Stage 3

Stage 3 was another remote start, this time we’d be on buses for a little while longer while we headed up to Naturland. Which is a nature themed activity area on top of a mountain down near Andorra La Vella. Why in an area so full of nature they need a theme park? I’m not sure, but the bus ride there was certainly exciting. Once again, the loading up went off smoothly. We were on our way, down the mountain, then onto a little road to climb back up. Now this was impressive, these big full size coach buses were going up this little Andorran road that went down to one lane a few times, switched back, and these drivers hardly seemed to slow down. Clearly not their first rodeo.

Again, we started with a paved climb for a bit, but this time we’d turn into some singletrack relatively early. The singletrack paralleled the road but it was a nice change to just hammering up the pavement. Even in our group it still turned into a little bit of a conga line. With the lack of jump that my legs had in them it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. We did some alternating between doubletrack/forestry type road to single track to pavement before we had a nice little single-track rip and then into the first aid station. A little more climbing that even included some fun singletrack before we got into the big descent of the day.

This one gave us all kinds of fun and varied trail. This was like the smorgasbord of descents. More of the steep, raw, true singletrack like we’d seen in Stages 1 and 2. Then we found some “bench cut” trail that stayed really narrow through some very cool terrain. There was some exposed rock edge riding that forced some fun bike handling. Through some private property into some amazingly loamy trail, some large mossy boulders, then finally it got real steep in these switchbacky “chutes”. Even though there were a few little rises we more or less descended for about an hour on all kinds of different trail. It was amazing. At this point I was trying pretty hard to focus pretty solely on having fun and not really worrying about where we were in the race, and it worked.

After all that descending, we popped out in the town of Sant Julia de Loria, just south of Andorra La Vella. From here we’d ride the old Cami Ral all the way back up to the finish. About 10 miles left and 1200 ft to gain. Most of it ended up being a really “steady” climb. For a while a lot of the trail was urban, behind buildings, through town, up narrow avenues. It was a change from the fantasy like mountain paradise we’d been in the last 3 days but still exciting. After one of the steepest paved pitches, I think I’ve ever seen we hit this aqueduct/trench path up above the town. About 3-4’ wide and with an abrupt edge and 2–3-foot drop into a drainage on one side and fence on the other. I’m assuming it’s how they collected rain and kept too much water from running down the hill into town. It was nerve-wracking for a while; I wish I’d gotten a picture. At this point though I had lost most of my “go” and was sort of limping home.

After all the excitement in the city we hit the river and the trail would follow that the rest of the way back. It was nice, gentle grade, good scenery, a place we probably could have gone a lot faster. I felt like I was overheating and contemplated jumping in the river a handful of times. Soon we were back at the Finish, a coke and lunch and it was all just a matter of memories. Turns out we were only 30 seconds behind the 5^th master’s team for the day and there were others who had some struggles with that long climb back as well. Oh well.

29 miles for the day, 4,835 ft of elevation gain, and 2:55 on the clock. I think that could have been better, but it wasn’t bad. It left us in 5^th place master’s for the race and 28^th Overall (I think…but at that point one or two places doesn’t matter much).

Then it was on to the beer, relaxing, storytelling, and that sense of “I’m Done” that only comes from endurance events. That feeling is one of the bigger reasons I do what I do, It’s unlike any other.

Takeaway

This was my 4^th stage race (Breck, Pisgah, Pisgah) and 1^st with a geared bike. I learn more at each one. I will say the gears do make it different and the terrain added a challenge. Each one has been interesting and exciting though. Even though this was a relatively “short” stage race at only 4 days and 104 miles it had some teeth with the elevation gain and elevation in general. There were times I was questioning why it is that I would pay to be out there, but I think that’s just part of stage racing. There were two things that stood out to me this time that I really need to put some concerted effort into before my next one, there were also a few things that stood out as being good.

 Let’s do the “needs improvement” first. I need to learn how to pace and fuel properly for these longer multiday efforts. Neither one of these went well and I paid for it. The pacing, I went too hard on stage 1 and never really recovered from that. I need to figure out how to back myself off to something like 90-95% for the most part (I think at least). I find myself caught up in the excitement and the idea that maybe I can keep that 110% effort up. It always makes me think of the line from Top Gun “Your ego is writing checks your body can’t cash”. The other area that I really need to work on is Fuel on the bike. Making sure that I’m taking in a lot more than I think I need to be ready for later in day and tomorrow. In a 2-4 hour race I think you can get away with messing this up a good bit, you can’t fake this in a stage race. The fatigue that builds up, the amount you burn, you need to be taking in max fuel from the start. I’m not totally sure what that looks like yet but I’m going to spend some time learning before the next one.

Now, onto the good stuff. First, Duo is an amazing way to stage race, and I’m not sure I’ll do another solo stage race. Having a teammate to share the good, the bad, the ugly with, is so much more fun than just a few day sufferfest alone. The highs and the lows are both better when you’re sharing it. Honestly wish I’d gotten into this sooner, I think this is part of what I really like about PMBAR, it’s always been a partner race and it’s my favorite. Second, racing/riding bikes in new places/other countries is such a fun way to see and experience another culture and country. It lets you get to areas you’d likely never see on a normal trip and experience things in a way that lets me see things how I like to. Third, my fitness and level of riding. I won’t lie, I had some bad days and got down on myself a little bit but for the volume I get to ride and the fact that for the first two nights I got terrible sleep. Even in my struggling I think I need to take away the fact that it was relatively strong for the work I put in and had a good time doing it. Finally, having the family come join me after the race for a week of adventure after the event was amazing and the perfect way to put the bow on an event that I’d been looking forward to for a while.

Huge shout out must go to Katie. It would be impossible to do the things I do without the support of Katie and the family. My passion for bike riding and endurance racing isn’t always easy and when the idea of this trip came up, I thought there was no way it was going to pan out. We made it work and had a family trip that we’ll talk about for a long time (I’m going to write a little about that part as well next). Katie flew across the Atlantic with a 3 and 6 year old in coach solo parenting just so I could go ride in a bike race with a friend. Now come on, that’s amazing.