Banner - Summerset State Park

After a not-so-stellar day at Ingawanis a couple weeks back, I was ready (or at least as ready as I could hope to be) to get back on the mountain bike for the race at Banner (aka Summerset State Park). Last year, this race was held the day after Dam to Dam, and my legs were cooked. This year, I figured my all-thumbs style of racing was behind me, so I’d try to redeem myself from last year’s race and the Ingawanis debacle.

As soon as I started my recon/warm-up lap, I remembered why Banner was not one of my favorite courses. It is fairly technical and contains some tough, shortish climbs, not all of which I can ride. I survived the recon lap, then headed back to the registration table to find out how many laps of torture I was in for. Experts were to do seven laps! I talked race director Ryan Hanser into decreasing the women’s number of laps (in all categories) down one lap, as I was working my tail off to convince PRC’s Katie Fistler into trying out her first mountain bike race! Since she only had two laps to do, Katie went out and performed awesomely in her first (of many more to come) race.

While continuing my warm-up, I learned there was only one other woman (Sally Logan) entered in the Expert category, and, putting our heads together, we determined that perhaps five laps would be better suited to our abilities. Thankfully Ryan agreed to that, too!

The race started with Sally and me swapping the lead back and forth, based on who had screwed up most recently. Not too far in, Sally took a slider down a hillside and I went ahead. Lap one wasn’t pretty but it was done. Lap two started off much like lap one – I would alternately be having fun one minute then hating the whole idea of racing (or even just riding) at Banner the next. About 3-4 minutes into lap two, I threw my chain. Not just your garden variety chain-throw, though. No, I did it up real good! Somehow, I managed to get the chain wedged between the cassette and the spokes of the rear wheel. No amount of tugging, pulling, or swearing would make it budge even an inch. I was done for.

I carried the bike down the trail a ways and back to the registration table where I told them I was pulling the plug. They came over to take a look, and along with them came Katie Fistler. She offered to let me ride her bike for the rest of the race! Ryan gave the okay, so I jumped on her bike. She was quick to point out that her pedals and my shoes were not compatible. My feet are about one size bigger than her shoes, and her saddle height was about 8-10 inches too low for me. I still wanted to race, so we adjusted the saddle, I stuffed my feet in her shoes, and I was back in business! (Katie was double cool in that she had hand-ups for me at each lap!)

I quickly noticed a few other differences between our bikes: hers is a hardtail, is in need of some TLC, won’t shift to all gears, and weighs about 30 pounds more than the one I left at the car! Plus, as I rode away the saddle loosened itself and each time I sat down, the nose shot straight up! I restarted my lap two and quickly realized what a stud Katie was to have maneuvered this bike through two laps – I wasn’t going to last more than one on it! The extra weight was fun on the downhills because it carried so much momentum, but hucking it uphill was murder! As I made my way around – very slowly – someone asked what had happened to Cam. I figured I had missed him come by while I was messing around with bikes, so I had no idea what they were talking about. When I came through the start/finish area to call it quits for the second time that day, I saw Cam changing into street clothes at the car. He’d bent his rear der and wedged his chain into almost the exact same position I’d wedged mine on the first lap!

I rested for a second, asked him to fix Katie’s saddle while I thought about going back for another lap. In the meantime, another Katie (Bergman) walked over with her 29r and offered that to me! I thought, “What the heck?” and jumped on her bike for lap number three. By now I was down a whole lap to Sally, so I was just doing laps to avoid a DNF. Katie B’s bike offered some new challenges; most notable were the grip shifters, but let’s not forget that I’m still in Katie F’s too small shoes, as well! I managed to man-handle that around the course for another lap, before again contemplating just calling it a day and heading home. By the end of lap three, I had convinced myself to say that enough is enough and I should just enjoy a smoothie with Cam and take the DNF. I rolled back up to the car to return Katie B’s bike, and what did I see? Cam was standing there next to my bike which he’d fixed during my third lap!

As much as I wanted to be done for the day, I chose to take my bike out for one more lap. It felt great to be back in the correct size shoes and on a bike I felt very comfortable on! So good, in fact, that I ended up HTFU and finished lap four and five, thusly finishing the race.

It took three bikes, two pair of shoes, two very generous Katies, one frustrated boyfriend (who fixes bikes really well when he’s frustrated…), but I got it done! I still don’t really like Banner, but it hasn’t got the best of me yet!