Idaho City 100 2012
So here I was three years since my last attempt at the IDC 100………Two years of having to cancel my plans to attend in 2010 and 2011 for work had left me highly motivated to get back to Idaho City to accomplish my goal of “officially” finishing the event without houring out. If anyone remembers my last attempt in 2009 ended with me houring out due to the fact I missed the super secret finish check, and I went straight to impound, with 19 minutes left before houring out. Lesson learned, and this year I finished 31 minutes late, 10th in class out of 29 starters and 15 finishers.
This year had its challenges, just getting out of town was the first hurdle to overcome. Long story short I spent 3 solid days prepping two bikes-both my 09’s just in case my friend Tim needed a ride at the last minute. Once on the road life was good with little or no traffic as I cut up Highway 93 to Highway 318 through the middle of Nevada to Wells on the first day. Man! There is a whole lotta noth’in out there! Beautiful, just beautiful!
The run from Wells to IDC was easy and trouble free. Got in town around 1:00 PM and was set up and relaxing by 3:00 PM.
On Friday my friend Tim came up from Emmett on Friday around 2:00 PM, first time we had got to see each other in two years-way cool! Now for the first special test of the event, sign up!
We got over to sign up around 2:45, and the line was huge, but hey its all good. I was standing there about 2 minutes when I realized the guy in line in front of me, was the same guy I camped next to 3 years ago Don Grahn-all around nice guy. Last time he rode LOI class and ended up going to the ISDE that year-one of the Olympians!
We finished up with sign up, put on our numbers, we were on minute 96, at least the trail would be swept clean by the time we got there! We teched our bikes and parked them in impound……..all that was left was the riding!
That night around two in the morning I woke up to thunder and lightning and a steady rain on the roof of the RV, well at least it wouldn’t be dusty! In the morning the rain had stopped and I looked out the door to find no puddles of water on the ground-a good sign! At seven we dropped our gas off at the pit trailers which were already full, and then went over and got our route times. We made out our route sheets and geared up.
Route Sheet:
Start to check 2 75 minutes 23 miles total 23 miles gas pit 1 18mph avg.
Check 2 to check 3 37 minutes 12 miles total 35 miles 19.5 mph avg
Check 3 to check 4 59 minutes 15 miles total 50 miles gas pit 2 15.2 mph avg
Check 4 to check 5 85 minutes 24.5 miles total 74.5 miles E gas 17.3 mph avg
Check 5 to check 6 77 minutes 19 miles total 93.5 miles gas pit 3 14.8 mph avg
Check 6 to check 7 69 minutes 22 miles total 115.5 miles 19.1 mph avg
Check 7 to check 8 8 minutes 2 miles total 117.5 miles finish ck 15 mph avg
My friend Tim’s son Kevin, his girl friend, friends Jake and Chris showed up around 8:30 and gave us some help when we got our bikes out of impound, handing us paper towels to wipe off our fenders and duct tape to attach our route sheets.
10:36 came and my 09 Berg came to life and we were off! The trail was damp but not greasy-hero conditions! It took me a while to get loosened up and quit riding tight. The first pass through the grass track was about five minutes after the start. Way cool grass track with lots of elevation changes, and it was plenty wide.
The first route check was 23 miles out, and was the first gas stop as well. I had softened up my suspension before impound thinking it was going to be like 09-wrong. I had gone three clicks softer on the low speed compression front and rear and ¼ turn softer on the HSCD. The course in this section was pretty fast in spots and whooped out by the time minute 96 came along. I ended up being 12 minutes late out of this first check after putting my settings back to my normal settings. It was worth the extra two minutes spent putting the settings back to normal as my bike worked way better in the whoops and chop. This year I also decided to ride with Bib Mousse inserts, they were well worth the effort of putting on knowing that I wasn’t going to get a flat! They were a little stiff for the first hour, but, softened up noticeably after the first hour.
(If you're wondering what the clear lens taped to my visor is all about, it was supposed to rain during the day and some competitors got caught in a shower or two. The duct tape on my helmet is to keep the water from running down between the helmet visor and the helmet)
I zeroed the next two route checks, and even arrived 8 minutes early to gas pit 2/ route check 4. Good thing as the gas cans were spread all over the place…….A nice young girl helped me find my can which was way off in left field! Time enough for gas for the bike, water for the camel back, an energy drink, and a fresh pair of goggles! Pretty good considering my front end blew through a berm on a ridged downhill and I stuck my head firmly in the dirt! I was glad to see that the bike was pointed downhill, it was easy to pick up and after straightening my hand guard and got going I figured I only lost about 30 seconds.
I lost 9 minutes on the way to route check 5. Super tight and twisty, couldn’t see the trail most of the time due to the brush hanging over the trail….Your hand guards were constantly pushing the bushes out of the way. This is where I remember seeing the first of the dust……..the trails that were in the sun had dried out and there wasn’t much wind so the dust was hanging in the air-this worked great for visibility with all the brush hanging over the trail LOL! This was the only section where the mileage was correct, if fact it was dead on according to my odo. All the other sections were two to three miles longer than indicated, which was kind of frustrating at first. I was doing the math in my head on the fly trying to gauge how hard to push to make it on time. After a few of these “long” sections I just went as fast as I could without getting off the trail.
Although a good portion of the trail between check 5 and 6 was moist, and the soil nice and loamy, the trail was super tight, and I lost another 3 minutes-crap 24 minutes late! There was one uphill that was a bit of a surprise in this section. I was cruising along taking a good long drink off my camel back when the trail made a quick left, the uphill looked like chocolate cake that was three feet deep! In a gear too high, I whacked the throttle open and accelerated up the hill….about half way up there was a guy on a KTM two stroke doing his best to pull his bike out of the trail, and there were huge ruts where people had got stuck and dug in. I tapped down a gear and did my best to not loop out, feet flying off the pegs trying to maintain balance and forward momentum……. About 15 feet from the top the trail narrowed and I heard a two stroke coming up fast on my left side, and then nothing. Bummer!
Gas 3/ check 6 was kind of like gas 2, the cans were all over the place no rhyme or reasoning to where they were put. At gas one there were stakes with paper plates with numbers and your can was easy to find. I was walking around looking for my can and spectator came up and asked what my number was, he found my can after about a minute, again out in left field, literally. He offered to fill my camel back with the water bottles I had on my can while I fueled up. Thanks Dude!
Off to check 7, the last “real” section so to speak………we went over the grass track again in this section, it was really chewed up by the time I got there. After the grass track we headed out to the north side of town, it was really rock along this section in a lot of places and whooped out. There were more transfer sections on jeep roads in this section than the others, super hard packed and slippery. A good portion of this section I remember from last time, it looked like it was an old narrow gauge rail road bed in a lot of places, of course the Boise Ridge Riders had put sticks and logs on the flat part and you had to ride in this rut that was filled with lots of rocks right next to a vertical uphill slope of rock. After that there were some pretty fast sections of trail with water bars in them. I knew I was losing a lot of time in slower sections so I was really moving on the faster trails, braking hard just before the water bars and accelerating hard after landing off the water bar. This was working pretty good until….I hit an unseen square edge just before a water bar, I swear, I thought I broke both my wrists when I hit it! The bike went straight when I hit the water bar, and after landing I took inventory of my wrists and hands, they felt kind of funny, but, I hit some other bumps and there was no pain so I was off again!
I got to check 7 six minutes late-30 minutes late overall. Then it was the slow cruise through the north end of town back down to the finish, 15mph for two miles. I got to the finish check early, and waited for my minute to cross the line. Somewhere in the mush pot between my ears I messed by one minute and crossed the finish check line 1 minute late, for a total of 31 minutes late on the day, good enough for Bronze! So I started at 10:36 in the morning and crossed the finish line at 5:57 PM.
I got over to my pit and prepped my bike for day two and had my bike in impound with a couple of minutes to spare. My friend Tim finished 8 minutes behind me, this was his third attempt at this event so he was really stoked to have made it without houring out!
The final mileage on my odometer was 121.8 miles.
The next morning rolled around and it was apparent to me that I would not be able to ride that distance and keep the pace that I had the day before. So I decided not brutalize myself with really no hope of making it on Bronze. However, I know what I need to do for next year to make both days on Bronze.
That’s next on the bucket list!!
So here I was three years since my last attempt at the IDC 100………Two years of having to cancel my plans to attend in 2010 and 2011 for work had left me highly motivated to get back to Idaho City to accomplish my goal of “officially” finishing the event without houring out. If anyone remembers my last attempt in 2009 ended with me houring out due to the fact I missed the super secret finish check, and I went straight to impound, with 19 minutes left before houring out. Lesson learned, and this year I finished 31 minutes late, 10th in class out of 29 starters and 15 finishers.
This year had its challenges, just getting out of town was the first hurdle to overcome. Long story short I spent 3 solid days prepping two bikes-both my 09’s just in case my friend Tim needed a ride at the last minute. Once on the road life was good with little or no traffic as I cut up Highway 93 to Highway 318 through the middle of Nevada to Wells on the first day. Man! There is a whole lotta noth’in out there! Beautiful, just beautiful!
The run from Wells to IDC was easy and trouble free. Got in town around 1:00 PM and was set up and relaxing by 3:00 PM.
On Friday my friend Tim came up from Emmett on Friday around 2:00 PM, first time we had got to see each other in two years-way cool! Now for the first special test of the event, sign up!
We got over to sign up around 2:45, and the line was huge, but hey its all good. I was standing there about 2 minutes when I realized the guy in line in front of me, was the same guy I camped next to 3 years ago Don Grahn-all around nice guy. Last time he rode LOI class and ended up going to the ISDE that year-one of the Olympians!
We finished up with sign up, put on our numbers, we were on minute 96, at least the trail would be swept clean by the time we got there! We teched our bikes and parked them in impound……..all that was left was the riding!
That night around two in the morning I woke up to thunder and lightning and a steady rain on the roof of the RV, well at least it wouldn’t be dusty! In the morning the rain had stopped and I looked out the door to find no puddles of water on the ground-a good sign! At seven we dropped our gas off at the pit trailers which were already full, and then went over and got our route times. We made out our route sheets and geared up.
Route Sheet:
Start to check 2 75 minutes 23 miles total 23 miles gas pit 1 18mph avg.
Check 2 to check 3 37 minutes 12 miles total 35 miles 19.5 mph avg
Check 3 to check 4 59 minutes 15 miles total 50 miles gas pit 2 15.2 mph avg
Check 4 to check 5 85 minutes 24.5 miles total 74.5 miles E gas 17.3 mph avg
Check 5 to check 6 77 minutes 19 miles total 93.5 miles gas pit 3 14.8 mph avg
Check 6 to check 7 69 minutes 22 miles total 115.5 miles 19.1 mph avg
Check 7 to check 8 8 minutes 2 miles total 117.5 miles finish ck 15 mph avg
My friend Tim’s son Kevin, his girl friend, friends Jake and Chris showed up around 8:30 and gave us some help when we got our bikes out of impound, handing us paper towels to wipe off our fenders and duct tape to attach our route sheets.
10:36 came and my 09 Berg came to life and we were off! The trail was damp but not greasy-hero conditions! It took me a while to get loosened up and quit riding tight. The first pass through the grass track was about five minutes after the start. Way cool grass track with lots of elevation changes, and it was plenty wide.
The first route check was 23 miles out, and was the first gas stop as well. I had softened up my suspension before impound thinking it was going to be like 09-wrong. I had gone three clicks softer on the low speed compression front and rear and ¼ turn softer on the HSCD. The course in this section was pretty fast in spots and whooped out by the time minute 96 came along. I ended up being 12 minutes late out of this first check after putting my settings back to my normal settings. It was worth the extra two minutes spent putting the settings back to normal as my bike worked way better in the whoops and chop. This year I also decided to ride with Bib Mousse inserts, they were well worth the effort of putting on knowing that I wasn’t going to get a flat! They were a little stiff for the first hour, but, softened up noticeably after the first hour.
(If you're wondering what the clear lens taped to my visor is all about, it was supposed to rain during the day and some competitors got caught in a shower or two. The duct tape on my helmet is to keep the water from running down between the helmet visor and the helmet)
I zeroed the next two route checks, and even arrived 8 minutes early to gas pit 2/ route check 4. Good thing as the gas cans were spread all over the place…….A nice young girl helped me find my can which was way off in left field! Time enough for gas for the bike, water for the camel back, an energy drink, and a fresh pair of goggles! Pretty good considering my front end blew through a berm on a ridged downhill and I stuck my head firmly in the dirt! I was glad to see that the bike was pointed downhill, it was easy to pick up and after straightening my hand guard and got going I figured I only lost about 30 seconds.
I lost 9 minutes on the way to route check 5. Super tight and twisty, couldn’t see the trail most of the time due to the brush hanging over the trail….Your hand guards were constantly pushing the bushes out of the way. This is where I remember seeing the first of the dust……..the trails that were in the sun had dried out and there wasn’t much wind so the dust was hanging in the air-this worked great for visibility with all the brush hanging over the trail LOL! This was the only section where the mileage was correct, if fact it was dead on according to my odo. All the other sections were two to three miles longer than indicated, which was kind of frustrating at first. I was doing the math in my head on the fly trying to gauge how hard to push to make it on time. After a few of these “long” sections I just went as fast as I could without getting off the trail.
Although a good portion of the trail between check 5 and 6 was moist, and the soil nice and loamy, the trail was super tight, and I lost another 3 minutes-crap 24 minutes late! There was one uphill that was a bit of a surprise in this section. I was cruising along taking a good long drink off my camel back when the trail made a quick left, the uphill looked like chocolate cake that was three feet deep! In a gear too high, I whacked the throttle open and accelerated up the hill….about half way up there was a guy on a KTM two stroke doing his best to pull his bike out of the trail, and there were huge ruts where people had got stuck and dug in. I tapped down a gear and did my best to not loop out, feet flying off the pegs trying to maintain balance and forward momentum……. About 15 feet from the top the trail narrowed and I heard a two stroke coming up fast on my left side, and then nothing. Bummer!
Gas 3/ check 6 was kind of like gas 2, the cans were all over the place no rhyme or reasoning to where they were put. At gas one there were stakes with paper plates with numbers and your can was easy to find. I was walking around looking for my can and spectator came up and asked what my number was, he found my can after about a minute, again out in left field, literally. He offered to fill my camel back with the water bottles I had on my can while I fueled up. Thanks Dude!
Off to check 7, the last “real” section so to speak………we went over the grass track again in this section, it was really chewed up by the time I got there. After the grass track we headed out to the north side of town, it was really rock along this section in a lot of places and whooped out. There were more transfer sections on jeep roads in this section than the others, super hard packed and slippery. A good portion of this section I remember from last time, it looked like it was an old narrow gauge rail road bed in a lot of places, of course the Boise Ridge Riders had put sticks and logs on the flat part and you had to ride in this rut that was filled with lots of rocks right next to a vertical uphill slope of rock. After that there were some pretty fast sections of trail with water bars in them. I knew I was losing a lot of time in slower sections so I was really moving on the faster trails, braking hard just before the water bars and accelerating hard after landing off the water bar. This was working pretty good until….I hit an unseen square edge just before a water bar, I swear, I thought I broke both my wrists when I hit it! The bike went straight when I hit the water bar, and after landing I took inventory of my wrists and hands, they felt kind of funny, but, I hit some other bumps and there was no pain so I was off again!
I got to check 7 six minutes late-30 minutes late overall. Then it was the slow cruise through the north end of town back down to the finish, 15mph for two miles. I got to the finish check early, and waited for my minute to cross the line. Somewhere in the mush pot between my ears I messed by one minute and crossed the finish check line 1 minute late, for a total of 31 minutes late on the day, good enough for Bronze! So I started at 10:36 in the morning and crossed the finish line at 5:57 PM.
I got over to my pit and prepped my bike for day two and had my bike in impound with a couple of minutes to spare. My friend Tim finished 8 minutes behind me, this was his third attempt at this event so he was really stoked to have made it without houring out!
The final mileage on my odometer was 121.8 miles.
The next morning rolled around and it was apparent to me that I would not be able to ride that distance and keep the pace that I had the day before. So I decided not brutalize myself with really no hope of making it on Bronze. However, I know what I need to do for next year to make both days on Bronze.
That’s next on the bucket list!!
