtle, from Gettysburg, Pa.), and Kerry Combs (my team captain, from Boston). Along with Elizabeth Boyle we ladies made up the Shenandoah Mountain Touring Chicks (sponsored by Chris Scott’s Shenandoah Mountain Touring). It rained a bit and we had a delicious hot dog roast and some beers before going to bed.

We had taken the Gun Show sign along and stuck it in the ground up on the main drag, pointing the way to our site. Over the course of the weekend a steady stream of folks made their way down to our site and asked “Where’s the gun show?” Each time they were met with smiles, rolled up sleeves and flexing biceps.

Friday
We woke up Friday and dried off everything that had gotten wet the previous evening. Atira made some delicious oatmeal. People began to trickle in to camp (Mike Boyes, Tom Miller, Jacob Gettier). Churtle, Atira and I went out for a pre-ride of the course, which turned out to be better than I could have ever imagined or hoped. A ~12-mile loop with *lots* of rocks and really fun downhills. It turned out there was very little to dismount for, with nearly all of the dismounting happening near the end of the lap (a giant rock garden). I felt really confident about the course. It was super fun, super rocky, super fast and incredibly beautiful.

Back at camp more people were arriving. Elizabeth and Rich showed up and went for a pre-ride with Kerry. Buck Keich (Single Speed World Champ!) showed up, followed soonafter by Mike Carpenter, wife Carrie, daughter Lindsey and dog Ellie. We had burritos. Later on we were joined by Pete, Kelly Shaw, Marco and Tina Deshaies, and Craig Watson. After I went to bed Aaron Beck and Michelle Maguire arrived from Columbus. Michelle took great pictures all weekend!

All told we had seven pop-up canopies, a changing hut, 10+ tents and about 20 people in our camp site.

Saturday – Race Day
The morning was spent tuning bikes, affixing race numbers, filling bottles, discussing how to handle the baton pass, charging lights at the neutral charging station, and doing other pre-race chores. Pete hauled our secret weapon – my Trek hybrid attached to Elizabeth’s trainer – to the transition tent for us to leave there for warming up before laps.

We shared the camp with three other teams and their helpers. Mike and Buck were racing in the duo pro class (with Mike racing on a fixed-gear and Buck on a single speed) as Dixie Fixie and Single Chump. Tom and Jacob raced that class as well, but on “regular” bikes, as Better Living Thru Chemistry. Marco, Kelly and Aaron were racing in the 5-person open class as the Finger Pullers, but the rest of their team (Mac Stricklen and Jeremy Krohn) had to attend Ohio University graduation in Athens and didn’t arrive until after the race started. Rumor has it Jeremy got out of his car, changed his clothes, and did his first lap.

Elizabeth started the race for our team. It was a Le Mans start, which means racers place their bikes in the racks at the transition tent, then line up under the start/finish bridge to do a ~4-minute run through the gravel campground, through the transition tent, onto their bikes, then back around that loop on bikes before hitting the singletrack. I admired her willingness to accept this challenge, as I’ve always thought this start looks scary. You have to run and ride really aggressively to get on the trail in good position, and Elizabeth did a fine job of both. Once she hit the singletrack, though, things didn’t go so well: three flat tires and a broken derailleur. She had to run her bike in, across the big bridge and everything. She handed off the baton to Churtle and came back to camp, where I was getting ready to head to the transition tent. I was able to hang around long enough to hear Elizabeth’s horror story and to find out the upshot: We started the race third out of three expert women’s teams with a 21-minute deficit.

Joey changed out Elizabeth’s tires and installed a new derailleur, and I headed to the transition tent. Churtle answered Elizabeth’s tough first lap with an incredible 1:15:19 and I was on my way to the singletrack. I rode the first 9 miles more like I would a fast road ride filled with rollers – carry momemtum, shift down, stand, and jam it up the next short hill. You could carry a ton of speed on the course. It felt like there wasn’t really any climbing, but now that I look at the course map I see there was about 1,600 feet per lap. Somehow it still felt flat(ish)? I had a great lap and rolled in with a 1:23. Kerry headed out and came back feeling good with a solid 1:38. We had our first four-lap rotation under our belts and had gained back four minutes of lost time.

Elizabeth must have gotten all of our troubles out of our way for us, because we didn’t experience any major problems from there on out (Cheryl did have a crash on her second lap that made her sore and slowed her down a bit, but not too much). Our pals Joey, Atira, Pete and Rich had an amazing system for keeping us fed, rested, and organized, and our bikes tuned up.

Each lap two helpers would walk me and my bike to the transition tent. One would stay with me to wait for Churtle to come in, and the other would go to the computer tent to check the other teams’ lap times. I could shed clothes as I warmed up and my helper would take the layers back to camp while escorting Churtle back to camp. (Temps were cool – low 60s and extremely windy as daytime his, low 40s and windy at night.) Whoever was with me would holler when they saw Churtle hit the bridge and I’d hop off the trainer and head into the transition tent for the handoff. When we’d arrive at camp Joey would ask what my bike needed and Atira would ask what I wanted to eat. I’d eat, organize my stuff for the next lap, then stay off my feet until it was time to go at it again. BTW, I decided to ride my IF (hardtail) for my first and fourth laps (both daylight) and my Santa Cruz (full sus) for my two night laps so I had more room for mistakes in the dark. Both bikes were a blast on all laps.

Churtle had moved us into second place on our teams second lap of the race (her first lap), and we mostly gained time on laps 3 through 6. I managed to gain us 15 minutes on my first night lap (lap 8 for the team). It was strange to pass solo racer Cameron Chambers (since he's a "real" racer!). He looked like he didn’t feel well at all and was walking a climb that I was comfortably riding up. It was his seventh lap and only my second, though. He must not have been feeling well, as he pulled out of the race after his eighth lap. At least he had an awesome team kit!

On Kerry’s first night lap (team lap 8) she actually passed the first-place expert women team’s rider and gained us 13 more minutes. Go Kerry! Over the night we gained a lot of time. My night laps were beautiful. The moon was either full or almost full, and the views were amazing. My early morning (3:22 to 4:56 a.m.) lap was the most beautiful, with moonlight at the beginning and hints of sunrise toward the end. I managed to get in an hour and 45 minutes of sleep between midnight and 2 a.m., and then about another half hour nap between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m.

By the time Elizabeth left for her early morning (6:43 a.m.) Sunday lap, we were up by 28 minutes. Elizabeth kept us at steady state and then Churtle increased the lead to 50 minutes; I added a couple to that with my last lap.

Kerry went out for the last lap of the race (her 4th and the 16th for our team) with the knowledge that we would win barring any bizarre occurrences. We had dug ourselves out of a hole by turning consistently fast lap times and keeping things organized in between.

We absolutely could not have pulled off the win without Joey, Atira, Pete and Rich. They helped us stay focused and rested between laps. And Mike Boyes kept a warm campfire going the entire time. I’m so grateful to these friends for making this weekend so fun.

Our camping neighbors did well, too. Mike and Buck won the duo pro class, with Tom and Jacob placing second. The Finger Pullers placed 10th in their class and a respectable 63rd overall.

Some general notes about the weekend:

24 hour events are cool because there is so much going on. Our camp site was like a busy bee hive, with workers coming in and workers going out. While you’re out on a lap things happen at camp that you only hear rumors about later (camp stoves catch on fire, etc.) and while you’re at the camp things happen on people’s laps that you don’t learn about for hours because of the timing of your own lap. It’s like being away from the world news for a few days and then finding out something major happened and everyone else but you already knew about it. Keeps you on your toes.

I think having a bike on a trainer was key. We were the only team to keep one in the transition area – I saw lots of people using trainers at their campsites, but not in the transition area. That doesn’t seem as helpful to me, since you’d have to stop your warm-up, ride to the start/finish, place your bike in the transition area, then stand around and wait for your rider vs. riding the trainer until the minute your rider comes in. It turned out that lots of our friends who were racing on other teams also used the trainer. Even Mike Carpenter, who is over six feet tall, rode my little commuter bike!

Some people have the capacity to push their bodies beyond what seems humanly possible. I passed Mike Carpenter pushing his fixed-gear bike at 2:30 in the morning. He had broken his chain and needed an entire new chain in order to fix it; therefore, he was walking 7 miles back to the start/finish. He repeatedly asked me to tell Buck how sorry he was when I got there. I told Buck, who was not the least bit upset. (It’s bike racing, after all.) Mike had started that lap with a 30 -minute lead over second place and lost 29 of those minutes to a broken chain. He returned to camp and joined us at the pre-dawn campfire. He sat slumped with his head in his hands for about 3 minutes, then abruptly sat up and announced he was getting the minutes back. He said he would just have to put all of his anger into his ride. Within three laps he and Buck had gotten the minutes back, and by the end of the race they had won the duo pro class with a 40+ minute lead for 18 laps. They wanted the minutes back and went right out there and got them. Totally awesome.

My team-mate Elizabeth Boyle has mental toughness beyond her years of racing experience. She was on a team with three women who have a significant amount of racing experience, particularly in the endurance game. I suggested her for the team because I have known her to be goal-oriented, determined and a fast rider. But what she faced as a first lap (3 flats, broken derailleur) could have made anyone hate the thought of facing the next 22+ hours of racing. She collected herself, rested, focused, got some new tires, and burned up three more awesome laps.

My team-mate Kerry Combs is cool, calm and collected. I have a tendency to get caught up in the moment and to lose track of the big picture. I would worry about individual lap times (fast ones by ladies on competing teams) and Kerry kept reminding me that the night would be long and the first few hours really don’t amount to much until after everyone makes it through the night. She has done countless 24-hour events (including 11 solo, with some on a single speed) and knows just how many things can unfold over a long night. She made so many accurate predictions about things that would happen, and she said it in such a convincing tone, that it put me at ease and helped me sit back and enjoy the ride and feel confident that we would do well in the end.

My team-mate Cheryl Sornson knows how to ride a damn mountain bike. Pre-riding the course with her was fun because I got to watch her ride stuff with expert flair and mucho strength. Her comments on how she would ride certain sections, climb certain hills, etc. gave me a lot to think about and, I think, helped me do faster lap times than I would have if she hadn’t inspired me with such strong skills. I love riding with great cyclists.

The members of the Finger Pullers team can hold up under tough conditions. I already knew they were good riders (why else would I ask them to be on the shop bike team?!), but you never know how people will hold up in a stressful situation. All five Finger Pullers put in great lap times despite hardly any advance planning and not much of a game plan once they arrived on site. Their performance is proof of their riding proficiency.

My friends are awesome. I still don’t know why Joey, Atira, Pete and Rich would want to take vacation days from work so they could stay up all night and work their asses off in a cold, sometimes rainy campsite, just so four ladies could try to win a stupid bike race. But I’m really glad they wanted to do it. Thanks guys!

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