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Two weeks ago, RL and I raced at the Mt. SAC Fat Tire Classic on a tandem bike. What was interesting about this race is we were the only ones in our CAT with a tandem bike. Traditionally Mt SAC has had a class for tandems however since they are now aligning with the other races of the Triple Crown, they did away with the tandem class. Without knowing this, RL purchased a used tandem bike just a few weeks before the race. In total we had a whopping ONE ride to practice which was just a few days prior to the race.

Unsure if we were even allowed to race the tandem, RL and I fired off several emails to the powers that be at Mt SAC. Closer to the race day we received a response that we can however we’ll have to race in our age group. Being that RL registered us, we raced in this group which was Beginners 27-34… bunch of fast-er guys.

At the line-up we were greeted with cheers from both racers and spectators. Many of our friends from the racing circuit cheered us onto the starting line! Man, we were like mountain biking celebrities!!! . Not wanting to impede the other racers in our CAT, we lined up in the back. Off the bat we knew what our chances were, we didn’t have high expectations on placing. Our goal was NOT to finish last!

RL and I walking our bike towards the back of the pack.
Below is a video from the Stoker’s POV. You’ll see us doing really well in the first lap. As a matter of fact we passed or kept up with many racers on the flats. Up the first hill wasn’t bad, we made it up with out any problems. Approaching the switchback climbs we started encountering problems within the singletrack. We had a hard time maneuvering through this. On the other side of the switchbacks I got off the bike and ran to the bottom where it flattened. You’ll see me in the video (fast forwarded) running through the trail waiting for RL at the bottom. I’m glad we didn’t ride through here as there were at least three different people that went down. RL however managed to ride through here smoothly.

Onto the third hill we grinded – Energy level was still good…. At the bottom on the other side, we were cheered on by our families and friends. Shortly after this descent we made our way towards probably the third toughest climb. Fortunately the switchbacks were fire-road wide. Mash, mash, mash – we made it up! All through out the Captain and the Stoker are in constant communication.

Much of the same for the second lap however fatigue kicked in and we were a lot slower. Even walking up some of the hills were harder second time around . Somewhere in between the second lap, as we grinded through, we became more aware of our placement within the race. Our goal was not to be last however, we were seeing less and less racers… only a few passed us on the last climb by the stables. Could we have been that far behind??? Apparently not… RL and I continued to pedal, descended the big (last) downhill section with more confidence than the first lap.

As we motored through the Finish Line we were greeted by the same cheers that were there at the Start. Shortly after, another racer in our CAT came in. We did it – we were not last!!!. Out of 25, we were the 24th

What a great experience. It was my first ever tandem race and it was such a blast!!! I’m hoping they will open this Class next year in the Triple Crown series as we are looking forward to racing it again, with even more training!

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This past Saturday I entered my first ever Sport XC Race. I’ve been racing Super D this past year and after 2 ½ years as a beginner racer I thought it was time I push myself up to the next level. Not sure what I was thinking; me and my delusional thought process!

I was not a happy camper come Sunday morning. I caught a bad cold that week and was still feeling the pain in my throat with every gulp that morning. The congestion and cough left me feeling less then fabulous. I have been looking forward to this race though so I figured I’ll give it a go and I’ll pay the consequences later.

If you have never raced this venue before I definitely encourage you to try it out! This venue is a lot of fun and the course is opened up only once a year for this event. This was my 3rd year racing at Mt Sac and I always have such a good time. The trophies are pretty sweet too – all hand made by the students at Mt. San Antonio College!

Once I signed the dotted line on the waiver it was a done deal. No turning back! Sport category=18miles. UGH!!! I think the longest race I have done was 12 miles. 18 miles sounded awful! My only goal was to finish. A DNF just can’t be an option! If I could just complete the race I was going to be satisfied with my results no matter what they were.

As we lined up for the race I actually felt very calm. My stomach is usually tied up in knots but without the pressure of needing to podium I was just going to do my best to enjoy the ride! With iPOD ready and sports drink stocked I was feeling pretty good. My jersey was filled with a few FRS blocks and some Organic sports blocks thanks to team mate Kim Finch.

As we were lined up the announcer yells a little something and everyone is off! There’s no time to warm up the legs as I immediately met the first of many tough climbs that morning. The first 10min of the race is actually pretty slow. There’s lots of bottle necking and spots you could have walked faster around the racers than if you waited to ride through. Most of us that have ridden this course expect this and just go
with the flow. But there are a few though that are cursing and mumbling. I just chuckle a little when I hear it.

The course was similar as years past with the addition of some sandy switchbacks. There was also a little extra climb and steep downhill that got me the first lap around. I lost control in one of the sandy ruts and hit the dirt pretty good. I was a little sore but recovered quickly because I was in shock! No time to survey the damage as my competition was just feet from me. The most difficult part of finishing the first lap was knowing that there were two more laps to go!

I got a 2nd wind the 2nd lap and even passed another girl in my group the second time around. I lost time on some of the downhill portions and the one thing I was afraid of happening actually happened. Flat tire you ask? No. Mechanicals? No. My iPOD died!!!! My tunes were the only thing making the climbing bearable! Aye. So it was just me and the voices in my head. It wasn’t long before my competition caught up and passed me up. Most of the race was like this – back and forth with the girl in front of me.

Third lap was brutal to say the least. My legs were done. It took everything in me to finish but it was good to know I was going to finish. I was pretty excited to see the finish line and that gave me the extra pep in my pedal to push through. In the end I finished 3 minutes behind 2nd place. I am just proud to complete the 18miles and the 3rd place trophy was a sweet surprise!

I have no idea if my schedule(school/work/kids) will allow for the training I would need to continue to race the sport category next season, but I am glad I pushed through that day! It’s great to push through something so difficult and to see what you’re made of. Thanks to our sponsors who help make this possible –I had a great time with my team mates and friends as always. We’ll see you out on the dirt trails!

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Editorial-RL Policar. Before you read this race report from The Hammer. Let me give you a brief summary of what happened to the Hammer just days prior to the race. One morning, he went to go get their new born, Lil’ Hammer, and as he bent down over the crib to reach the baby, his back went out! The next few days The Hammer was bed ridden with radiating pain from his back. He couldn’t even go back to work due to the severity of the pain. I had emailed him to ask him if he was doing ok and to tell him that he should get some much needed rest. I assumed Mark was not going to race because of his injury. But on race day, I was talking to someone and when I turned around, Mark was right there, all suited up and ready to rock! Not sure if the Hammer was just being stubborn, or he’s really dedicated…either way we were stoked to see him race and considering his messed up back, he did pretty well.

Sunday Nov 7th, we headed out to Mt Sac for the second of thee races in the So Cal Triple Crown Series. Stop one was at Bonelli park, where it was raining and wet. Stop two had perfect weather, and sunny skies. After a quick registration, and leg marking, I hit the course with my friend Justin V, to see if anything had changed since last year. About 1/4 in to the route, we noticed they added a new section of singletrack cut into the side of the hill, with a super loose decent down the other side. With not much time till the start, we headed back to get ready.

After the pros and experts took off, we staged for our start. When the horn sounded, it was a mass of guys charging for the first climb. Once we hit the singletrack, it was no passing for a while. Toward the end of the first lap, I wasn’t feeling too good, I thought about throwing in the towel, but decided to just back off a little and try to finish. Second lap I was just trying not to get dropped too bad, toward the end of lap three I pushed hard to see if I could pick up at least one position before the finish.

I end up closing in on two riders in my class and making the passes before the finish. Once the results were in I placed 6th out of 11 in my class. Mt Sac is always a great event. I’m glad I was able to make it out, and race with the team. Next stop Fontana!

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I recently picked up this Diamondback Wildwood Tandem off an ad from Craigslist on Tuesday. Team Racer, Joe Solancho and I had discussed entering the Mt Sac Fat Tire Classic XC Race in the Tandem Category. Only problem was we didn’t have a tandem on hand to do the race. So when this Diamondback became available, I jumped on it!

Stock, the tandem came with a rigid fork. But it has a 1 1/8″ head tube, so that meant I could easily swap out the rigid fork for a suspension fork to make our ride a bit more comfy during training and the race.

One of our friends, Arnie Alvarado, provided a Rockshox Pilot fork to use until the fork I had placed on order arrives sometime next week.

After I installed the fork, one of my buddies, Ben, came over to hang out. After a couple beers, we decided to test ride the tandem to make sure everything was in working order. As we’re riding around, we decided to race Ben’s son, Joey, he rode an Electric Bike. Ben and I were mashing hard and was leading the race, then as he was applying the front brakes, Ben hears a big snapping sound (he was the captain, and I was the stoker). He was able to stop the bike. But upon inspection, we found a mechanical…can you see what it is?

If you haven’t figured it out yet, here’s a hint…See the green arrows? Well apparently, when I was swapping forks, I had installed the v-brakes, but I forgot one major item…I forgot to install the bolts that hold the brakes to the bosses…big duh on my part…

Lucky for us the rear brakes had enough power to stop us before we hit Ben’s wife’s car…

So if you are going to be @ the Mt. Sac Fat Tire Classic next week, you may just see us! Right now they don’t have a tandem class, if anything, Joe and I will enter as Beginner Men. But we’re not sure if we should do 27-34(RL-33) or 35-42(Joe-40?)…either way we’ll have fun while mashing the competition.

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From “THE ANIMAL” Eric Hunner…

Race day I was up really early as usual checking the weather, light rain. Rain was a good thing, we rode MT. SAC the day before and it was dry and dusty, transitioning into cracked dirt and rock hard singletrack. Mix the two together with a little rain and we some nice dirt to race on.

I owe a Big Thanks to Ergon USA, this was my first competitive event that I used Ergon Grips. This also happens to be the first race where I did not focus on my hands going to sleep. In the past I have had to slow down after a rough downhill section due to the fact I could not feel my hands on the grips during a race.

This was not the case during my Race at MT. SAC. I had received the grips the day before the race. Installing the grips is simple and straight forward, very little tweaking needed. I put 15 miles on the new grips before the race, I was already hooked. The adjustable Bar Ends built into the end of the grips are Awesome. The Bar Ends provided multiple hand placements, which was needed for the MT. SAC race because on the course there really isn’t a place to rest.

MT. SAC has a little bit of everything dry pavement, muddy pavement, lots of hill climbs, single track, slippery grass transitions, hike a bike, tunnel crossing, gravel, and a farm crossing. Having the new Ergon grips made the difference for my race; I could concentrate on the race and not tend to my hands. At the start line I had my toughest competitor Mark Mumea next to me and he had the same Ergon grips I had. I asked Mark if he liked the grips? I believe he said, “They are great”. He kept it short as the race was about to start.

The race started and I had a nice start. I stayed on the left side of the start line so I would not get bumped by the multi-speeders running hard to the first turn. It worked No accidents at the start. I lost
sight of Mark at the first bottleneck I had another Single Speeder in my group one of Mark’s teammates Rod Leueque. Rod and I were going back and forth the first two laps. On the first mile of the last lap Rod threw his chain on some rough single track. Rod recovered and still put up a good fight, but I didn’t let him catch me this time. From that point on I was going like mad. I made it to the podium in 5th place.

I owe another Big Thank You to our Team for all the suport and the great food, Evomo, Hoss, & Ergon.

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