2010 Salsa Two-Four

This past weekend was the Salsa Two-Four, a 24 hour mountain bike race at the Afton Alps Ski Area in Hastings, MN. Luckily my fingers are about the only part of my body that doesn't hurt right now, so I am able to write up a race recap.

I was a solo participant in the race last year. I wanted to experience a 24 hour race on my own schedule, i.e be able to ride or rest/sleep whenever I wanted to. This year I joined up with 3 guys from work and we entered the 4-Man Open Division.

This is how a 24 Hour Race works. The course at Afton is a 6.8 mile loop. Each team is allowed to have one person on the course at a time. When the rider completes the lap they can either continue on for another lap or they hand off and a teammate goes out on a lap. Each participant wears a timing chip around their ankle in order to keep track of laps completed and lap times.

I was the 2nd rider on our team to head out on a lap. As I waited for Mike to complete his lap the leader of the race came through in a blistering 34 minutes, a full 15 minutes in front of the 2nd place rider. To further illustrate the gap between me and a really, really good rider, my fastest lap was 1 hour 24 minutes. Yep, the leader could have almost finished 3 laps in the time it took me to do one. Amazing!

Lap 1: 10:55 am (Team Lap 2):

The first lap of last years race nearly killed me. I literally almost quit half way through it. The amount of climbing destroyed me and I didn't know how I would complete one lap, much less attempt any more. I was happy I knew what to expect this year, but I was still very nervous about how I would do. For the most part the first lap went well. I managed to fight off a massive adrenaline dump and attempted to ride a constant pace. After all, I still had 22 hours to complete another lap or two... I didn't climb quit as well as I had hoped and I had to do several hike-a-bikes through sections that I had ridden in last years race. This would come back to bite me later on in the race. I was happy with how I handled all of the technical, rocky, descents as I got through each of them without incident. After 1 hour and 24 minutes, Lap 1 was done. I was pretty beat, but nowhere to the extent of last year. I was a little worried about what felt like a blister developing on my right heal and the scorching heat, as much of the course is in the open.


Lap 2: 3:58 pm (Team Lap 6)

As I headed out for Lap 2 I could not believe how unbelievably hot it was. It didn't matter if I was in the woods or out in the meadows, the heat was crushing. Despite the heat, my legs were feeling good. The first lap had gotten the initial burn out of me and I settled into a pretty good groove. I still wasn't climbing all the sections I did last year, but I was making progress in that I got through a few sections that I walked in Lap 1. I was on pace to put in a lap time of somewhere around 1:05....and then the heat caught up to me. As I was going through one of the rocky downhills I pinned my front wheel on a rock and did not have enough speed for the suspension to soak up the hit. As I was about to get launched over the handle bars I tried to correct with all my strength. I successfully avoided hitting the deck, but the effort caused my legs to cramp slightly. The slight cramps would change to severe cramps in less than a half mile and I would have to get off my bike to try to get the knots to let loose. After about 5 minutes I was able to get back on my bike, but my legs were constantly on the edge of cramps for the remainder of the lap. Thanks to the cramps, and blisters on my right foot that were making the hike-a-bikes increasingly more painful, I turned in a lap of 1:28 instead of something closer to 1:05.


Lap 3: 8:53 pm (Team Lap 10)

I love night riding, especially at Afton. The trails are not lit up by the lights at the ski area, instead each rider has a helmet mounted and/or handlebar mounted light. While these lights are extremely bright you can still only see so far. The advantage of this is you can't see how much further the climbs go or how steep they are. Granted by this point I basically have the course memorized, but it is still nice to not be able to see the massive climb in front of you. It is amazing how often I would talk myself out of doing a climb during the day only to find myself powering up it during the night laps. The mental part of riding is definitely something I need to work on.

I made it about half way through the lap before the cramps came back again. My legs never seized up like they did in lap 2, but I had to be very careful on how I positioned myself on the bike and how I got on and off to hike certain sections. Not only were the cramps impacting me, but the blisters on my right heel were getting worse with every step I had to take. Click here for a picture of the damage to my heel. Warning, the picture is pretty gross! The good thing about the blisters was it made getting off the bike extremely painful, so I attempted to stay on the bike at all costs. And wouldn't you know it, I began climbing sections I had been unable to climb in the previous 2 laps or during last years race. However, there were still sections that were not doable, namely Manhandler.

Manhandler is Afton's penultimate climb that comes at the very end of the lap. It is a ~3/4 mile beast that only a few riders manage to get completely up. In an effort to motivate riders, there were tents set up at the top blasting music and videos. In addition to that there were friendly hecklers to "encourage" the riders to give their best effort. A few of my favorite heckles were: "I can see that you are out of gears, but are you really going to let a giant pile of dirt beat you?" "There is no climb, it is all in your head. You're actually on a gentle downward slope." and "You think that because you have opposable thumbs and a fancy bike you can get up this hill! This hill is hungry for souls and yours looks like lunch! Here lunchie, lunchie, lunchie." What can I say, the heckling worked as I was able to get up the last 1/4 mile which is semi-rideable during the last 3 laps. The hecklers were definitely a highlight of the race.


Lap 4: 2:19 am (Team Lap 14)

Between laps 3 and 4 I kicked back in my tent, but I never really slept because I wasn't completely sure I would be able to wake up for my next lap. I think I dozed off for about a half hour, but that was it. My legs had a pretty good jello feeling as I headed up the first climb that leaves the start/finish area. That didn't concern me as much as wondering when the cramps would come back. Surprisingly, they never did. I managed to shake the cobwebs from my legs and I felt pretty good for the entire lap. It was the best I had felt since the first half of lap 2.

Lap 5: 7:49 am (Team Lap 18)

After lap 4 I crawled into my tent and grabbed two hours of sleep. When my alarm went off I had to do some serious talking to myself in order to get up and going. The thought of going out for one final lap did not sound very appealing. I drank a bottle of water and downed another package of Clif Shot Bloks and decided I had to do one more lap. As I headed out on my final lap I couldn't believe how hot it was already. The sun felt like it was suffocating me, one more reason I was extremely happy that this would be my last lap of the race. Despite the heat, lap 5 went really well. I was still solid on the technical stuff and I was climbing the best I had all weekend. I crossed the finish line and let out a pretty good scream in celebration of being done. I wished my teammate Jim good luck on his final lap and I headed back to camp to gorge on sandwiches, soda and at long last a cold beer!

A few interesting notes on this year's Salsa Two-Four:

* Team Furious finished with 19 laps in 24:22:17 for a total of 130 miles
* My final stats: 5 laps in 7:21:49, 34 miles and ~7,500 feet of climbing
* Hours of sleep: 3
* # of Crashes: 0!!!
* Total laps completed by all participants: 1,275

Complete race results can be found here

Course Profile here