Eurobike wrapped up on Saturday with a very well-attended public day. According to the show management, 22,300 members of the public attended on the last day in addition to the 1,100 exhibitors, and 1,732 journalists, and 41,482 trade visitors who were there throughout the show. That makes 2010 another record year for attendance in Friedrichshafen…a fact that probably does not come as a surprise to any of you.

The winners of the 2010 iF Eurobike Awards were announced last week during the show. The jury narrowed the 417 total entries into 92 award winners. Out of those, the twelve most innovative entries were honored with GOLD awards in several categories. You can read about the 12 Gold winning products here or here, and see pictures of a few of the selected products here at Zwomp (note: the link is in German, but Google translates it pretty well).

In addition to the 12 Gold winners, one product was selected to win the Eurobike Green. According to the jury, the Hase Spezialräder Klimax pedelec recumbent trike with a detachable folding fairing (pictured above) particularly exhibited “high ecological and sustainable value.” The jury pointed out that an e-trike like the Klimax illustrates “that pedelecs as electrically supported bikes are now available in many different consumer-friendly versions – starting with city bikes to compact, folding and trekking bikes … on up to recumbents.”

Separate from the 92 awards given to production products were the Eurobike Student awards. Out of 148 student submissions, twelve were honored with awards. One of those student concepts was Christian Breig’s Adiubik clipless pedal adapter, which makes clipless pedals compatible with regular street shoes. According to Christian, the concept allows you to “have a daily training ride on the way to work, university or in your recreational time without taking an extra pair of shoes with you.” More information is available on his website at www.christianbreig.de.

I have not yet seen the other 11 winning student designs form the show, but I would like to. If anyone has a link they could point me to, please do so in the comments.

With the prime riding season starring us in the face on the northern hemisphere, this is going to be an challenge that is soon on the horizon. Sunny and under 70 conditions can bring out the best in any mountain biker and the decreased light availability has the tendency to push time backwards. As we continue the pursuit of sweet singletrack, how can we keep our love of dirt alive without facing a boxing match when we get home?

Spousal Tips In Regards To Mountain Biking

We know we can’t give up the obsession, so how to we keep a happy home and rubber against dirt at the same time? While nothing will work perfectly…here are some tips to keep you from having to suit up before entering the garage…

• Start Earlier – Let’s face it…you can sleep when you are dead. By going to bed earlier and getting up earlier, you can get to the ride spot as the sun rises and get your miles in early. By doing this, you will be home earlier to a happier crew back at home base. You will have to battle your single friends (or the ones who happen to have their wife or husband riding with them) to get the earlier start time, but it will be worth it in the long run. While they don’t have anything to be home for…you do.
• Get A Schedule – I have a friend of mine that schedules his rides on Saturday morning with the hope of getting around mid-day. On Sunday, that is dedicated family time and everyone knows it. If he gets out on a ride at all, it is with his daughter or an early morning road ride that doesn’t take that much time. Your family, husband or wife will get into the rhythm much easier if you set a schedule you can stick to. We also have our weekly schedule that hits like clockwork if the weather is right. That tends to work really well.
• When You Are At Home…Be At Home – Even a decreased amount of time at home is circumvented by spending quality time. If you just come home and become a part of the couch…don’t expect anyone to be happy about it. By giving quality time at home, the time away is justified easier.
• Flowers Always Work – I have been known to bribe my wife (and hopefully she is not reading this) in the past. Dinners out and flowers always work to bring a smile to her face. “Honey, I know I was gone longer than I had planned on today, but didn’t you say that star gazer lily’s were your favorite flower?”. Cheesy…but she likes it.
• Set A Time To Be Home (Even though you will probably break it) – I always give my wife a range of time when I will be home from a mountain biking outing. She jokes about how she has to add 1.5 hours to it every time, but at least she has an idea when to expect me back so she can plan out her day. Not knowing when you are going to be home is worse than being late…I have learned that one the hard way. I also tend to call right before we eat or when I start the commute home with a rough estimate on time.
• Drive Yourself To The Trailhead – Carpooling is great if you want to save gas but it is a pain in the ass if you are on the clock. By driving yourself to the trailhead, you can come and go as you need to without having to worry about how it affects others on the ride. Nothing is worse than an upset wife (or worse…something happens that you have to leave quickly) and no way to easily get up and moving.

If you ask my wife, she will tell you that I probably do half of this half of the time, but…when I do…things work out a lot better around our house.

When I was a child, I would sometimes think about what happens when you turn off a light switch. First, current stops flowing, and then the filament starts cooling down, which means that it starts producing less light. The room, then would get dimmer as the bulb cooled down. A gradual process. It just seems immediate, because I wasn’t quick enough to notice the process.

I bring this anecdote from my childhood up for two reasons. First, to make you think that I was a deep thinker as a child, full of unusual insights.

Second, and more to the point, because I think it’s metaphorically appropriate. In the same way there’s an imperceptible amount of time between when you flip a switch and a room is genuinely dark, I expect there was some amount of time between when I started the second leg of the PCP2P (”Which way do I go?” I asked Lisa, as I finished up a Mountain Dew. “Up,” she replied, pointing at the switchbacking snake of riders that traced up the face of the mountain.), and when my own personal light went out.

Some amount of time. But not a lot.

Brad, JJ, and Jamie — three friends who I had wound up riding the final couple miles of the first section of the race with — had gone on ahead while I ate and waited for my bike to be fixed. So I rode this section alone.

OK, “rode” may not be the most accurate description for what I did for the next little while. Maybe instead I should say, “So I walked my bike alone.”

In my defense, I wasn’t the only one walking. As I switchbacked up the mountain, I looked up the trail, keeping an eye on where people were dismounting and — head down, leaning forward, arms stiffly out — pushing up the hill until they thought they had a reasonable chance of getting back on for more than twenty feet.

Or at least, twenty feet was the amount I set as my personal “It’s worth it to get back on the bike and ride” yardstick.

“C’mon, get on your bike and ride, Fatty,” someone urged on one section, even as he pushed his own bike. I laughed at his clever use of self-deprecating irony and tried to form a hilarious response.

It came out as “Huhhhh.”

Friendliest Bike Race, Ever.

So I marched. And sometimes, I rode. And it was all very steep.

But everyone I talked with was very, very cool. Like, suspiciously cool. Like, when I wanted to pass, I’d say, “I’d like by, whenever you can get a chance.” And almost always, whoever was in front of me would just pull over right away.

Similarly, when I heard someone catching up to me to pass, I’d holler back, “Want me to edge over?” The answer would usually come back along the lines of, “Whenever works for you. No rush.”

So I developed a theory. Since everyone was getting passed, and everyone was passing, everyone realized that we were all in the same boat. Everyone understood everyone’s situation, because we were all in the same situation.

Or it just might be that everyone was too tired to cop attitude or pass aggressively, and we all welcomed opportunities to pull over for a second.

Revenge of the Grey Gloves

By the time I had rowed my bike to the top of this section and had a huge downhill back to the aid station I had just left, my hands were starting to feel more than achy. They were raw. Painful.

And basically, they were really, really sore.

But the pain I experienced climbing was nothing, compared to the pain of descending. The technical, rocky-and-rooty singletrack, combined with my rigid fork, combined with my ill-chosen gloves, left me hating and every downhill section. So that practically every person I passed on the climbs passed me back on the descents, as I minced my way down the trail.

I imagined how my hands must have looked, blistered and bleeding under my gloves. I successfully began to pity myself.

“This hurts,” I would tell anyone who would listen.

“And I’m really, really glad Kenny convinced me to switch to a 22-tooth cog,” I thought to myself.

My Memory Fails Me

The second aid station stop is at the same place as the fir, which is convenient to the people who were crewing for the racers (except for the fact that there was not a single portapotty in evidence). While Lisa took care of filling up my Camelbak, I stood at one of the aid station tables, eating orange slices.

Probably six or eight of them. Really.

To everyone who arrived later, hoping for an orange and having to make do with bananas, sorry. That was my fault.

Then I think I drank a can of chicken and stars soup. I’m not certain, because my memory is kind of blurry on what happened from this point forward.

And then Lisa told me she loved me and I started riding again, because I hadn’t developed a good enough excuse for quitting yet.

Too Much of a Good Thing

I’m pretty sure that the PCP2P is proof that there is in fact such a thing as too much of a good thing. Because that race has a lot of singletrack. I mean, oodles of it. I’d guess that 76 miles of the race is singletrack, with the balance being doubletrack and brief stints on pavement connecting one trail outlet to another.

And in short, by the time I got to mile 40ish, I would have really liked some featureless, non-technical jeep road. Or doubletrack.

And downhill singletrack — the kind that twists tightly enough that you have to worry about your back end, not just your front — hardly gives you a rest from all the climbing you’ve been doing.

It’s also possible that I was just getting really tired. And it’s also possible I should have given a suspension fork a little more than just a passing thought..

Shining Moment

There was — at about mile 50 (I noted the distance) — about two seconds of which I was extremely proud. I was riding along, just keeping the cranks turning, “Stickshifts and Safetybelts” now tormenting me by playing endlessly in my head (just ten seconds of the chorus, of course).

And there were a few guys, sitting in the shade off the side of the course, cheering racers on. Extremely cool of them — every time someone urged me on, I felt transformed for at least a minute or two.

But these guys were different. These guys were challenging the racers.

“Take the ski jump! Take the ski jump!” they yelled, and pointed at the “ski jump” they had constructed: A log — about 14 inches in diameter I’m guessing — laying on the ground, with a ski leaning against it, forming a long, skinny ramp.

“Only three people have dared take the ski jump today!” one of them yelled. “Take the ski jump!”

And so I swerved slightly and headed for the ski jump.

Now, before I detail how my ski jump effort turned out, allow me to detail some of the things I did not consider as I rode toward this ski.

• Whether this ski — when used as a ramp — would support my weight.
• Whether any ski — when used as a ramp — would support my weight.
• Whether, in my fatigued state, I was likely to be able to ride up a flexing, 2.5-inch-wide ramp.
• If the ramp broke — or if I simply fell off while riding up it — how serious my endo was likely to be as I suddenly plowed nose first into a log.

But none of these things happened. Instead, I rode up the ski and did a nice nose-first drop off the other end, finishing off with a little nose-wheelie flourish. It wasn’t much, but it was all I had.

“Yeah!” yelled the guys, as I pumped my right arm in the air (and then quickly dropped it back down, because when I raised it I was reminded that I have no range of motion with that arm right now).

It then occurred to me that I had just done something very stupid. Also it occurred to me that I am extremely susceptible to suggestion when I am addle-brained.

Which is not always, thanks.

High Drama and Cold Beverages

I was so happy when I got into the Park City aid station, because I had big plans. For one thing, I was going to kiss my wife. For another, I was going to sit in the camp chair she had brought along and drink a whole Mountain Dew (Note to the whole world: Mountain Dew is the best during-race pick-me-up in the whole world). And for yet another thing I was going to take off my gloves and earn a ton of sympathy from Lisa by showing her the wreckage of my hands, which I was certain were nothing but a network of popped, bloody blisters.

Rick Sunderlage (not his real name) was there (not racing due to an injury) and captured the moment of me removing my glove:

Hey, what?! My hand looks a little bit red, but not bloody, nor even seriously blistered?!

So, um, I guess I’ve been behaving a little bit like a baby? Oh, OK.

In that case I guess I’ll stop going on about my (to all appearances uninjured) hands, and how bad they hurt.

But it still felt really nice to get a kiss, to get a drink, and to sit in a camp chair for a few minutes.

And you know what? Nick Rico — who had purchased Rick Sunderlage’s entry but then couldn’t used it because Sunderlage’s entry was evidently cursed and caused Nick Rico to break his toe just before the race — noticed how much I was enjoying that Mountain Dew and went and got me a cold Coke.

And that Coke was really good, too.

And so I had another.

Then it was time to leave. Just 18 miles to go.

Can you guess what’s about to happen to me? You’ll find out tomorrow, in Part 3.

Consider, for example, the following small things I did when I finally decided I should make at least some kind of preparation for the Park City Point 2 Point race.

• I called Kenny and told him I still had the gearing I used at Leadville (34 x 20) and whether he thought I should use an easier gear. He said I should, so I called Racer and told him to swap the 20 out for a 22.
• I was unable to find my favorite mountain bike gloves right off the bat, so rather than hunt for them, I packed a pair I haven’t worn in a couple years.
• I briefly considered stealing the suspension fork off of The Runner’s Superfly Singlespeed and putting it on my FattyFly instead. I let the thought pass and did not think of it again. For a while.
• I dug an old Camelbak out of a bin, deciding to ride with it instead of using bottles for the day.
• A butterfly landed on my shoulder and flapped its wings a few times, then it flew away.

Cause and effect, or synchronicity? You’ll have to read the story, then decide.

I Find My Place In the World

It’s tempting to compare The Park City Point 2 Point (PCP2P) to The Leadville 100 (LT100). After all, they’re both epic mountain bike races. Both at high altitude. Both have multiple words as part of their names, not to mention the fact that both races have names and abbreviations that employ letters and numerals.

Eerie, I know.

But apart from the fact that both races are guaranteed to kick your butt and leave you dirty and stinky at the end of the day, The PCP2P and the LT100 are vastly different.

This was apparent as I arrived at the starting line an hour before the race. Instead of more than a thousand cyclists cramming their bikes into place, hoping for a favorable start position, there was no line at all. Instead, racers were just riding around in the parking lot, chatting.

So I got in line for a portapotty, then took a final pre-race poop.

When I came out of the portapotty — now feeling much better about myself and the world around me — everything had changed. Now there was a line. Folks were sorting themselves into their hoped-for finishing times.

I found Brad Keyes in one of the groups and stood by him. We were in the 8 - 9 hour group.

“Do you know how many people finished in fewer than nine hours last year?” Brad asked.

“No,” I said. “A lot?”

“Hardly anyone. Let’s move to the 9 - 10 hour group.”

So, hollering, “Downgraders! Make way for the downgraders!” Brad and I worked our way further back down the line. We waved to Dug, who had placed himself in the 10 - 11 hour group.

If any of us had any idea what the day was going to be like, all of us would have moved further back.

Rolling Ad

Brad and I rode together for the first 25 miles or so — all the way to the first aid station. And I’ve got to say, it was the most fun I’ve ever had during a race. I think there are a number of reasons why. The first was — oddly enough — that the field was crowded. The PCP2P goes to singletrack almost immediately, which meant that long trains of riders would form.

My tendency was to get frustrated with people who had sorted themselves into too fast of a starting group, but Brad calmed me down. “Calm down, Elden,” Brad said. “Later today, you are going to be really, really glad you didn’t kill yourself at the beginning of this race.”

And since Brad had in fact ridden this race last year, I took him at his word and just enjoyed the fact that it was a beautiful, cool, sunny day and I was on my mountain bike, on nice singletrack, riding with one of my best friends. (Oh, and Brad was absolutely right.)

Then, since I wasn’t riding at my limit, I had enough wind to talk. And since both Brad and I were wearing CarboRocket jerseys, I decided it was a good idea to do some on-bike advertising. “Hey, Brad!” I yelled ahead (there were often a few racers between Brad and me).

“Yes, Elden?” He’d yell back.

“Is it true you’re racing with CarboRocket’s CR333 today?” I’d ask.

“Why yes,” Brad would reply. “It’s a new endurance fuel I’m premiering at this very event!”

“I understand,” I would enthuse, “That CR333 is half-evil! And that, furthermore, it’s formulated so as to be potent enough to be the only thing you consume during long endurance activities like epic mountain bike races!”

“As a matter of fact, all of that’s true!” Brad would affirm.

“That’s amazing!” I said, amazed. And also, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

I’m sure many people found us both entertaining and persuasive.

Stickshifts and Safetybelts

As we continued on our journey to the first aid station, I wondered at the fact that my hands were feeling a little bit sore. Apparently, even though my old gloves were the same brand (Specialized) as my current favorite gloves, their seams weren’t in the same places, or the padding was different somehow. In any case, I thought that the fact that my hands hurt less than two hours into an all-day race was a bit of a cause for concern.

Oh well. Nothing I could do about it.

However, I was starting to get a little bit antsy at the way people were holding us up. Thinking that maybe it was because they didn’t know we were behind them, I told Brad that I thought people would be more likely to get out of our way if we were singing a song.

Yes, my logic is impeccable.

“Sing us a song, Brad,” I said. Without hesitation, Brad launched into an a capella version of the Cake classic, “Stickshifts and Safetybelts.”

So pleased was I with Brad’s choice that I joined him for the chorus. I cannot, sadly, comment on whether anyone besides Brad and me enjoyed our singing, but I can report that it did not expedite our progress in passing other racers.

So there you go: singing will probably not help you move past others in a race.

How to Have a Mechanical

As I rode, it occurred to me that I honestly had no idea of what this course was like. Oh, sure, I had looked at the course map (leg 1 shown below):

But in my head, it felt more like this:

“That’s OK,” I thought. “I know all the important parts — it’s 78 miles, and around 14,000 feet of climbing. This is terrific singletrack, and I’m feeling good, except for my hands hurt, but I can live with that.”

What else did I need to know, really?

And then, as I pulled into the aid station . . . my chain fell off. I climbed off, grumbling, because I was looking forward to relaxing for a couple minutes while The Runner pampered me, not to working on my bike.

And then, as I rolled to a stop, a guy stepped up to me. “Let me take care of that for you,” he said.

“No, that’s all right,” I said. “I’ve got stuff to do this in my bag.”

“Hey, I’m the aid station mechanic,” he replied. Then, pointing to a gazebo set up about ten feet away, he continued, “My stand’s open right now. Go take care of whatever you need to do and then come back in a couple minutes. I’ll have your bike ready to ride.”

Yes, I had managed to have a mechanical five steps from an available, friendly, and — judging from the fact that my chain didn’t drop again during the race — very good mechanic.

Allow me to recommend — if you’re going to have your bike break down — doing it in exactly the way I did.

I thanked the mechanic, and walked to The Runner, who gave me a Mountain Dew and refilled my Camelbak (I was smart to use a Camelbak, the trail really was too technical for me to have been able to drink often from bottles).

“Are you having a good race?” The Runner asked.

“I’m having a blast,” I said. Which was absolutely true, at the moment.

But, as soon as I rolled away and began the second part of the race, it would cease to be true, for the rest of the day.

Continued here.

Seriously, I will. I promise.

Meanwhile, however, allow me to recommend you read Dug’s excellent writeup of the race.

And Rick Sunderlage has some great photos from the aid station — here, and here.

Oh, and here’s a photo of how I looked at the end of the day, just to give you a feel for where this story will end: