Bike For Bender - Hell Ride 2010 is in the books...

Over 50 riders came out this year to participate in our annual SART Hell Ride. This was round #2 of the Bike For Bender series. Round #3 is Nov 13th at the 12hrs of Temecula. Here's a quick recap of what happened.

Be sure to check out the rest of the photos here and on facebook.


Special thanks to Ellsworth for jumping on board to support our event. They brought some super cool demo bikes which people snatched up quickly in the parking lot. They also had a trailer and rig to help shuttle up the hill.


Ellsworth had some cool new bikes in the 2010 lineup, so I decided to try out one of their 29er Evolution trail bikes. I was behind at the beginning (no names mentioned) and I was supposed to be leading the first group, so I had to sprint the first two sections of the SART to catch up. All I can say is that I put that thing through it's paces and it came out shining. It was super light and a blast to ride all day.

This year the conditions were the best ever. The rain made the single track tacky and super fast. The entire group were flying the whole way. Here's our first break at Angeles Oaks where we had food, water and snacks set up.

Every year we always have an interesting bike and/or rider that shows up. This year's winner was veteran rider who came out with a bike that he had apparently pulled out of a trash bin and built himself. It had fluorescent forks, a spray bottle (to cool off), flat DH pedals and a kick-stand. He wore military trousers and a MX helmet the whole way. We simply couldn't believe our eyes! He ended up bailing at the half-way point, but hats off for riding that beast that far.

Here's a shot after some pretty hairy single track after Thomas Hunting Grounds.

Here's another shot of the lead group on the backside of Morton's peak.

By mid-afternoon, everyone made it back to Uncle Howeys safe and sound for beer, pizza and the raffle.

We also had a few "Super" Hell Ride folks that showed up as well. These guys actually road their bikes from the top of Sugarloaf Mountain in Big Bear all the way down to Redlands. I did this ride last year and it's appropriately named "El Grande". You can read about it here. Good job!

Huge thanks to all of our sponsors (Don's, Ellsworth, Bear Valley Bikes, VSI and the Path) for donating the raffle prizes. We had everything from tires, helmets and handle bars to gift certificates and tee-shirts. And special thanks to all of the riders for their generous donations.

All of the funds will go to Rob and his family.

At the end of the day, there were lots of stories and big smiles and that's what makes this ride worth coming out for every year. We missed Rob big time and hope to see him back in action next year.

The last Bike For Bender round is Nov 13th at the 12hrs of Temecula. Here we'll have the draw for the Tazer frame and the Ellsworth wheels. You can enter this class for $50 solo and $100 for teams. Every person who enters the "Bike For Bender" category will also get a free ticket for the Tazer and wheels draw. All proceeds go to Rob and his family.

Don't forget, you can only sign-up on site for the Bike For Bender category!

See you at the 12hr.

AL

Bike For Bender - Hell Ride 2010

Well folks, it's time for round 2 of the Bike For Bender series - Hell ride 2010, Oct 23rd 8:00 AM.

If you haven't been on this ride before, here's a quick overview:

1. We shuttle from Redlands up the 38 to South Fork bright and early.
2. And then we follow the SART 36 miles back to Redlands.

The SART is one of the most fun and challenging single tracks in SoCal. Although there's thousands of feet of descending, there's also a few thousand feet of climbing, and there are some seriously dicy sections, so don't think that this is an easy ride! We'll group everyone into a fast and an intermediate group just like last time.

We highly recommend tubeless tires. There are stream crossings, rocks and 30+ mph descents, so you will get a flat!

Last year we had about 50 riders (many of them STR folks) and this year we are predicting we'll have over 60 riders. That means this will be the largest Hell Ride ever! And with the recent rain, the conditions will be epic.

As always, we'll meet at Uncle Howeys afterwards for beer, pizza and the raffle. We already have great prizes lined up from VSI, Intense Tires, Don's Bikes, Bear Valley Bikes and Ellsworth.

Speaking of Ellsworth, there's talk they will be coming out to support the ride by bringing demo bikes, trucks and trailers! Stay tuned for updates on this.

All proceeds from the raffle go directly to Rob for his fight against cancer.

For more details about the ride and to sign up, visit the ride page. Don't forget to sign up for a shuttle or plan to get dropped off up the hill!

So if you are up for a good ride, with good people and for a great cause, come on out and join us!

AL

SOCAL FAT TIRE EPIC 50 – Part I: Race Report

Huge thanks to Jason Ranoa for putting on a great event!

We don’t have many 50 millers in SoCal so we all appreciated seeing this on the calendar once again this year. If you were wondering what this race was like, or if you’ve been contemplating trying a marathon, here’s a quick review that might help you decide.

Part I covers the course and Part II covers what happened.

Getting out there
If you haven’t tried a marathon before, all I can say is that you get your money’s worth out of these races! It takes a little more nutrition planning and strategizing (write-up coming soon), but any of you XC or weekend warriors that like to crank out a few extra miles can surely get it done! If you are unsure about doing it solo, then one option is to sign up for the two-person category and just knock out 25 miles each.

Weather
The forecast leading up to the race was dismal. Thunderstorms were eminent and the humidity was high. Sure enough, the day of the race it was hot, humid and it even sprinkling at times. You could practically cut the air with a knife.

Course
On the flip side, the rain made for awesome riding conditions. The sand was tacky and the course was in the best shape ever. The ridge lines were fast and the tight single tracks were like downhill slalom courses.

The course was split in two: The 12hr loop and the Vail Lake (east) loop.


The Old
The marathon started out by following most of the 12hr course with a few modifications. All I can say is that it was fast! It started up the “damn” climb and followed mostly double track across to the ridges. From there it zig-zagged through the canyons as usual and then back to the campground. There was one sandy g-out that you had to just power through, but it was totally doable.

In the campground they had a main water station set-up so if you planned for it, you could swap water bottles here and save a little weight for the next section. Support folks were handing-off here as we climbed out of the park. Nice touch.

The New
The second part of the course went out to a brand new area that I’d never seen before. I heard horror stories from last year’s race, but the whole section changed and was greatly improved. That part extended Eastward out of the park across a number of tight ridges with a few short, tough climbs. Most of us had to get off a few times to clear everything, but it wasn’t bad at all. Actually, I think I could have cleared everything if I would have pre-road it. Nonetheless, at that point, it felt good to dismount and stretch the legs a little, so it wasn’t a big deal at all.

After the ridges, there were some super fast (and fun) fireroads and some descents. The course then went into some fast “jedi-like” singletrack as it approached Vail Lake. This was actually my favorite part. A few times I looked over and could see boats and wakeboarders down on the lake and I wished that was me! From there it lead us back past a water station and back through the other campgrounds back to the start mostly on wide double-track and paved roads.

Rough Stats
The east and the west sections combined were roughly 12 miles a piece, so one full loop was 23-24 miles. All of the solo folks ended up doing two loops for a total of about 48 miles. And yes, there was a little bit of climbing and I logged about 5,800 ft when it was all said and done, This is really quite reasonable for a 50 mile race when you compare it to other ones like Vision Quest!

The fastest guys finished in roughly 3:20hrs and the rest of us finished closer to 4:00hrs.

Aid Stations
Jason had a ton of water and aid stations sprinkled around the course. Each station was stocked with water, Heed and electrolytes if needed them. You actually couldn’t go more than 8 miles without running into one. This takes a lot of work and manpower to set-up, but it’s very important to the riders in endurance racing.

This also meant that you could actually carry one bottle if you wanted to and just fill it up at every station around the course (that is if you didn’t mind stopping). Or more importantly, just use the water to cool off every ½ hour as you heated up out there.

What I ended up doing was carrying one bottle for the 12hr loop and swapping it out at the aid station in the campground before heading out the 2nd section. That worked out perfectly.

The course markings were pretty good as well, although I did have a hard time seeing a few of them when we came out onto the pavements sections. I think this is mostly because we hit these sections at pretty high speeds.

Summary
Overall, I was impressed with the new extension to the course and all the work Jason did to make it a safe and fun race. I give it a solid 9/10.

1. The distance, climbing and elevation are all reasonable.
2. You can easily pre-ride the whole course and plan your race strategy beforehand.
3. Use your 12hr knowledge to save energy through those sections.
4. Numerous water stations (well stocked) all around the course.
5. Three pools to choose from and showers for riders after the event.

If you haven’t attempted a marathon before, then if any of these things make sense, then this actually might be a good one to start with.

Think about putting this one on your calendar for next year!

AL