From the Tienanmen Square to the moon and the Mariana Trench, humankind has exhibited a clear predilection for conquering the unknown. "Do we have enough ammo to maintain power?" "Will the Challenger 2 find Atlantis?" With these more important questions answered yes and no, respectively, the attention of humanity's collective mountain bike consciousness (Atlantic Chapter) has wandered to "can my legs survive 100km of baby-heads?" and "if I miss a feed, will I have a religious experience at kilometer 81?"
Hub Cycle's Conquer the Pass, in its second year, has already taken the title of Most Epic Shit Going in Atlantic Can. It's 20km longer than Elgin, the prior champion, and though lapped-format races often result in a longer win-time, they don't have you riding over 100ft beaver dams, underneath 100-series highways or past abandoned-and-since-ransacked logging camper trailers akin to a scene from The Road.
The 100km category kicked off shortly after 9:00. Z-Machine and myself, having forgot a pot to go with our camp stove, took off for the truck stop, returning to a happily still-large registration line up at 8:50. Most hard-hitters tucked themselves in at home, secreting hoping everyone else would party themselves into a dead sea of lactic acid come the morning.
Lining up behind Conor in his firetruck, an angry scope across the peloton made it obvious the day would be one of pain and/or a vision quest. All Atlantic heavy-weights were in attendance; from Ryan Taylor to TYG, the field was stacked--we were only missing Lorenzo.
TYG, signing up for the 70km category in order to save his legs this weekend, assumed his destined position at the front of the pack, drafting off the fire truck as it helped to "start us neutrally". I joined him on the bumper, and Conor just accelerated, stretching out the field to a 70+ rider death-march less than 2km into the race.
With no KOM prize this year, the crew put it in lactic cruise control upon hitting the climb. TYG and Mac-10 took off, but were soon absorbed by a group frothing with the power of the Simmer, The Old Man, Marty, Da Burge and JR Cormier. We chilled somewhat at the top of the climb, but once we burst out of the double track onto a 5km dirt road section--seasoned with 40km/h cross-winds--the metallic slam of falling guillotines began to ring across the Cobequid Hills.
Falling to the severity of pace applied by TYG, TOM, Mac-10, and myself--and also due to their being taken surprise by having to ride in an echelon with a squirming shock and knobby tires, JB, JR and The Simmer fell off the back of the train, with Marty following shortly after.
TYG continued to hammer with the reckless abandon that only a 70km race can allow; TOM and I held his wheel and enjoyed the free ride, while Mac-10 bounced from the front to 10 seconds back depending on the brutality of the descent we'd just shredded.
Much like Viggo and Son in The Road, we'd been torn (well, ok, we were jubilant volunteers) from the comforts of modern life and placed in a ragged state of nature. The grind of the KOM opened the race akin to Man and Boy scouring the apocalyptic first-world skeleton for anything to post-pone their demise, followed by the intensity of the cross-wind section to compliment the primal fear struck by the roving cannibal gang.
Having collected a massive kinetic reserve, we entered another ATV trail and began the now-legendary 5-minutes-of-babyheads descent. Last year this was like descending a stream bed, with water splashing against face and hissing rotor--this year we enjoyed bone dry shreddage as we skipped across the clattering rocks like a menacing chorus of Somali AKs.
Thankfully--much like Man and Boy escaping unscathed from the cannibal house--we reached the bottom with aching hands and arms, but suffered no crashes. However, complimenting the Boy's mental scarring, I flatted towards the bottom. Marty and The Simmer passed me as I was awash in Stans and curses, but I got back on the bike in a furious anger ,only to blow past the right turn onto the road where the 45km feed zone was. I kept rolling down the dirt road descent at 50+, fully tucked with my forearms on the grips. After 5 minutes of that I heard a truck behind me on the horn. "Fuckers, there's like 2 cars per hour on this road--I've moved over more than enough." They pulled up with the window down and I expected to hear about how pretty my mouth looked, all resplendent with dusty gel, but it was the Da Kine rep and Derrick Ozon telling me that I had to turn around. Even better. Functioning between Australopithecus afarensis and an alligator, I screamed back some animal noises and finally thought to ask them for a drive. Thankfully, they obliged, and I threw my bike on top of a table they had in the bed and held on to it while truck-surfing back to the corner I'd missed. (The Road connection? Getting the drive = finding the bomb shelter.)
I met a haggard Taylor at the feed zone, who seemed almost comatose with fatigue; there was no reply from the islander when I said hi. (Actually, I said FUCK! blah, blah, blah...) I grabbed my seconds Camelbak which was filled with a litre of coke and a bunch of gatorade, and hammered away at the long grinder that began 100m from the feed table.
Meanwhile, back sur l'avant, TYG was driving hard like the Spirit of America ,and pulling TOM and Mac-10 around in his contrails. He was "dropping out" at 70km, though, which would be a source of much hilarity if peaking for nationals wasn't such a respectable excuse. As I was burying myself I was thinking that closing 15ish minutes in 2.5-3h is pretty doable, if I have a particularly strong finish--especially up the climb in the 30k loop.
At the start they told us that we could either come through the 70km check point (also the start/finish) and either run through a river (riding through = disqualified) or run up/ride down a bridge. I was the first to run through with my bike over my head. There was an awful lot of cheering making me think that they were joking about the river run, assuming everyone would take the bridge. Oh well.
Someone said TOM and Mac-10 had 6 minutes on me at that point, and I buried my arms on my grips and battened down the hatches for a 5km time trial on the paved road into the ski-hill-side mountains. The course took a right, crossed a river, and then began a long, long torturous grinder of a climb to the top of the mountain somewhere behind the ski hill.
Towards the top I began to catch riders from the 30km category, and as I approached the first one I thought it was TOM or Mac-10. I was getting ready to yell "I'm comin' for you Lennox!" but soon imagined that neither of them likely changed into a t-shirt at the last feed.
The best part about the whole race, post-flat, was meeting the Comeau family on the climb. It was pretty much like a off-road version of the Tourmalet; grinding up a steep pitch as sweat was swinging like a metronome from the top of my glasses, Luc and Oddette rode beside me screaming. I definitely got an extra 2 or 3 watts per decibel out of their enthusiasm.
The Comeau's told me Mac-10 and TOM had about 2 minutes on me, and to close that on the descent and final climb up to the Hostel would be tough, but--I was hoping--doable. After the climb finally levels out the course rolls along a logging-shaved plateau before taking a left into a section of ATV trail that's filled with rocks under tall grass. I was expecting a left to come up, and took the first one I saw that was marked with the pink tape. This mistake (one that plagued a bunch of riders in the race...) was likely do as much with my panic-stricken, starved-wolf state as with local rednecks who probably vandalized the course. The "trail" petered out to nothing in about 150m, but was beaten down a fair bit by 30km riders who made the same mistake. Rather then walk back up through the mess of poison ivy etc, I bushwacked across to the grass/rock descent and halfheartedly resumed chasing.
After the grass descent the course resumed its typical ATV trail with loose rocks type stuff, and if not making time, I was enjoying myself as there was company/carrots present in the 30km riders I was passing. This was short-lived, as I took an off camber corner hard, getting around a huge puddle, and my tire bead left the rim enough for the latex tube I'd put in earlier to expose itself and promptly explode. George Carlin would have referred to that occurrence as "just fuckin' dandy". (Connection to The Road? The Man getting shot with the arrow when they reach the coast.)
Of course, I had no spare tube, and had to beg for salvation from the 30kmers as they cruised by. The first Samaritan who stopped gave me a schrader tube. I was almost in tears as I gave it back, them having never heard the term "presta" and me not exactly feeling like taking advantage of the teachable moment. I assume they thought I must have cramped when I ran over to get it from them, or that a 100km race kills more brain cells than agent orange. After a few minutes, Matt "from the group rides and shorttrack" came by and gave me his tube. I threw the rest of my co2 in it, and thought i'd pumped it up enough as he let me use his pump just in case, but I soon realized that it had about 15 lbs in it. My goal for the rest of the race became keeping air in my back tire and keeping an eye out for an approaching Simmer or Marty.
I rolled down to the gravel pit, along the highway, up the Hostel climb and down to the picnic park a beaten man. Getting into the river was as good as I'd thought it'd be for the last 20 minutes.
Mac-10 and TOM had a ferocious battle across the final 30k. They rolled hard into the climb, where the sylph-like Mac (sorry, that's not an insult--Cyclingnews described Contador that way!) shed TOM once the dirt angled up harshly. He had about a minute gap by the top, but was foiled by the same wrong turn I made later--into the clear-cut he went. He realized it quickly, but not before TOM blew by, ignoring the tape and smelling victory on the rough descent that laid ahead.
They nearly drag-raced on the highway section, with TOM in sight of Mac-10, who was about 500m back. Mac dug his grave on this section, thinking that the course must follow the old Trans-Can straight back to the picnic park, but TOM saved something for the climb up to the Hostel that laid ahead, and sealed his victory with a mixture of redbull, blood and powergel.
The Simmer rolled in for 4th, with Marty shortly behind. We expected JB to fit somewhere in there, but a rock had flown up and severed his rear derailleur cable--he (understandably) stopped at 70.
Kaarin Tae won the women's 70km, with Enid 15ish minutes back from her; Z-Machine back about 30m from Enid. Suzie was the sole woman to brave the 100km distance, but a cracked and dragging rim had sapped most of her energy and morale by the 70km mark.
With a race that long, awards took a while after the first riders landed in the river, and we sprawled out on the golf course of a picnic park and soaked up even more sun. Warm beer flowed, and aching calluses were soothed by smooth glass. Just like last year, we've got to thank Bruce, Daisy, Conor, Brad and the rest for an awesome event. Incredible for them to mark all 100km of this course, much of it weeks and days in advance. Extreme thanks, and extreme props.
Pictures are up on the Hub Cycle Facebook page, and The Ol' Man has Garminized the whole course for your viewing pleasure: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/39248542
Results: http://hubcycle.ca/about/conquer-the-pass-2010-results-pg184.htm
