Giving it the Old College Try
Collegiate Mountain Biker Patrick Means recaps Western Washington University Cycling's Trip to Collegiate Mountain Bike Nationals
Submitted by Patrick Means
November 14, 2007
Leaving Bellingham around 5:00 pm on Tuesday, October 23rd, I don't think anyone had any idea of just how epic the next twenty-four hours were going to be. WWU Cycling was heading to Banner Elk, NC with big plans. All the planning had come to an end and there was only one thing left to do: race our bicycles.
Twenty-one-and-a-half hours later we arrived in Banner Elk. Perpetual turbulence and cramped seats yielded at max thirty minutes of sleep through the night. Maybe the red-eye wasn't such a great idea. We got the keys to the condo and started in on some extreme hanging out.
"Minor details"
We were short three bikes. Leana Gerrard's dual slalom bike, Chris Parrish's XC bike, and my downhill rig. But they were coming, we hoped. The airline had simply not included them on our flight from New Jersey to North Carolina. Storage must've been tight. It was also raining really hard.
After getting down to business with our pillows, we awoke the next day to more rain. Apparently, the South had been experiencing a pretty serious drought, but it was rather hard to believe when we showed up. Chris Bateman (a.k.a PB), Vaughn Larsen, and Leana rolled out to the downhill course to see what they'd be dealing with, while Kyle, Chris, Logan Wetzel, Steve Noble and I cruised out the cross-country course.
Dr. Steve Noble is a huge sponsor of WWU Cycling. He runs Noble Sports Chiropractic here in Bellingham. As a friend and fellow mountain biker, we thought bringing Steve along would be a great way for him to connect with the team more and for us to give back to him in the same way. Plus, it never hurts to have a doctor around at a mountain bike race, right?
Let's do the Math
We had no idea what to expect of the course. Lees-McRae had built their own XC course specifically for nationals. What we found was a course that, at the time, was literally around twenty-percent ridable. Let's do some math: A lap on the XC course was five miles, then one mile of gravel road, and the rest was single track. If your drive-train was still functioning when you got to the road, you could ride the road. We'll be optimistic here and say that you were able to shift gears, and your wheels spun freely when you got to the road. So that made four miles of single track, twenty-percent of it ridable. Walking, running, slipping distance was equal to about 3.2 miles per lap. There were four laps for a total race distance of twenty miles. That meant about 12.8 miles of foot work, leaving 7.2 miles on the bike.
Phooey!
Did we seriously come this whole way to put some running shoes on? There was talk of finding a twelve-inch wheeled kids bike and strapping it to your back and just going for a twenty-mile jog. Needless to say, everyone was really relaxed about the race now. No pressure coming from a race, that honestly didn't feel like a race.
Steve and I went to the riders meeting that night expecting a course change as there was a tried and true NORBA XC course just a few miles away on Sugar Mountain. However, no such news dropped, and tensions were high at the meeting. Ok, so we would race the Lees-McRae course.
Rude Awakening
Waking up to eat for an 8:00 am XC race sucks. And not just because it can be hard to find your appetite at 5:30 in the morning. The parking lot at the race was full, but it was still pitch black outside at 7:00 am. We were hopeful the course would be in better shape. We gave Logan the first row call up, because he's been ripping it up lately in 'cross and XC. I took the second row because the technical course suited my abilities well, then Chris and Kyle. We thought this was a good set up as Chris has amazing endurance and can usually come on strong at the end of races when other people fade.
The course proved to be a little more ridable for the race; probably around fifty percent, or so. Logan had mud pack in his frame and rear wheel, and by the third lap it was safe to say that his rear wheel was not spinning freely at all. He was with Colin Cares (a U23 national team member) in second position, but his gunked up bike tired him out and he faded. He would hold on for tenth place though.
Chris raced a great race and hammered it out to finish fourth. I started cramping on the third lap from all the running and lost my fourth place position, dropping back to eighth. Kyle started to catch Chris and I on the third lap and then the length got to him. On top of that, some spectators told him that he was done when he really had another lap to go! Rough. He hung out for a minute or so at the finish line before realizing he'd been lied to and still smashed out another lap to finish seventeenth out of more then fifty guys.
All Downhill From Here
With the XC race over it was time for me to find my DH bike, build it, and then go learn the course as best I could. And unlike the XC course, the downhill course was sweet. They ran it down Sugar Mountain on the NORBA Course and I was pretty surprised to see that they were sending everyone down the same course. The next morning on my way up on the chair-lift, the course was below me so I got to watch most of the Division Two women come down. I saw a girl throwing her bike down the trail, walking to it, picking it up, throwing it; repeat, repeat. This was during her race run.
"That's kinda sad," I thought.
Some teams make girls race all the races just to get points. A lot of the time, the girls categories don't go deep enough to exclude someone from points, so dead last still gets your team some points. Hence, there were girls in spando, on full XC bikes, trying to ride a NORBA DH course. Scary.
Despite having not ridden my DH bike since early August, I raced a really clean run and was stoked to finish eighteenth out of around 37 people. The bottom part of the course was super smooth and you just had to pedal as hard as you could. I finished my run and walked up to the last bump on the course to wait for Vaughn and PB. When PB came down I yelled, "pedal!!!" a lot and really loudly. And believe me, I don't care how many criteriums you've been to, I've never seen anyone pedal so freaking hard.
Both Vaughn and PB smashed the downhill race. Vaughn missed the podium by just over one second, finishing in sixth place out of forty people. PB finished second, about two seconds behind the winner. Our lone women, Leana Gerrard had a stroke of bad luck and crashed on her run. She still was only four seconds behind the winner.
Out of the DH baggies and into some WWU Spando
The short track course was rippin'. We discussed it and decided to have Logan take the first call-up again because he's super-good at fast starts. Kyle was rearing to go and was happy that Logan could spread out the pack pretty good from the start. He took the second row, just behind Logan. Chris and I lined up on the side, hoping to make a fast transition up to the front. I didn't get to see much of what went on after the gun went off. Some people crashed right at the first turn - it was really muddy - and it's safe to say that everyone out there was in oxygen debt.
All we know is Kyle went on a rampage. He chased, suffered in no-mans-land for two or three laps, and then caught Colin Cares and his fellow Colorado College teammate. Colin attacked and Kyle brought him back, then he attacked again and it was more than Kyle could do. Colin Cares rode off for the win, while Kyle lost the sprint finish at the end by a mere seven-tenths of a second. All I remember is hearing Kyle's name on the loud speaker, a lot. Kyle was a hero that race. Chris and I both had a pretty good race, finishing eighth and tenth respectively. Logan rallied strong for fifth.
No Rest for the Weary
It was now time to get back on the DH bike to practice dual slalom. My first run down the course confirmed what PB, Vaughn and Leana had all told me: A DH bike would be way too big and slow for the course. "Should I ride my XC bike?" I wondered. And in hindsight, that would have been better, but I didn't.
Dual Slalom is pretty simple. There are two tracks; you're on one, and your opponent is on the other. There are lots of jumps, big berms, and rollers that can be pretty hard to keep your speed on, thus a hardtail is the best bike for the situation. First, you do a timed qualifying run to see where you stack up, with the top 32 qualifiers move on. Then, the officials pair you with another competitor based on times and you race. The best two out of three runs takes it. With our bikes we had a serious disadvantage and my racing was over before I knew it. On my second run I was neck-and-neck with the guy, and then I missed my berm and it was over. PB and Vaughn on the other hand made those guys on their little hardtails work for every win. They threw down amazing runs to finish seventh and fifteenth. I finished up in 27th place. Leana won every single one of her races. She was so dominant that she never had to race a third deciding race. National Champion Leana Gerrard.
Looking Back
It became clear soon after we arrived in Banner Elk that we weren't going to win the Team Omnium as USA Cycling puts more points towards the endurance events. Don't ask me why, I have no idea. Even with Leana's stellar performances, we needed an XC girl to win the overall. Now we know what it takes.
My quest for the Individual Omnium fell short in my dual slalom performance. Pat Hurley from Appalachian State took second from me by four points. And he deserved it, he had some amazing dual races that really made the difference that day. Colin Cares from Colorado College took first place in the Omnium, having won both the XC and the short track.
None-the-less, WWU Cycling had it's most successful showing by far at Collegiate Mountain Bike Nationals. Out of the seven racers we brought, six got on the podium, and the seventh only missed it by one place. We all learned a lot about how the racing works out there and next year, you'd better believe, we're going to come out of the gate swinging. That is, after we sleep off the jet lag.
Here are some highlights from the WWU MTB team at the Collegiate Nats... enjoy.
Click on the thumbnail (opens in a popup)...
Editor's Note: Patrick Means attends Western Washington University where he studies Geography and is the captain of WWU Cycling's Mountain Bike Team. He has been riding bicycles since he learned to walk and began racing when he was a freshman in high school.
WWU CYCLING RESULTS
Cross Country:
Chris Parrish 4th
Patrick Means 9th
Logan Wetzel 10th
Kyle McGilvray 17th
Downhill:
Chris Bateman 2nd
Vaughn Larsen 6th
Patrick Means 18th
Leana Gerrard 2nd
Short Track XC:
Kyle McGilvray 3rd
Logan Wetzel 5th
Chris Parrish 8th
Patrick Means 10th
Dual Slalom:
Chris Bateman 7th
Vaughn Larsen 15th
Patrick Means 27th
Leana Gerrard 1st
TEAM OMNIUM
6th place
INDIVIDUAL OMNIUM
Patrick Means 3rd
Chris Parrish 8th
Kyle McGilvray 10th
Logan Wetzel 11th
Leana Gerrard 11th
Western Washington University Cycling Heads to
Mountain Bike Nationals
Parrish, Means, Team Shooting for Stars and Stripes
Chris Parrish of the Western Washington University Cycling Team has put a solid season together. He recently finished fifth in the Mount Baker Hill Climb and won his first-ever cross race. He immediately upgraded from Cat 3, to Cat 2 and raced again, all in the same day! Those are strong showings to be sure, but he and his WWU Cycling Mountain Bike Team have their sites on even bigger achievements.
The Collegiate Mountain Bike National Championship Omnium starts this Friday in Banner Elk, North Carolina and WWU will be gunning for several National Collegiate Cycling Association Division Two titles. The event is being hosted by Lees-McCrae College and the weekend's events begin on Friday morning with Parrish's specialty, the cross country race.
"Chris and [teammates] Kyle [McGilvray] and Logan [Wentzel] are really ripping right now," said Parrish's teammate Patrick Means, who has high hopes for himself as well.
"I think I can win the Omnium," Means said, going on to explain that it takes an all-arounder to win the title.
"I'm not the best cross country rider, and I'm not the best downhiller. But I'm pretty good at both and so I think I have a good shot at the omnium."
Parrish agreed, "There are not that many well rounded riders out there who can do it all [like Patrick]."
For Means, shooting for the overall omnium title will keep him busy all weekend. The races he'll be competing in are the cross country on Friday, the downhill and short track races on Saturday and the dual slalom on Sunday. Parrish's task will be tough as well, but for different reasons.
Due to the lack of quality local mountain bike competitions, he's been using cyclocross to prepare for the national championship cross country race. In fact, the competition is so sparse that the only collegiate mountain bike event was held in Idaho earlier this fall. And since there are no other mountain bike races in the Northwest at which collegiate riders can compete, local student-athletes may attend nationals as long as they have the means to get there; they are automatically qualified.
"Colorado guys get to race every weekend leading up to [collegiate nationals]," Parrish lamented, "It'd be great if we had that in the Northwest."
The WWU team has aspirations for the team title as well, and are taking seven riders in total to North Carolina. They're also bringing team sponsor Steve Noble of Noble Sports Chiropractic in Bellingham.
"He's been our biggest supporter this year," said Means of Noble.
Downhillers Vaughn Larsen, Chris Bateman and Leana Gerrard will travel with Parrish and his cross country mates Logan Wentzel and Kyle McGilvray. Together, they'll shoot for the overall team prize.
