Firecracker 50 - Sparkler Beginner Course
June 29, 2006
2006 Mountain Bike Racing results here.
After doing my first official mountain bike race last week
at the Boulder Short Track Series, I thought I’d try a real mountain bike
race. My son Daniel was looking for things to do in Breckenridge the week
of 4th of July and he found the Firecracker 50 Mountain Bike race.
This is a 50-mile, 11,000 vertical-foot marathon mountain bike race that takes
place on July 4th. I knew that was too much for me and look into
shorter options. The course does two laps of a 25-mile loop, but the only
25-mile option is a team event. I sent out an email looking for a teammate
and Russ Bollig was the first to respond. We planned on doing this, but there
was no Beginner field for this race and since I’d never done a real mountain
bike race and raced the lowest category on the roads, I figured I needed to
race in the lowest category in a mountain bike race as well. I pre-rode the
13-mile Sparkler course on Sunday, the 2nd of July. This course
was only open to Juniors and Beginners and after finding it plenty challenging,
with some very steep, rocky descents, I pitched this option to Russ. 
The Firecracker 50 course is basically a figure-8. The
Sparkler course is the lower loop of this figure-8, so it isn’t a separate
course, but just a shorter one. The course starts up
When I pre-rode the course, I spent 1h48m to go condo-to-condo. The next day Russ and I rode it again and it was a complete downpour for the last hour of our ride. Riding down the Nightmare on Baldy was riding down a full-on stream bed. The water was about 3-4 inches deep and you had to ride in the rut, since the sides with so slippery with mud. This was hairy. On the lower switchbacks, I could barely see anything because of the fog and water on my glasses. I rode really slowly to avoid crashing. By the time we got back to the condo my hands and feet were numb. We did have our rain jackets with us, but after an hour it didn’t matter much. This was an epic ride.
That night was signed up for the race at Racer’s Edge in
Breckenridge. It was expensive, costing $50 for the Sparkler course. It’s
$85 for the full 50-miler. For the $50, we got race support (4 aid stations,
though only two that we’d see), all the Gels and bars you could possibly want,
a T-shirt, a pair of socks, a bottle of lube, a BBQ meal after the race, beer,
three water bottles, and various coupons. In the end, I didn’t have a problem
with the price.
The race has the coolest start of any bike race I’ve done. It is a wave start, with ten separate waves. The Pro’s go off first, the young expert riders, then the Pro women, etc., etc. The penultimate wave was the Juniors and then our wave, the Beginner wave, was the last to go. Our field was pretty small, with probably only 30 riders and this includes men and women, as we all start together. The Pro’s went off at 11:00 a.m. sharp and then each wave followed a minute apart. We started at 11:09. That is definitely a late start for a 50-mile mountain bike race that will climb to around 11,500 feet in the middle of thunderstorm season. It had been raining every day and frequently quite early, like it did the day before. Our race was short, though, and the skies looked benign, so I went without a rain shell. Some of the riders wore some serious packs. I wore a tiny Camelback only because it was impossible to drink from a water bottle for nearly the entire descent.
The race begins with a neutral start all the way through
town on
At the south end of town, the pace rider pulled off and it
was game on. Russ and I immediately moved up and were 5th and 6th
wheels by the time we turned onto 
At only ten minutes into the climb, I popped off Russ’ wheel. After 12 minutes, I was already 20 seconds behind Russ and I didn’t expect to see him again. I continued to work hard and was sure I was well in front of the 3rd placed Beginner rider, but didn’t look back to check. All the riders were mixed in at this point, but you could tell which category each rider was in by looking at the marking on their right calf. I had a big “B” written on my calf, marking me as a Beginner. I had fun noticing the different categories I was catching. Each category had started minutes before I did so that when I caught them I always blew by them, as I had to be going much faster to catch them. Of course, I was racing only ¼ the distance of most of these riders. The exception was the Juniors I passed, who were doing the same distance, and the team riders, who were doing twice the distance that I was riding.
I passed all the Junior riders after 20 minutes, but the last rider I was passed was probably only 12 or 13 and he was riding strong. I was impressed. I then started to pass Sport riders in droves. They had started 2-4 minutes in front of us. Of course, I wouldn’t have been going this hard if I was out to ride 50 miles and 11,000 vertical feet. This is why it was so fun. We got to pass so many riders. I probably passed 200 riders before I got to the singletrack. After 20 minutes I started to pass Team riders and Expert women riders, who had started 6 and 5 minutes in front of me, respectively. I even passed a number of Expert Men riders and they had stared 7-8 minutes in front of me.
I picked up a bottle of Gatorade at the first aid station, just before the singletrack. I wasn’t carrying any bottles, just my Camelback of water. I took a few zips on the final hundred meters of dirt road before hitting the steep singletrack. At this point I noticed a familiar figure up ahead: Russ. I was shocked to have caught him. I figured he felt guilty about entering the Beginner category and didn’t want to win it. I speculated that he let me catch up to him. Later he would assure me that this wasn’t the case and it isn’t how he is wired. He doesn’t let other people win.
I put my bike in the granny gear and spun up the steep grade,
over a few roots and turned left to contour. Soon I was right behind Russ
and he knew I was there, as he immediately moved to his right and said, “Go
on by, Bill.” I didn’t argue with him. My heart rate was at 170 bpm climbing
the steep part and then again on the small rise as I tried to catch Russ.
I passed many more riders on this initial singletrack section and every rider
was great about moving over. In general, all the mountain bike riders were
very low key and super nice. I continued to keep my heart rate above 160 bpm
for the first 50 minutes of the race, with the one exception being a short,
smooth, but twisty descent. I passed at least 15 more riders on the singletrack
before this short descent. 
Just before the short two switchbacks, I noticed Jilayne Lovejoy and a guy in a Rocky Mounts kit on the side of the trail, cheering on the riders. I yelled “Hi” to Jilayne and heard the guy yell, “Go Rocky Mounts!” I passed a couple more riders at the top of the switchbacks and then we hit the first descent of the race. Here I got passed back by one rider when the descent hit a 4WD road and he had room to zoom by.
After the descent, the course turned uphill again, and I immediately passed this rider back. He said, “Dang, I thought we had a longer descent than that.” I said, “It’s coming up after this climb. You’ll catch me again and just sing out and I’ll let you by.” He never did catch me again. I passed another ten riders on this 6-minute climb, including a couple of single-speeders who were walking their bikes. These guys are hardcore and one of the riders in this category would ride the 50 Miles in an amazing time of 4m09m! I noticed that local strongman, Charlie Hayes, took 2nd in the single-speed category. I also noticed that Rocky Mounts rider Ward Baker was 8th in the Men's Expert division.
At the top of the climb, I started the long descent to the finish. After some level riding, where I built up a gap on the riders behind me, we started the Nightmare on Baldy descent. I was cautious here, but faster than on the pre-ride. Three riders went by me here, but had no trouble passing me. We turned onto the flat section between the nasty drops and I had a rider pretty close behind me. I could have easily kept in front of him until the next descent, but I told him I’d let him by before we started down. He elected to pass me at the exact time he rode through the biggest puddle on the course. I got completely drenched. I yelled, “Dude, that was bad form! I was going to let you by anyway.” He felt bad and said, “Sorry, man. I screwed up. Let me buy you a beer at the end of the race.” I responded, “No worries, buddy. Have a good race.”
On the second steep descent, no one passed me and I closed on a group of 6 riders or so. They were held up by a crash in front of them. Two riders had gone down, but they were fine and getting back on their bikes. I passed these riders before they mounted. At the bottom of this descent I turned left while most of the other riders turned right. I now had a completely open course, as I was the lead rider.
I hammered the road section to try and get as much of a gap as possible before hitting the technical, twisty trail through the woods. I passed some riders come the other way and they cheered me on and told me I was first. I knew this, but it was still nice to get confirmation. I rode solo the rest of the way. At one road crossing there were volunteers and they were ringing a cowbell vigorously. After I went by I listened carefully for the sound of the cowbell that would indicate the second placed rider. I never heard it ring and I had only a mile of technical riding to go.
I rode the final section as fast as I could, but didn’t take
any big risks. I felt pretty comfortable with my lead, but I didn’t know how
far back the next rider was. I didn’t want to be too stressed on the final
section. I came out of the trees for the last switchbacks and now the crowd
and announcer could see me. I negotiated a couple of the turns before I was
spotted and the announcer started to wind up the crowd. Down below Kim was
first to notice that the rider appeared to be wearing my colors. A bit further
down I could hear Sheri, Derek, and Daniel cheering for me. A little closer
I heard Daniel call out clearly, “Daddy, you’re in first!” The boys were super
excited and ran up to the last switchback to cheer me on. They then tore down
the hill to catch my finish. I rode across the line with my hands in the air,
trying to mimic my heroes in the Tour de France, which the whole family has
been avidly watching.
After I stopped and got off my bike it wasn’t long before Derek and Daniel had mobbed me. Derek just leaped up into my arms and Daniel gave me a big hug. That is so cool – having your kids think you’re great. They were so happy. Sheri and Kim were pretty excited as well. It’s fun to win. A couple of minutes later the 2nd placed rider came down the switchbacks and sure enough, it was Russ. He was super cool about getting second to a rider like me. He’s a former pro bike racer, though he doesn’t ride much now and the last time he raced a mountain bike was 17 years ago. Third place was well behind Russ.
We stayed and hung out until 1 p.m. just enjoying the day and the triumph. The race director told me that awards would be at 2:30 p.m. so we went over to the deluxe bike wash station and cleaned off the steeds before heading back to the condo to relax a bit. Sheri, Kim, Russ, and I came back for the awards at 2 p.m. and to watch the winner of the Pro race. The course record was supposedly very firm at 3h47m, but the winner rode 3h45m and 2nd place finished in 3h46m. These are amazing times and it was cool to have such a close finish. After eating the great lunch, they announced the winners of the Junior and Beginner races. Despite our small field they had awards for 1st through 3rd for men and women for under-35 and 35+. In the women’s 35+ field they only had two entrants. My finishing time was 1h12m and Russ finished 2m33s after me. Third place was a further seven minutes back. Did Russ and I sandbag? Maybe, but having never entered a race before and not that skilled technically for the descents, I thought it was reasonable for my first race. I’ll race the 50-miler in the Sport division next time. It will be interesting to see how that turns out.
