You know it's getting real when...

*runs real fingernails down imaginary chalkboard*

I know all you impatient people have been out there wanting to know when I was gonna get off my ass and announce the go or no-go on putting on the Horny Cat 69 (still not brought to you by the Mutual of Omaha) this year.  Well, I just needed time to make that sweet MS Paint image because I'm all about putting out marketing material that matches the quality of this non-event/bike ride/waste of a whole day/backyard shindig.  

And I had to wait and see if I really wanted to do this again after leaving half my soul in Breckenridge.  The Breck Epic was kind enough to ship it back to me after finding it in a bathroom stall at the Gold Pan.

And there were some logistical issues (which probably could have been ignored but whatever).

And I had to waste a decent amount of brain space considering a haircut.  Mebbe this should be a fundraiser for a hair stylist and not some bunch of chuckleheads with chainsaws.

Here are the details.

It will be on October 11th.

The unsupported ride-at-your-own-risk group ride with an absolute "will drop you" policy on an arduous unmarked route knowing that the "group" will probably fall apart immediately will start at 9:00am.

There will be a Tarheel Trailblazers fundraiser pizza/beer/one six pack of Fanta jubilee at my house which is also the end point of the ride.  An expected donation of $13 will get you access to all those groceries (that's an old fashion term for food you buy from places that sell food, so I hear), and also you will be emailed a DOWNLOADABLE route sometime the week before the ride.  You can donate more if you choose to feel generous.  You can also donate, skip the ride, and just make great party as well.

SEND AN EMAIL TO SMELLYCAT100K@hotmail.com, and you will get payment information AND be added to the email distribution list.  

It will be mentioned in the pre-ride email, but I'm not gonna give an OVERLY detailed breakdown of the route like I did last time.  It's more simple this year.  If you're a local, you can follow most of the squiggles on the Ride with GPS route and know relatively what you're doing.  You will find yourself in places you shouldn't be.  If that makes you uncomfortable, don't go there.  You'll never be much more than thirteen miles of mostly peaceful greenway away from your vehicle, that is if you drove there. 

I've not considered a rain date, but I probably would do my best to make it happen later if we get shut down due to Charlotte being Charlotte, what with its thousand year storms every three weeks.  We didn't need it last time, and I did say that if I couldn't pull this off at all, I would donate ALL the money to the Tarheel Trailblazers.  If you were one that was predisposed to joining in on this ride, you're also probably someone who benefits from all their hard work, so you shouldn't mind pissing away $13 of your money... if it's for a cause you don't already support or you already do but could do a little more.

The WHOLE ride is really close to sixty nine miles, 42% off road or UNKNOWN, so a mountain bike is a great idea.  A noodle bar gravel bike would be okay... but you're not gonna like 15-20 miles of the route very much.  You do you tho.  Bring spare toobs.  Don't be someone else's problem.

This whole thing is really about the festivities and the raising of money, and the hanging out in my backyard with a few of my favorite things:

Beer
Pizza
Frands
Bikes
Not mosquitoes

I expect some will cut the route substantially, and I'm gonna do my best to prepare for some early arrivals.  Everyone has a different measure for success, so if you're idea of a good time is riding 25-30 miles and then consuming $12.99 worth of pizza and beer...

There, another five minutes of my life wasted with MS Paint..

I do want to ride a little bit this year, and as long as I can keep my kneecap from being exposed to the open air and spending most of my day (and $3,000 Americas) in the E.R., I'm gonna roll around a little bit before making sure all the ducks are lined up in duck rows back at my ducking place.  I'm imagining beer and six Fantas available @2:00, pizza shortly after that.

I might have some attendee swag.  I've yet to reach out to the benevolent people at HandUp, but I will... now that I've officially said this thing is a "thing."

Any questions?  Mebbe ask me on Facebook or IG (or that email address), because I check the comments here as often as I get my oil changed in my car that sits in the driveway 99% of the time.

See you there.  Or not. 

No pressure.

Breck Epic '25: Lessons, Regrets, and Reflections

I've had more than a week to come out of the general brain cloud that comes from doing something as life-affecting as a mountain bike stage race can be.  I'd forgotten to share some tidbits, so here goes.

Lessons.

Take care of your body, even on Day Zero. 

I did a pretty good job listening to my body's needs during the race, but I made a stupid mistake before getting to the start line on day one. I ate my normal breakfast on Saturday at the abnormal time of 4:00am before heading to the airport, one slice of bread (half organic peanut butter/half strawberry preserves/folded over), 16oz of milk, and 32oz of coffee.  My next "meal" was the first class breakfast which was rich people food (salmon, capers, fruit), but in normal people quantities.  Yeth, first class because the bump-up was worth the two free (up to) 75lb bags, priority luggage, meals and bevvies.  Then it was the wait for the shuttle, the three hour ride to Breck, and by the time we were settled in an I desperately paid $20 for a bag of chips and a slice of pizza at the Sky Market in Breck, it was too late.  My body was already in sad shut-down mode, and that set me up for a rough night as my stomach did not return to normal until the next afternoon.

Adding insult to injury, I started impatiently eating the meaty pizza as soon as they handed it to me... standing up and thinking "this is not smart."  Of course I dumped some of the meaty bits down my chest, so now there's a permanent grease stain on my HandUp rain coat to remind me that I was a double idiot on Day Zero of the 2025 Breck Epic.
 
Although Chamois Butt'r was handing out free samples like they were candy, I was using my private supply sparingly, like I was just going out on a usual weekend ride.  I woke up on day three with some major rubbage in my cheek fold zone.  I had no decent excuse, so I loaded up on samples, and doubled up with a VERY thorough application every day after.  No problems the rest of the week.  Butt'r that muffin.

Take care of your bike.

I was headed out the door for Stage One on Sunday morning, and I kinda dropped my bike on the ground in the hotel hallway and heard a strange jangle.  A noise a single speed shouldn't make.  Chain?  No.  Cables?  No.  Bottle cages?  No.  Rear wheel?

Dammit.

In my hurry to build my bike, I'd forgot to thread the rear thru-axle all the way in... because it requires just a bit of attention when the chain is properly tensioned.  Note to self: If any component requires reassembly when taking it outta the travel case, double check it.  Everything.  Stem bolts, rotor lock rings, pedals... axles.  Mebbe even triple check it... before relying on it for six days. 

Regrets.

I felt like I was the worst descender I could ever be.  Not one to be mentally aware of my environment, I didn't recognize that the conditions were probably the driest I'd ever seen since I did my first Breck Epic in '09.  Where I'm from, dry is good.  But up here?  No bueno.  Loose.  Anti-hero dirt.  I saw more carnage than usual every day, riders wrecking in front of me, busted humans showing up bruised and battered to the start, medics and evacuations... it wasn't just me.  I guess I wasn't really slow, just respecting the conditions because my ultimate goal was to finish. 

I was kinda hard on myself in the moment, but I'm gonna stick with the "discretion is (was) the better part of valor" theme on this one.

I wished I woulda looked around, smelled the roses, got lost and all caught up in it at once.  If you know something is gonna be your last ever, take... your... time.  I was so busy tryna do this stage under five hours and that stage under three hours, I missed the point.  I was in my favorite place in the world, and somehow in a hurry to... get back to my room... to eat sad tortellini... to wash my kit in the tub... to take a nap... to get in my squeezy leg bags?

Dumb.

If you ever get the chance to do Breck Epic, make sure you appreciate all the things.  It's big.  Like King Kong big.  You're gonna need to step back so you can drink it all in.  Also, make sure you get the chance to get yourself your very own BMF belt buckle.

Reflections.

Ever since Mike Mac announced back in '08 that he intended to put on a stage race in Colorado, I pushed all my chips to the center of the table with my eyes closed.  The gamble paid off, and I fell madly in love with quite honestly the hardest, most rewarding thing I've ever done... so many times.  It's taken years of looking back at all the things, but nothing has challenged me as much nor gave me such a feeling of "I did a thing" as the Breck Epic (or such a feeling of "I didn't do a thing" when I crashed out in '21... real tears).  I've got ten finisher buckles, but I have ten times as many memories to reminisce on when I'm a real "old" and can no longer do things.  Hands down, some of the best riding I've ever had in my thirty five plus years on a mountain bike.  I'm proud of the things that I've done there... aside from a few moments at the awards banquets (sorry I threw so many various projectiles)... and mebbe a regrettable act or two (probably a half dozen) reveling my balls off at the Stage Seven Gold Pan afterparty.  It pains me so much to think I'm not going back that I'm even considering flying back out next year on vacation to volunteer?

Nuts, right?

Well, in closing...

I've... had... the time of my life... and all that.

Bleth.

Horny Cat 69 news tomorrow.

Breck Epic 2025: Stage Five and Six and Seven?

Well, poop in my hat. 

The Wheeler Stage.  Used to be my favorite.  What was I thinking?  Who was I back in 2009 when I first fell madly in love with such self-flagellation?

Since we end up on the Burro Trail so soon after the start, we are going off in waves of ten.  They used to sort us out by our GC time after Stage Four (I think?), but this year, it's based on your time the day before.  I now regret trying so hard yesterday.  I'm lined up with people who normally finish ten, fifteen, mebbe twenty minutes ahead of me very other day.  I do the only logical thing at the start, gun for the pole position into the woods...

only to pull over and let every single one of them by as soon as we get there.  I got no business riding with them, and to be honest, not the pack behind them or the pack behind them or the...

You get it.

I finally fold into the fray with what I'd call "my people" for the long walk up to Wheeler Pass.  I'm not 100% or even 25% sure why I thought this was my favorite day, but I knew since this is probably going to be my last Breck Epic ever, so I'm going to take my time to enjoy the view up at the top.

I really did.  Chewed my hand up bacon and stared out at the world around me.

Then the sketchballs descent down to the next hike-a-bike up Mount Gawdammit which Mike Mac gave me credit for naming... not like I remember that.  On the way up, I stopped multiple times to gawk at the wonder that is being in this rarified air in the literal sense of having a lower concentration of oxygen and the broader sense that is a setting that is exclusive or detached from everyday life (thanks, google).  It's just so damn perfect up there.  Well, until...

Dropping in.  The conditions have been the driest and loosest I've ever seen.  Not loose over hard, but loose over more loose and just a bit more loose and then mebbe hard but probably also loose.  I'm not on my game, and on one of the technical tiny ups on the descent, I eat ass.  I hit the ground hard like a hippo jumping out of a lake, and my Wahoo data acquisition device flies off, busting the mount.  I just can't wait to get back under the tree line... that is until I am, and then nothing is what I remember it being like before.

Huh.  Miner's Creek used to be my favorite descent of the week, even back when I was doing this whole dumb thing rigid eight times previous.  Now?  I feel like I'm being tossed about and manhandled down a boulder field by a half dozen overzealous, goose-stepping ICE agents.  I even had to stop and reset my brain as my circuits began to fry from the information overload...

and then the 100mph dirt "road" at the bottom that I thought I remembered so well but had become a loose chute full of biscuits and baby heads and loaves of bread and microwaves and random ditches full of Superballs almost the whole way down to the aid station.

Now the eight mile slog mostly up back to the finish that I was going to depend on my Wahoo data acquisition device for distraction and to guide my pace. Combined senses of sads and happies as I membered the good and also the bad parts all the way to the finish.

Stage Six: Gold Dust

I got the reverso world start wave today.  I spent so much time staring at the views and brainlessly bouncing down the rocks that I was back in a much slower group than the day before.  This time, I was incentivized to take the hole shot into the woods and actually keep it.  And, you're not going to believe it, I screwed up my Wahoo data acquisition device yet again, and I spent the entire day 385 feet from the finish line.  I actually had a plan (again), but quite the opposite of the day before.  No time to take in the views, just keep pace on the trail with my geared brethren, pound up the climb to 11,500 feet, hold my own down Gold Dust, make haste to get back up to 11,500 feet, and then...

Diving back into real "trail," hope I member how to do "mountain bikes," and proceed to beat my own dick off trying to finish in under three hours... not realizing the course was longer than previous years for "reasons."  Missed it by eight and a half minutes, but more importantly, I finally finished my tenth Breck Epic.

What followed was a post-race marg and a Charlotte local beer hand up, packing up the bike, twenty minutes in a hot tub, two happy hour beers and then another and another and then the banquet and some podium action and perhaps some shirts-off moments before heading to the Gold Pan to definitely NOT dance until we were owning the floor long after everyone else from the Breck Epic had packed it in (after some not-so-popular with the bouncers breakdance fighting).

Oh, fourth place single speed and only minor injuries and a few scraped up bike parts.  I'm glad I did it.  I'm glad it's done.  Time for something different.

When I say that I'm done doing stage races, I basically mean it.  I've probably done my favorites a few too many times, thus making them a little too much "time to make the donuts" events.  I do like the more exotic, out-of-country ones, but the logistics involved, the shortness of the stages (for all the travel), the potential sleeping in tents (at my age) and living out of one duffel bag?  Mebbe I could pull one of those outta my ass, but it's usually a multi-thousand dollar trip, and I guess I'm saving for my retirement or enjoying avocado toast too much to justify the expense.  That said, I won't pass up golden ticket opportunities, and I'll also continue to do "hard things," just not Breck Epic hard... which honestly... it's sooooooo hard.  Like how did I ever take it for granted that I could just do this without dying inside a little every time?  There are just certain events I can't give up on (ahem PMBAR), so I'm still gonna head out on my stupid single speed and test fire this sack of meat that carries my thoughts and feels around every few months.  It's too important for me to keep the perspective that's gained when I've been pushing my bike up some godforsaken mountain and I think about work (yuck) and realize nothing I do Monday through Friday nine-to-five is all that challenging. 

If I've counted them all up correctly, I've finished thirty two stage races on a single speed since I did my first La Ruta de Los Conquistadores in 2004.  It's easy to forget that back when I started doing this, people were telling me it couldn't be done (we're all smarter than that now).  Obviously, a fire was lit under my ass and started me down the constant road of "what's next?" for over twenty years.  
 
And now, here I am.  

What's next?

Breck Epic 2025: Stage Four, You've Been Thunderducted

To be honest, I have no idea why I had such strong animosity towards the Aqueduct Stage/Stage Four.  I can remember the exposed, chunky switchback descent which seems to want to throw me off the side of the mountain to land on top of the houses I could never afford in the valley five thousand feet below.  I'm so in the grips of acrophobia and agoraphobia that I'm relieved when I get to the bottom and turn hard right into a face-full of rocks going up Vomit Hill.  Then there's the doldrums of scrubby high country ups and downs where I usually find myself alone in the hot sun... only to mercilessly spin out my 32x20 going down the aqueduct... and then my favorite part is the eight mile climb out to some immemorable descent to a predictable punch in the dick climb to the finish?

Something in there...

I decided I would do my best to go into it this year with an open mind.  I haven't seen this stage since I did it in 2019* on a Duo 100+ team with my frand Chris, so the last time my misery had company.  The experience before that was my 2017 beer/bacon drop bag bonanza tour with Jeremy, so where do all these unpleasant thoughts come from? 

Wake up Wednesday morning, eat my 1.5 blueberry muffins, drink from my tiny coffee cup that necessitates an accessory measuring cup of coffee to limit my trips from the couch to the kitchen, then my usual constitutional... and the power goes out at the Beaver Run Resort... and also the water.

*struggles to convince self that it's not going to be a bad day*

Tell Dahn, Rege, and Hamburgers that if they need to dispose of a "two," they can halp themselves to the spare water that's in my many humidifiers running in my bedroom as a form of "East-Coaster life support."

I line up next for Stage Four to this big dude (everyone is a "big dude" to me) on a Yeti (turq, obvs) with new XTR Di2 shifting but older brakes... and the frame has a "Joe Lawwill" sticker on the top pipe.

Dude musta bought Joe's old bike?

Look at the dude.  Holy shit.  It's Joe Lawwill.

I ask him about his shifting set up and the older brakes, and as we're shooting the shit, it finally dawns on me... I rode with him thirteen years ago in Sun Valley when Zac and I won a trip and bikes and memories and stuff? 

Fast forward to 1:03 to see Zac go sailing off into the cabbage.  Even more of a strange coinkadick, I was wearing a 2011 Breck Epic jersey on that ride with Joe.

Joe asked my how long this stage was going to take me to finish, and when I said "around five hours," the look he gave me did nothing to tell me if he thought I must be slow or fast or dumb.  The race eventually started, the banter ended, and I went into my "game plan."  Since my bad experiences seem to have more to do with loneliness than the actual trail, I opted to just follow along at the pace of other riders until we got to the eight mile climb.  I was stuck in long trains going downhill, chugging up steep climbs at 5RPM, and yoyoing off the back of a small group to get through the Sargasso Sea section.

It all worked (sorta... something for later).  I popped out at the aid station at the bottom of the big climb, made sure to eat and drink, and started making the most out of a consistent Zone Four (oranges not apples) effort.  I was gobbling up all the carrots on the road and double track, and before I knew it, I passed Joe.  Which was cool... except for the fact that when the trail finally turned down, like WAY DOWN, I was worried that I'd soon have the tire tracks of a former World Cup downhill racer up my back and over my helmet.  Somehow, I managed to stay away.

I knew it was another eight mile punch in the dick to get back, but bolstered by how not bad of a day I was having, I put something into it.  Before I could wrap my brain around it, I was catching the sole female single speeder who had been stomping me into the dirt every day.  Then I caught up to Rege and Dahn.  

I was having a good day.  Too good.

Seeing that I was going to be so close to breaking five hours, I pointlessly put in way more effort than a smart person woulda made.

I made some more passes and came in (pointlessly) at 4:59:08.

I'm sure Joe was impressed by how slow or fast or dumb or accurate I was.

I didn't find out how stupid my efforts were until the next morning.

Oh yeah, get back to Beaver Run and all I wanna do is eat and shower and... the power had come back on. 

Hooray.

And then shut off again. 

Boo.

* 2021 I wrecked out on Stage Two and 2022 Aqueduct was canceled due to weather shortening the week

2025 Breck Epic, in the beginning...

Firstly, the Horny Cat 69 date is October 11th.  No backup date is planned because why bother planning that out.  This is Charlotte.  Weather is a real live cartoon character.  I'll get the rest of the deets together in a week or two, but go ahead and mark those calendars with your best number two (doody not pencil).

The 2025 Breck Epic was 100% everything I needed it to be.  I knew going in that there was a very strong possibility that I was going to decide that this would be my last stage race ever, but if I didn't finish due to an injury or race-ending mechanical, or if they had to cancel a day and shorten the race because of weather, or if I just left with an eerie sense that I didn't get what I was looking for... who knows?

I went into Stage One feeling pretty dialed... in a physical and material sense.  I'm as fit as I'd been in years, and my Vassago Optimus Meatplow V.10 with (allow me to plug away) I9 SOLiX carbon wheels, Fox 34 SL fork and Transfer drooper, big old Maxxis meats, durable Cane Creek ball bits and plenty of other solid parts choices is the most capable bike I've ever brought out to Breckenridge.  I had all the stages loaded on my Wahoo data acquisition device before I left town and a plan to stay outta the apples and live in the oranges on the HRM LEDs.  My new riding glasses are the most buenos eyewear I've ever had since my '06 Lasik surgery failed.  My nutrition plan was locked in with Carbo Rocket Half Evil (two scoops per bottle) and gels (which I can only bother with when I want a no-fuss "solid" food option)... but locked in only counts if you stick with the plan.

I can plug all that shit because I've ridden a 2009 rigid, high-posted, pre-boost single speed, ripped tires, dinged rims, had a failed drooper, blown apart a bottom bracket, ridden with zero data, rode in fashion Zenni glasses, and fueled with drop bag beers and bacon.  All at the Breck Epic.  All things I don't recommend.  With my now vision corrected 20/20 hindsight

Finally having center lock rotors on Industry Nine system wheels for travel after nineteen years of want makes me warm and tingly.

 All that said...

Being up for the trip to the airport at 4:00am EST on Saturday, getting to Breck at 3:00pm MST, and going to bed at 10:00pm MST wasn't the roughest part.  It was the lying in bed for hours totally exhausted but unable to sleep thanks to that familiar feeling of drowning because I can't get enough oxygen to my brain, and being my age, the consuming thought of "am I dying here?"

So Stage One was four uneventful hours of memmer berry trails and the very out of body experience of feeling like I might be asleep and dreaming this whole thing.  I felt less connected to the bike and more just loosely attached to it with brittle, fifty year old rubber bands.

Stage Two was not without its challenges.  Although I should know the courses after all these years, I just don't.  I like staring at the colored arrows on my Wahoo data acquisition device indicating the difficulty of upcoming and current climbs, and keeping myself outta the apples on the heart rate LEDs, lest I end up like Quaid gasping for air on the surface of Mars. 

Although I'd loaded all the courses before I left, I found myself at the start with zero stage two maps.  WTF?  This is also the stage that took me out in '21 with a laundry list of injuries, so much trepidation was already built into my day, so I didn't like flying blind.  I'd forgotten how much this stage required hands on the bars most of the time, and thus I ignored my body's need for calories.  I would occasionally see folks much smarter than I pulled off to the side eating and drinking, but I thought I could fuel my efforts with stubbornness and rage.  I wasn't wrong... but I wasn't right either.  I finished, but I was properly shellacked.   

Another five hours in the saddle, and the gaps in the single speed field were widely opening.  We had eight signed up originally, one DNS on day zero, and then another DNS on day two.  So now there are just six of us... "racing."  For the most part, never seeing each other for 98% of the day.

Something I am good and bad at.  I keep my food simple in terms of prep time and effort.  Half a family pack of tortellini for first supper and beans and cheese for second supper.  One six pack of Modus Hoperandi purchased for one beer daily consumption to minimize self-damage until Stage Seven obvs.

Stage Three.  I like this day, the Circumnavigation of Mt Guyot... whatever that really means.  I just know it starts with a stout climb (all the stages do tho... or so I'm told), hold my place on the narrow lumpy trail, try to not flat (yet again) on Little French Gulch, climb... hike-a-bike for some time close to forever, try to not flat (again), climb until we touch the sky... and then do my absolute favorite descent of the whole event.  Then at mile twenty six, I'd just have an "easy" thirteen miles back to the finish.

That's when I went into goldfish mode, only able to remember things for about three seconds and capable of seeing about fifteen feet in front of me.  I was on the struggle bus trying to push past the apathy of knowing that my favorite part of the week is over, and although there's still plenty of good in front of me, there's a lot of work to be done to get to it.

Slog, slog, slog, and...

Giving up on my one beer a day plan, because the best is behind me, and my least favorite stage is tomorrow.

Or so I thought.

Yabba Doosh

Laser focused on Breck Epic next week whilst being all scatter gun with distractions and disappoint.  As I write this, I'm sitting here with wet feet from a monsoon commute that had me in the bathroom at work emptying rain water outta my shoes and ringing out my insoles. 

And before I left my house, I saw that my back porch roof that's less than five years old is still leaking after the most recent round of repair work. 

I need this trip.

My biggest concern right now is that I've allowed the 2025 Breck Epic to "intimidate" me.  It's a whole "living in my head rent free" kinda thing.  I've finished nine times already, but it's been three very long years since the last time I did it, and four years since I crashed out on Stage Two.  I've never let that much time pass without heading out to Colorado for a six day systems check.  Those three days in a row of forty plus miles tho...

I used to do that?  I took for granted that I just had that in me when I was "young."  Jeebus.  I was forty years old in 2009.

That photo is NOT from the '09 Breck Epic but from a couple months later at Single Speed Worlds in Durango.  Apparently, Mike Mac didn't have the army of media guys back then taking hundreds of glamour shots every day.  

Mostly this is about two things.  I'm not terribly comfortable letting my last Breck Epic be my LAST since it was shortened to five days because of nasty weather.  That and I've only got nine finisher belt buckles.  Nine is not a tidy number.  I can only wear one belt, but I can't just not get ten because... reasons?

I can't wait to sniff the clean albeit annoyingly thin air again.

*wheeze*

*gasp*