CC/VQ reports :) / Preliminary Results (merged threads)

BTW: Does anyone know the story with all the Sho Air crew who didn't have numbers but seemed to be basically participating in the event? I know the course is still open to the public, but it seemed like there were a lot of them out there and all in full team kit?
Rolling billboards?

And to the 3 or 4 guys who rolled past all the commotion on Trabuco Creek Road, past the aid station, and probably past dozens of people with race numbers coming at the at high speed, yet still decided this was a good day to climb Holy Jim....What The Huck guys?
:?:

OK, end of mini gripe session.
It was a wonderful day out there!

+1, even if it does make me feel like a bit of a hypocritical d-bag for my mini-gripe session

 

I saw two guys with broken chains who scootered it on in.
I think they did it on LHJ, so they had only downhill left. If Manny was in the same boat. Maybe he would have won the scooter division.
Tinker missed the turn?, maybe reports of marking problems have merit.
Congrats to all of you riders out there.

 

Today was another amazing day, and the weather was absolutely perfect. Nice and cool at the top of saddleback, not too cold not too warm, perfect for a t-shirt. WTH was just warm enough to make you see double, but the burger at the top was worth it!

I had a close call on blackstar...almost dropped into a ditch in the valley right before the last climb, as I outran my mini helmet light. It was on the left hand side and about 3ftx2ft. After that I considered my free-card spent so I took it really cautious on motoway and holy jim. By the time I was at Trabuco I stopped caring because all I wanted to do was finish.

Big thanks to all the volunteers that made 2010 VQ happen.

PS. Was it just me or did it seem like there were less single speeders this year?

 

I had a blast today! First CC, definitely not my last.

Climbing blackstar in the dark with hundreds of people was amazing.

I did great on B* to motorway. A tiny hint of cramping in my inner thigh, but nothing major. Got to the bottom of motorway faster than I ever had before. Had 2 awesome friends waiting to replace my energy and take my warmers and light.

MS was a little worse for me than when I did this course two weeks prior. About a half mile into the dirt part my brain started yapping. I had to tell it to SHUT UP! got to the peak in another one of my fastest times. I was feeling it though.

UHJ/LHJ are a blast to go down. Still can't do most of the switchbacks on UHJ. But I can clean the rest, Had to dismount on account of a few riders walking. Which didn't bother me one bit. taking the wash out knowing I'm going to get in under my goal time was great.

I wanted under 8 hours, secretly I wanted under 7, but I told myself anything under 8 would be awesome. Got 6:28, to my surprise. I thought I had done the bare minimum of training, I guess it was a little more than that.

It was nice meeting Zippo and Phishing Paul out there. And A Huge thanks to the warrior society and all the volunteers.
Here's a little picture of me and my Wife (Krunner44), Who finished the VQ on a SS in 9:44!!, at the finish

 

These guys all tried to start with the pack. We held them back nearly 45 minutes after the start....I figured they would hammer.......I only hope they didn't recieve any assistance at the Aide stations.

 

On to the event from the veiwpoint of a volunteer(VR):

It was much colder this morning at 4am than I think most of us expected. Everybody seemed pumped and excited...some looked anxious....some nervous....some scared.

Everybody took off into the darkness. I would later hear from many riders that they actually enjoyed the additional darkness...keeping the temps cool for a longer time.

Tore down the start and headed over to the finish line to get set up. While setting up......our communications guy stated that Jerimiah Bishop had just cleared 4 Corners.......at 2:29. HOLY Crap that was quick.

A short time later we heard that the first CC rider had cleared Holy Jim and was on his way out. Danny Munoz came around the corner so early, we were nearly not ready for him.......3:54(course record) 3:55 old record. 2nd rider would not come in until nearly 30 minutes later.

Jerimiah Bishop came through the finish line......4:43(course record) 5:07 old record.

I was lucky to be able to sit, call out your name and numbers as you all came through the finish line. It is always fun to see the different states that everyone is in when they cross the line. Some are happy, some are indifferent, some are emotional, lots looked like zombies(I think they found thier Vision Quest). :wave:

The last riders came in just before 11 hrs. :clap::bang:

After tearing down the finish line, heading over to O'Neil for some El Pollo Loco, I finally made it home at 7:15.

It was a great event and congrats to all that started, finished or just gave it their all. :beer::beer:

What a day.

We will see you all at Traverse. :wave:


OK........Rant time:

Thumbs down to the unregistered asshat on the Silver Turner/Black Marzocchi fork with the Brown Camo Fox lid that went around the check in tape, after he was told he would not ge allowed to leave with the pack......who then pushed through at the gate to Blackstar as well..........Thanks for poaching our event.......I hear he ran into the enforcer up at gate to Beeks.[-X

This goes for the Sho-Air/RnR guys that hung around for 45 minutes before they were allowed to go.......350 people payed to ride this event.....poaching the ride.....is not cool.....you could go out there and ride any of the other 364 days in the year. You would not line up with the pack at Sagebrush or Fontana or Hurkey Creek if you were not registered. I hope they did not recieve aid at the aid stations. rotest:

One more thing.......this event sold out in a very short time.....we had 38 riders not show up for the event(14 picked up thier packets the last 2 days). Don't sign up if you don't plan to ride. 38 other people that did not get in might have had a chance if you had not taken thier spot and not used it.

End Rant. :lol:

 

Honestly, if you're going to get that bent, close the course during the event. If you do not have the means to do so, suck it up.

 

Also not a cool way to represent your sponsors. That definitely left a negative impression on me.

 

Had a great time out there shooting photos of all you guys, apologizes ahead of time if I missed any of you. I started at Motorway, about a half mile before the aid station. Stayed there for about two hours after Manny went by then headed to Holy Jim to catch the leaders again and planned to stay there till my friend Chris (chanson) went by. If anyone saw a dork pulling a kid trailer with photo gear in the back that was me . I really feel bad for all you guys who have to deal with the traffic driving up and down Trabuco Canyon Road, and is why I chose to ride my bike a few miles in versus driving in.

Here are some teasers, I'll have all my shots up on my site later in the week. Enjoy and congrats to everyone who participated!

 

Excellent day of pain. My first VQ, last year I did CC and the Traverse so I figured it was time.

Some of my favorite parts of this long day.

1. Rolling in at 4:45 on Blackstar Canyon Road and seeing a guy warming up at full
steam with lights on his head on his trainer behind his truck. Again its 4:45 and he had the killer look of a breakaway rider at the finish line.
2. Parking next to Tinker's SUV in the morning and him asking me if I'll be running lights this morning. I said, ahhh yes. Its dark. He said do you have an extra one?
I said, sorry, just stick with Manny you'll be fine. He must have brought his lights.
3. Looking back on Blackstar multiple times and seeing hundreds of rider lights winding up the canyon, with the city lights twinkling behind.
4. Seeing Gene on Blackstar on the only other Rocky Mountain today. My Rocky brother.
5. Running into Matt(Solorider) past the golfball, and trying to get his attention for 5 minutes while he was mashing his SS, riding within 6 inches to my left focused and dedicated. No interruptions please. I damn near went off a cliff trying to say Hi.
6. Having Sol (SDStumpy) ride his tandem roadie with his wife halfway up Maple to cheer for us.
7. Getting only one flat. Not two.
8. All the cold water crossings on Holy Jim. Loved it. Ice cold and refreshing, the bigger and more splash the better.
9. Making it back to the base of Holy Jim in 6 hours flat, meaning if I was doing CC, I would have shaved 2 hours off last years time of 8.5 hours.
10. Getting to the top of WHT. Hate that hike a bike. Horrible. Just horrible.
11. Seeing the finish line and racing that guy on the last 2 miles of Trabuco getting the crap beat out of us. But making a strong finish.

Finally riding over to Oneill and walking up to a family of 20 with lots of bikes and starting to make hot dogs off their picnic table. I asked them where the El Pollo Loco was and they asked me who the hell I was. I apologized and told them I have been up since 3 and just rode my bike up THOSE mountains a few times. They let me go without calling the cops. Later I realized all the bikes had training wheels.

Thanks WS. See you at the Traverse.

 

VQ Feather #4 will have to wait until next year. I was optimistic that I could make up a few minutes from last year's pace which was slowed by flats. I turned out that my early splits were good but my hand and elbow were troublesome. The final ride on the chunk up to Santiago Peak were punishing to those parts, I was not going to do any standing and climbing.

I tried to make up the time on LHJ (I saw those guys riding up but they were polite, standing aside when they hear me coming.) but the clock had run out. I could still relish riding the water crossings. Late by 10 minutes.

I had a long rest at Aid #2, met quikflip27 wave, and proceeded to the final torture on Trabuco road. My buddy Phil could have made the VQ but waited for me at the bottom of LHJ (maybe he worried about getting a ride home :lol.

Thanks to the volunteers for donating their day. :beer:

 

I am not one to stick up for J, nor the Warriors, especially after being stranded at ONeil after a 12+ hour volunteer shift (2nd time in a year guys-I'm done). However, I agree that it is incredibly selfish, self serving and unjust to show up at an organized event that has a start time specifically designed to minimize the impact of such a large number of people, en mass, to other users of the forestry system, where riders paid to participate and made an effort to get a legitimate spot. If there was an altruistic intent, you would have volunteered, checked into volunteering, or riden as support sweeping the last rider, or pacing a cancer survivor, instead of riding the entire event for your own reasons (the selfish act by which I speak).

As you may know, the forestry service will not close the roads-same thing occurs in Big Bear with their races. The CC/VQ has a restriction of the number of participant spots based on what the forestry service allows, and the forestry service is up there watching.

If you want to ride the course, what problem is there riding it later, or on another day? What honor do you get clogging the course, slowing the real riders, who have time cutoffs, and potentially inhibiting support vehicles?

Don't get me wrong, I have a tremendous amount of respect for anyone taking on this course; just don't disrespect the participants by doing so. Take a hint from Sanje (sp?), if you want to do it yourself DO IT YOURSELF.

 

Were you with me pushing up WHT, both of us hating life and delirious? I was in the green jersey with a ti bike. If not, there was another Rocky Mtn out there today

 

My ride report:
Started off a little sluggish on Blackstar but felt better on Maple Springs. Went flying OTB on U Holy Jim, then went flying into the bushes on L Holy Jim after passing someone on a switch back. Thanks to him by the way, for stopping to help me pull my bike out of the bushes! Still had a pretty good race going and was on track to PR and meet my goal of under 8 hrs, but flatted on Trabuco. Then again, and again. Flagged down someone and borrowed a tube (thanks!). Flatted again. Had to run down to the last aid station, where someone lent me a tube. I'm guessing now that my bead was too flimsy and I couldn't get enough pressure with the hand pump to set it right, so I kept pinch flatting. Well, needless to say, I didn't PR, but it was still a good day. Really appreciated the help on the trail and at the aid stations. Guess it means I have to sign up for this suffer fest again next year!

 

So true. :lol:

 

People upset with the team poachers should contact their sponsoring bike shop!

 

Completed my first VQ , made all the cutoffs with plenty time to spare , completely lost a ton of time up the trabuco-west horsethief (hab) it wasnt pretty at that point but finished the event , very happy with the support and overall organization of the event .It got hot out there , I will do this again .. Congrats to everyone.

 

I was one of the last VQ finishers (same as last year8-[). I was surprised to to see all the volunteers and supporters yelling and screaming like I was a podium finisher :bang:. Must have been a long day for you guys.

Last night, I swore that I would not ever do that again. I didn't even want to see Blackstar ever again!

This morning... I wondering when is the sign-up for 2011!

 

Grasshoppers...

I laughed so hard over this ... that my back went into spasms and had to take more pain meds... this is soooo true! I lay on the couch today watching the b-games on TV but my heart was up on Saddleback. From my couch I can also see the mountain and this is the first VQ/CC I've missed in years, either working or riding it. I can tell you I would have much rather been suffering with you guys pushing up WHT than laying on the stupid couch.

Keep the reports coming coming... and congrats to all that participated... there are no losers in this effort. Special props to the volunteers... your efforts makes all this possible...

I look forward to next year with a new back ....I'll be back! to volunteer. I plan on doing it again in 2 years for my 70th and dedicate it to Bob Haislett.

PS to Doug (Abui)... you'll kill it next year.

:bang::bang::bang::bang:

 

Dave......doesn't matter if you are first or last....everyone is treated equally. :clap: