October 8 and 9 saw the running of the 2005 Furnace Creek 508. The Furnace Creek 508 is a 508 mile race (duh) that starts in Santa Clarita, CA, winds its way north to Trona, then east through Death Valley, and finally south towards the finish in Twenty-Nine Palms, CA. Full details can be found at www.the508.com.

Pre-race

The weekend started with registration and vehicle/bicycle inspection on Friday, October 7 at the host hotel in Santa Clarita. Registration was simple – we checked in, got our T-shirts and goody bags, got our picture taken, submitted our order of riders, and we were done in 10 minutes. (Why can’t race registration be so smooth?)

More on rider order. The FC508 is divided into 8 segments, with a Time Station at the end of each segment. Racers can race solo or as part of 2 or 4 man teams. If you race as a team, you have to establish your rider order before the race, and you must proceed according to that order. So, for a four man team, rider A must ride segment 1, rider B segment 2, rider C segment 3, rider 4 segment 4, then repeat for segments 5-8. We competed as a 4 man team, with riders Art MacFarland (rider 1), Trever Bushnell (rider 2), myself (Craig Long, rider 3), and Greg Rozzell (rider 4).

After we registered, we had to have our vehicles checked for proper signage (slow moving vehicle, bicycle ahead, team totem signs, flashing yellow lights) and our bicycles checked for lights and reflectors. We had equipped Trever’s truck and our bikes with the minimum requirements, and we passed the inspection.

Friday evening is the pasta feed ($11.95 for mediocre pasta, salad, veggies, store bought cold bread and water to drink. This is served in a cinder block dungeon with dim lighting - skip it), followed by the requisite pre-race meeting. This meeting was scheduled for an hour and a half, and we were groaning at the thought of listening to them lecture us on safety, feeding, and hydration for 90 minutes. However, they showed a video montage of the 2004 FC508, and went over the route, rules, and procedures. Race director Chris Kostman ran the meeting and was very entertaining. It was actually an enjoyable meeting.

Event Goals: We really didn’t know what to expect. The 4 man, 40+ relay record was 31:45:00. Our first goal was just to finish. We then hoped to finish before dark on Sunday, which required us to finish in 33 hours or less. Art set a stretch goal of breaking 30 hours, which the rest of us thought was ridiculous.

Race Day(s)

Segment 1. Normally 84 miles to California City (see below); this year it was 90 miles due to a required detour

Art was up first. The race started at 9:00am for the team division. The riders followed one route out of town, the support crew (the other three of us in Trever’s truck) followed a different route out of town. The purpose of the separate routes was to reduce the traffic on any single road. The routes joined out of town, and the support crews all stopped at about mile 30 to wait for their racers.

The wind was howling (I would estimate 20 – 30 mph) as we waited for the racers to show up. Team riders began to go by the support crews after almost 2 hours. Art showed up in fourth place, behind the lead riders of the Mongrel Dogs, Yak, and Batula (2 man team!). He was followed closely by the lead riders of the Hammerheads and Alligators (note that in FC508 all riders and team are identified by an animal totem). No other riders were within a few minutes at this stage of the race. We began “leapfrog” support for Art, meaning we would drive ahead and wait for him to catch up. If he needed anything, we would give it to him as he passed. We had Talkabout radios for communicating with the riders, which we abandoned as nearly useless after a couple of stages because it was difficult to hear. In addition, we could talk to the rider as he went by very frequently, so they weren’t necessary. Note that we were forbidden to follow our rider or handoff from the vehicle during the day on Saturday.

The Mongrel Dogs and Yak soon pulled away from the rest of the field by a couple of minutes. Art spent the next hour or so moving between 3rd and 5th. Then the windmill climb hit, and Art dropped the Hammerheads and Batula. Note that the Hammerheads were all riding TT bikes, and 3 of 4 were using disk wheels and tri-spokes. Their first rider was very large (200+ pounds) and turning a HUGE gear. The windmill climb shredded him. We could tell from their equipment choice that they were either very good or very stupid. Art pulled into the first time station in California City at 1:39pm in 3rd place overall, 2nd of the 4 man teams. We had driven ahead and got Trever and his bike ready to go prior to Art’s arrival, and Art passed the totem to Trever and Trever took off. We then loaded Art and his equipment into the truck, and went off to support Trever.

Segment 2. 71 miles from California City to Trona (see below).

The wind was just as strong for segment 2, but while it was mostly a crosswind for Art, it was mostly a tailwind for Trever. He took off like a rider possessed. It took us a significant amount of time to catch up to him in the truck, and he seemed to be riding awfully hard for a guy in a 508 mile race. We started taking time checks between Trever and the other riders. He was rapidly pulling in the leaders, and increasing the gaps to the racers behind. Only the Hammerheads seemed to be able to stay with Trever; their rider wasn’t catching up, but he wasn’t losing ground either.

Trever first passed Mongrel Dogs (who had lost their lead to Yak), then passed Yak to put us in first place. Behind him, Hammerheads continued to hold the pace, and passed all other teams to move into second place.

We left Trever with 5 or 6 miles to go so I could get set up for segment 3. He rode so fast I wasn’t quite ready, so we lost a couple minutes at this transition. Trever had blistered the 71 mile rolling hills of segment 2 in less than 3 hours, and reached Trona just passed 4:30pm.

Segment 3. The “queen segment” of the FC508 is almost 100 miles long, including the 12 mile climb to Townes pass, that pitches as high as 13% (see below).

I took off towards Death Valley with a strong tailwind and a foolproof plan. I planned to ride hard (zone 2, about 10% below LT) to the top of the Trona bump, then recover in zone 1 (about 20% below LT) through the Panamint Valley to prepare for an LT climb to Townes Pass. I would recover on the descent, then use whatever I had left to get through Death Valley.

I felt really good leaving Trona, jacked on adrenalin and being pushed by the tailwind. I averaged over 22 mph to the crest of the Trona bump, but my HR was a little above zone 2 (although I did manage to stay out of LT). I got some recovery as I tucked for the descent into the Panamint Valley, but got a rude surprise as I turned towards Townes Pass into about a 20 mph headwind. I was going about 14 mph with my HR still in zone 2. I still felt pretty good, and I knew if I slowed further to get more recovery, I’d barely be moving. So I kept going in zone 2.

The sun was setting in the Panamint valley, and the colors on the mountains were beautiful. I turned on my lights and the guys in the support truck came up behind me to follow, as required during the night. Very soon the Hammerheads rider came flying by me on his TT bike, but I was already overcooking the stage and didn’t feel like I should respond. I was confident if he didn’t get too big a lead that I would catch him on the ascent of Townes Pass (I found out later he was a 29 year old professional bike racer, and I wasn’t going to catch him on any terrain).

I was starting to feel tired as I made the last turn to climb Townes Pass. I started to struggle up the climb, so I grabbed a couple of gears and got out of the saddle to start the push. I was seemingly pushed backwards by the wind whistling down the mountain, so standing suddenly seemed like a bad idea. I began to slowly grind up the pass, going only 6 or 7 mph. It was now completely dark, and you could see the line of riders strung out up the pass- it was quite a sight.

For the first time in my life, I had to stop during a race. I could no longer turn the pedals over in the saddle, and the wind was too strong to stand. I got off, rested for just a minute, then started again. That brief rest helped significantly, and I rode for another 10 or 15 minutes, then stopped again. Another 10 – 15 minutes, and another break; it took me three rest breaks to get to the top of Townes Pass. How embarrassing.

But we were still in the race – no other teams had gone by, so we were in second place – and I didn’t want to let my team down any further. I got in the drops and took off down Townes Pass. The descent was perfect – too steep for me to pedal most of the time, so I got to recover, but not so steep or technical that I would lose any time to the really good descenders. By the time I reached Stovepipe Wells, I was feeling much better. I made good time across the desert floor, but began to struggle once again as I neared the end of the stage. Team Yak passed me just before the time station, as did Chickadee – yep, I got passed by a solo female. I’m sure I’ll be reminded of this for years to come…

I pulled into Furnace Creek at 9:52pm in 3rd place behind Hammerheads and Yak. Although I paced myself poorly and ran out of gas on the climb to Townes Pass, I still completed a 100 mile, 6000 foot, solo, windy century in about 5 hours and 15 minutes. I would have taken that in a heartbeat before I started the segment. In retrospect, better pacing probably could have saved me 10 – 15 minutes.

Time for Greg to ride. Since a support vehicle (and we only had one) is required to follow the rider at night, we couldn’t send Greg and his bike forward to the time station to get ready to go. We had to get him and his bike ready at the time station, which cost us probably 5 minutes. After I had to stop on Townes Pass, this didn’t seem like a big deal.