Base Camp-Moab 2007

OK 24 Hours of Moab – Sat Oct 13 1200 noon –Sunday Oct 14 1200 noon, 2007 – team “Shiner Bocks” (a Texas beer for the unindoctrinated) Here goes;“Moab? Sure I’m in!” …..one small step for man….. you know the rest. My thinking; “great to have a late season goal to help keep the fire burning”…

not one thought about just what an incredible epic we were about to be privileged to be part of. Sheldon found a couple of guys like us looking to fill a 4 man team on the Moab website and we committed. Ron and Tom – they had all the camping equipment, had ridden the race in 2001 and 2002 and were willing to baby-sit us so we really had hit the jackpot. Couldn’t have found two nicer guys and I really appreciate what a great time we had with them. Ron’s cousin Nick – previous racer, bad back – still felt the fire and agreed to come along and wrench/support for us. I had no idea at the time what an incredible contribution someone in that role provides.           

You hear the stories about all the things that go wrong and plans that change along the way and it is easy to think “Not us! We'll make Plan A and stick to it” Ha! That was possibly the most naive assumption in a long series. Thursday; Tear bike apart, pack it up for flying and hope it comes out the other end of the flight ride-worthy. Every tool, piece of bike clothing, etc I could think of.            

Friday; Up at 4:30, begin long travel day, Arr Salt Lake City, rent SUV load up and begin the 3+ hour drive to catch up with all the guys that were already there yesterday and had done a preride. Start driving 60-65MPH, not cutting it, soon 65-75, still not getting there, try 75-85, hmmm, almost, finish 95-95, now I’m covering some serious ground. If I could only have navigated a bit better at that speed I wouldn’t have take the wrong turn 4 times and had to go back and pass all the same cars 4 times. Not cool. Oh well. Finally! arrive @ 10:30PM – Hard to describe what it looks like to pull in a bumpy dirt road and when you bounce around the last corner you are looking at the scene of 4000 people camping in the desert. It is surreal. There are people and campfires and kids and dogs and bikes and tents and RV’s everywhere you look. The energy in the air is 10,000 volts. The whole world revolves around tomorrow at noon and you can cut the tension with a knife! I find Nick somehow after driving around lost and he guides me into the campsite. Everyone is asleep so I crawl into my sleeping bag in the tent @ 11:00 to try to get some sleep. Are you kidding!?! Sleep!?! Pretty hard to come down from that drive and that scene and drift off to sleep; a thought that I am still contemplating as I lie there wide awake until 1:00AM. Oh well. What a day!            

Saturday; Race Day! Up early, get to meet all the guys. Get some food, check out our digs. Ron’s tent “the condo” is like a condo only bigger. The whole campsite is A+. We even have a bike wrench tent top complete with tables tools and two mechanic stands – very cool. Start putting bike together. Sheldon the big stud has basically crawled (almost) off his deathbed to come to the race. He committed to come and he didn’t want to let the team down even though he did have bronchitis and a 2nd degree separated shoulder. What a gamer! The 6000 ft altitude had him coughing up some pretty scary things, but if any of you know Sheldon, it takes a lot more than that to take the smile off his face. He is there to anchor the team and we know we can count on him no matter what. As he said “Bruce for Mojo – Sheldon for Gojo!” Now time to implement our carefully laid plan – Plan A, what’s that?? Plan A is off already? Just for the record Plan A was for me and Nick (not racing) to do a nice easy preride (15 mile lap) and then for me to race 4th so that I can get some rest from the preride and the short night before my turn. So I roll in from my ½ lap preride. Huhh? Plan B? ….because the race has a 300M run to spread the animals for the start, Sheldon feels (rightly so) that the dust from running in the pack will kill his lungs, Tom doesn’t want to go first, and Ron is built like Barnsley with no neck. Not exactly a runner. Any volunteers to go first?? Good guess. Me. So we line up for the run. Count down 10, 9, 8 …. except that means everyone goes at 5 right? 50m into the run some 85lb girl hits me from behind like a linebacker and sends me head over heels down in the dirt. Actually I never did find out who did it which was probably a good thing. Pulled my hamstring. When we got back to the transition and started to head out on the bikes there were nearly 500 riders trying to roll out, it was chaotic. Roll out about ½ a mile and start the long, rocky technical climb. Just me and about 50 of my close personal friends…..very close…..and very personal. Falling, walking, stopping, trying to pass, trying not to be passed – you get the picture. Suffice to say that the nice lines that I saw on the preride were wall to wall knuckleheads and the line I actually could get some space was only open because it was death-defying. If you were off line climbing you were bunny hopping rocks and ledges up a hill that was tough even without all that, or off line descending you were in a bad bad place going very very fast, or offline in the flats you were in 6” of sand. It was that or plod along behind someone till your brain explodes. Tough technical course filled with real racers at 6000ft altitude. It was a rush. Managed a 1:32 – passed off to Tom.

Tom hit the loop with a good spread of the field 75 degrees and no run and rattled off a 1:34. Good Solid lap. He passed off to Ron who pounded out a steady Clydesdale 1:47. He passed off to Sheldon who smoked out a 1:22….the Sheldon we know and love. Great work. He ended feeling good and I was off on lap 2. MUCH better. This time I didn’t have dirt and sand blasted into every part to my body and 10,000 riders surrounding me. No excuses, just ride that bike. I had about 45 minutes of daylight left and that would get my past about ½ the really nasty technical stuff. Felt strong and fast and when it got dark I turned on those two HID’s and transitioned into “the other Bruce” I rode absolutely wide open up down and everywhere. Smashing through all the offline stuff on the first lap had conditioned me to go fast and loose in the dark. As I road the rough stuff my technical skills felt really good so I blasted even harder, passing a lot of riders that were walking the rocky sections. As I started to get closer to the finish, I was watching my watch and realized I was on pace to beat my first lap 1:32 so I dropped the hammer and went for it. I had to laugh when, close to the finish, I reached down to push the light button on my watch and pushed the “stop” button at 1:27!! Nooooo!! Now I really dropped the hammer and hoped for the best time. Finished 1:30 YAA!!Passed off to Tom and headed to try to calm my frayed nerves, get some food, and try to get off my feet for a bit of rest while Tom, Ron, and Sheldon took their pulls.

When I got up to prepare for my third lap it was hovering in the low 40’s. Hard to get that engine fired up when you’re shivering cold out of the sleeping bag (after what seems like 10 minutes sleep) and trying to change into your freezing bike gear. Fire’s gone out, everyone asleep, down some freezing sports drink and roll down to the transition area. Where was Sheldon?? Two thoughts; hurry up I’m freezing!! and hope that he’s OK. 1:30 rolls by-no Shel, 1:40 rolls by – no Shel…. This isn’t looking right. Suddenly 1:43 Shel rolls in “I went over the bars down some rocks, hurt my knee”, that didn’t sound good – took off and was thankful to be pedaling but also frozen and very stiff. One of the strongest images that I have from all my dark laps was that long stretch out of the transition and along the first ½ mile of single track which parallels the road into the race site. There are campsites all along the track for about 400m and riding along there with campfires everywhere, sometimes riding right through the smoke. There are tent shelters with people working on bikes and colorful patio lights here and there, the odd person shouting out encouragement, and all the trail dust hanging in the air and drifting up through your lights. You’re heading out to certain death. All the weird sounds and sights mixing …..it’s like a freaky scene from “Mountain Bike Apocalypse Now”. Spun along trying to manage my heart rate and warm up and all of a sudden on one rocky rise everything kind of revved up, looked at my watch – 15:00 – let’r rip and away we went again. Clean, hard, lap – blasted of a 1:38, passed off to Tom and headed for some food, hydration, and my little cocoon.  Not so fast! Huh? What’s up? Ron hurt his back? Sheldon’s knee is badly banged up?… “after Tom gets back you have to go again”…..oh shit. That ain’t a pretty picture. So, while the boys all go back to bed, I hike across the camping grounds at 4:30AM to carry back another armload of firewood to try to get warmed up and try to get some food down.

Head down to the transition area late, Tom has already been there and is waiting.Lap 4 - “The Death March” long story short….pain, aching legs, cramps, aching back, 1/3 lap to go lights go dead. Thank goodness that with about 20 minutes left the sun started to rise. Wobbled my way into the finish a disappointing 1:56 and Sheldon (back from injured reserve) blasted out and managed a scorching 1:38.Tom followed…pulled out a nice 1:49 for his fourth lap which was his fastest since his opener 1:33 – great closing lap, especially how he pulled it back from a shattering “bonk” in lap two. Shel ground out one last lap – mostly because he saw the pathetic look on my face when it was suggested that I do one more. Anyways he rallied, the sun was warming everyone and it was the final push for the checkered flag. He even knocked out a very respectable 1:46!! Stud.So as the dust settled, we all hit the sleeping bags to lick our wounds and pound our ears for a while. A couple hours later the call of the beers drew us out of our cubby holes to sit around, pressure off, and recount race tales and hair raising moments. We were already starting to delude ourselves that we had done pretty well, but beneath the surface, although no one was acknowledging it, we were already planning how to right the wrongs next time and ride for glory next year. It’s hard to describe the feeling of accomplishment when you’re done. The challenge….camaraderie… I wouldn’t say “fun” is exactly the right word but very satisfying.

Last word – “It’s amazing that when time stands still it goes by so fast”

 Bruce Hale  

Bruce and Sheldon looking  oh-so-fresh at Slickrock Trail after the 24 Hours of Moab