No hiding at Castaic
by Rob Blue on May 20th, 2007
I just finished repairing most of the damage from the XC race at Castaic today. Fixing the bike was fairly easy but fixing my conditioning (both physical and mental) is going to take a while.
I really just started training seriously 2 weeks ago. I have been slammed at work over the winter and between that and what seems like a million other responsibilities, there has not been a whole lot of biking happening. I have wanted to get out there and was looking forward to all kinds of racing this year after pretty much no racing last year (another long story) and now today everything came together and I made it to the starting line at Castaic. The Castaic XC race is one of my favorite races because it has a ton of cimbing and it was also the first mountain bike race I ever entered about 10 years ago. I have missed the NMBS in AZ, the Sea Otter, Firestone and the NMBS race at Fontana in addition to the Bonelli Southern California State series race. That was a bummer seeing them come and go.
In preparation for today’s race in got to work in my garage last week looking for a little extra inspiration. I have confessed this many times before and will say it again, I am a gear junkie. I love bikes and can’t get enough of the latest and greatest technology. I have as much fun working on my bikes as I do riding them. My weight weenie ways were supposed to be satisfied with a new team bike from our bike sponsor Scott USA. Here we are heading in to the end of may with all of the biggest Southwest racing over with for the season and nobody on the Evomo MTB Team has their team bike. Sponsorship for mountain biking is no simple thing. The MTB scene is not as big as it was years ago so companies are not as willing to spend their marketing budget dollars on supporting local or regional teams like ours. We are very lucky this year to have several great companies supporting us. Scott USA is a big question mark though. Our shop sponosr Helen’s Cycles set up the deal for us to help promote the Scott USA brand after their recent reintroduction back into the US market. We were very excited because Scott USA is a leader in technology both in the dirt and on the road. Things do not always go as planned with sponsors and we have begun to think that there are no bikes coming this season. Sort of a shame since we have been spreading the word even without product in hand. I should qualify that by saying that I have been riding a Scott Scale for about a year now and love it but I am the only one on the team that has a Scott.
Since my new Spark is nowhere to be found I decided to rebuild my Turner Nitrous.
My Nitrous was already pretty trick for a full suspension bike. Before it’s recent makeover it weighed in at just over 23 pounds.
Did I mention that we have some really cool sponsors? Well, how about a set of seriously light Stan’s Olympic wheels.
Paired up with a set of standard Kenda Small Block Eights converted to tubeless with some Stan’s NoTubes sealant, you will not find a cooler or lighter set of race worthy wheels.
I also couldn’t resist getting a set of the new Avid Ultimates from my Chicago brothers at SRAM.
Not only are these brakes light, they have great feel and insane stopping power.
The black finish also looks great with some flat FRM carbon bars and a matching carbon Ti stem as well.
Of course the Nitrous fits in perfectly with the Italian black and gold of FRM’s 2×9 cranks.
So what does all of this do for the bottom line…. how about 21.75 pounds in full race trim. This is not some bullshit claim that you couldn’t actually start the race with. This is everything included, two scoops of sealant in the tires, water bottle cage and even the computer mount.
I took the newly updated Nitrous on a shakedown cruise on Thursday and discovered that the cassette was loose. The American Classic hubs come with a thin spacer just for this fix. Outside of that, everything else was ready to go. Standard tires converted to tubeless always seem to need at least one good ride before they hold air and a check of the pressure on Friday showed that the Kendas were ready to roll.
So back to the race at Castaic this morning. I packed up and hit the road and made it with zero problems. Sunday morning is one of the only times that you can get somewhere in the Los Angeles area without getting stuck in traffic. The turnout was not as good as past years but still a good crowd. I think everyone in California is still trying to figure out the Northern and Southern State Series thing. After getting through registration I discovered that I forgot both my hydration pack and my Hammer Gel. Shit! Here is what I love about mountain bike racing, it only took me 5 minutes to find some fellow racers willing to loan me a couple of bottles. How cool is that. Great sense of community at mountain bike events.
I warmed up by checking out the beginning and end of the course. The middle almost never changes at Castaic but they do like to change things around at the start and finish. The start was pretty easy but the end had some really loose stuff and one little section that would probably be faster to run up it than try to ride it.
Time to race. My category and age group had a good turnout with about 20 racers. Cool, much more fun with a bigger group of guys. Off we went and I was at the back in no time but not really worried since it was a two lap race. I figured as long as I stayed in contact I would be able to turn it up on the second lap and pass a bunch of guys on the last climbs. I had no expectations of winning today. There are way too many really good racers in every category and age group in California for you to expect to win unless you train like a pro. I only do it for fun anyway so not winning doesn’t bother me at all.
Castaic is always hot and today was shaping up to be a toasty one as usual. Many thanks again go out to the people that let me barrow some water bottles. I was using them right from the start. Very dry in addition to the heat.
By the end of the first climb I had passed three guys who were having mechanical problems. That was very fortelling. After passing a couple more guys on the next time we started down this nasty set of switchbacks taht I beleive they call the fisherman’s trail. This is the only section of the Castaic course that I have never been able to figure out. Today was no exception and I had to dab a foot in every turn. Then I crossed the front and went over the bars in a slow motion endo. I landed on my feet but as soon as I remounted I found out that my day was done. The bike had landed funny and the rear derailleur hanger had snapped off. That has got to be one of the worst mechanicals you can have. There is no trailside fix outside of converting your bike to a single speed and suffering on. So that’s what I did. I got out the tools and took off the stuff that was in the way and made myself a single speed.
While I was doing my trail side conversion I saw at least half a dozen guys eat it in that same corner. Since nobody got hurt it made feel me a lot better to see that I wasn’t the only one caught out by that turn.
With the repairs done I was ready to go single speeding. Castaic is not the course to do this on though. I couldn’t keep the chain from falling off all the time. I didn’t want to risk throwing the chain into the rear wheel and tearing out some spokes so I decided to call it a day and coast back down to the car.
All of the course workers blew me away with there offers to try anything to get me back up and running but I was done. Team Big Bear had a great crew at Castaic this year. Everyone was really cool.
I packed up and hit the road home immediately since there were no teammates at this event to support. When I got home I surveyed the damage and got to work getting the Nitrous back together.
The derailleur hanger was obviously toast.
If I had been riding my Scale I would have been screwed since it does not have a replaceable derailleur hanger. The Turner’s is replaceable and I of course had a spare.
After a little Locktite the new hanger was ready to go.
The hanger took the hit completely and my SRAM X.0 derailleur was still in tip top shape.
Everything was back together and ready to go in about half an hour.
Thinking ahead I decided to re-lube the pivots, which I haven’t done this year yet, while the wheel was off. The Nitrous has handy grease fitting for all of the pivots points.
Well, now I need to do some more training to get both my legs going and my technical chops up to speed. I also need to get over my disappointment with the year so far and today’s non-start to my season.
May 21st, 2007 at 8:33 am
man, that sucks you had such a serious mechanical - at least you didnt get hurt. Lets hope Elings park goes better for everyone since the last race (Fontana NMBS) Brandon blew up his rear hub and got a DNF too. Uggg.
May 21st, 2007 at 9:45 am
Yep, shit happens. That’s racing. That’s one of the things I like about MTB racing, a lot of stuff can happen that you could never anticipate. Makes it exciting.
May 21st, 2007 at 11:54 pm
i found that to be true with sex with the honeys.
May 22nd, 2007 at 11:27 am
That is the good thing about getting with the ladies and racing, it isn’t always the guy with the best “equipment” who wins. It seems to be the one who keeps his game together long enough who ends up winning.
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Rob, does your Turner have the old Horst link or the newer TNT link?
May 29th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Mine has the original Horst link. You can tell by the pivots by the rear dropouts. I have yet to ride the TNT setup but if Dave Turner says it works I believe him. That guy knows a thing or two about bikes.
September 13th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
[…] only other change from the last time I weighed it was a new rear derailleur. I was at Helen’s Cycles the other day and saw the new 20th […]