JasonHilimire.com

Alright, so it’s been a bit of a while coming, what can I say, the off season is busy. You have lots of things to do, sit on your ass, eat greasy food, play xbox and drink beer. That’s a lotta stuff to fit into a small window of the season.

Recap: Day 2 Day 1

Day 3

Day 3 looks on paper, to be a super fun, super fast and easy day.

Little did I know what I had in store for me. Since the day was a bit faster, we got some bonus added sleep time as the race started an hour later than normal, though for this race we started in the center of the village. It was quite cool and loads of people gathered round to see us off

We were mostly smiling cause we thought today was all downhill, little did we realize what was on tap!

It was a quick start rolling right through the city village and then up the first of the day’s climbs. Again, I was feeling really good on the bike and happy to be out and ready for another day’s adventure.

The first climb took us up and up and up. At the top was a nice little gathering of the locals, cheering us on pushing us forward. I had slacked off a bit to take pictures and had to rally myself to bridge the gap up to Todd. Once I caught Todd on the road, I rallied him to grab my wheel and we bridged up to the Green Machine for a really fun singletrack descent through some flower fields, mint and other spices. It really smelled amazing (no pics it was too much fun!)

After we hit the days first descent we had another bit of climbing before we would come to the top and descend through some crazy farmland. Riding on a combination of farm roads and worker trails, we cut our way though the fields. Working right into this crazy mud chute, it had to be about 12-15 high and just wide enough for us. Only thing was it was so steep and muddy, I was having a hell of a time clipping in and managing to hold onto the bike as it slid down. There was no control, just riding a bucking bronco and bouncing off the sides for 200 meters.

Once we got out of the chute it was onto the road for one of the hairest road descents I’ve ever been on. The picture above really doesn’t do it any justice. This thing was steep, it made Bopple hill look flat. Swapping between cobbles and concrete, super windy and just blazingly fast. All the while the townsfolk & their dogs are dodging around us.

All the commotion wasn’t good. When I hit a flat spot I decided to wait up for Todd. After a few minutes, I figured he had a flat or something. Then a few riders came down and told me he had crashed. I made my way back up the hill to find him sitting on the fence, with just about every kid in town checking him out. He was in some good pain, had gone down at around 50-60kph on the cobbles, when a dog cut between us. Luckily his pack took the brunt of the blow and the rest was mostly just some deepish cuts, road rash and some muscle bruising. Silly roadies, at least being a roadie Todd was used to crashing at speed. After resting for a bit, we decided to coast the final few kilometers to the next checkpoint and have him taken back to the hotel so the doc could check his wounds and get him cleaned up. After triple checking he was ok and once we got to the checkpoint, we decided that I would go on solo.

Riding solo in an unknown country, and being pretty much at the rear of the field and not seeing anyone for a while was kind of scary and fun at the same time. After I left Todd, I had a hell of a road descent before I dived into the Jungle. I was speeding past the cars at 80-100kph and having all kinds of fun! Once I hit the jungle it was all downhill, fast and flowy farm roads. Just crusing on the bike.

Then came the cobbles, and the cobbles, and the cobbles and the friggin cobbles. 20 straight kilometers of descending cobbles at high speeds. I had to stop and make some fork adjustments cause my hands were going numb even with the fork taking off the edge. It was fun, but quite hairy in the corners as the rocks had a slight slickness to them. I knew if I went down, there was no one to pick me back up.

We descended down and down through the Macadamia Nut fields

The cobbles continued and continued, and finally ceased. From there it was some crazy fast and fun singletrack. It flowed so very nicely, only thing was it was sooo insanely humid and hot. I felt like my face was going to melt right off. Then I realized I’d not seen any tire tracks or arrows in a few kilometers. I got spooked quick. The realization that I was all alone, lost and in a jungle caused a panic. I mean I’m in a friggin jungle, I could get eaten by a goddam jaguar or something. I decided to turn around and make my way back to where I could find the last arrow. I seemingly wasn’t the only one who missed an arrow as my solo trek soon turned into a gang of 9 riders looking for the course. I had gone quite a way (about 4-5k) and managed to pick up a few stragglers. Luckily was able to get myself back on course and get moving forward.

As I got moving forward, I came to the 2nd suspension bridge of the day. Holy crap, this thing was all rickety, off kilter, about 200 meters long and about 50 meters in the air. It took me a good damn bit of time to cross the thing.

You can see here, I had to actually stop and move my bike to the other side of me. The bridge was swaying hard and really was leaning off to one side and I had to switch sides to feel comfortable. Once I was off the bridge, and now out of water it was one hell of a hike-a-bike out. I had no idea how far I had left go as I lost my computer. If felt like I was going to melt. I contemplated just sitting down and letting that jaguar eat me. Then I heard a few voices, and a few locals were on the climb observing us racers coming over the bridge and they had clean water!! Hallelujah!! I downed about 5 of those little sealed baggies of water (I’ve never seen water come in baggies). Got complety rejuvenated and was super pumped to find out that at the top of the climb, I had a few k of mostly road riding to get to the finish.

I railed it hard to the finish and was super pumped to get there! It had been a long 3 days and know it was to come to a close!! Todd was there waiting, he had been cleaned up and bandaged and managed to limp over and give me a hi-five for finishing. The race, the hotels, the course, the people, the food, the staff, everything about this race was 5 star across the board. I highly recommend it to anyone. Next year I’ll be on my honeymoon as this race kicks off, so until 2012 there’s an open spot, but I hope
to be back in the future!

See Day 1 here:

Day 2 El Reto de Quetzal

Upon arriving back at the hotel from day 1’s journey. I was in such a distorted state I could barely function. I quickly cleaned up and hit the hotel for lunch. I had to eat. HAD to eat, so much so that I couldn’t actually function until I ate a giant plate of pasta, bean soup, couple of cokes and multiple baskets of bread. There’s hunger and there’s ravaged hunger! After that it was simply time to sleep and wait to eat again. The hotel was gorgeous with an amazing view overlooking the lake

I felt pretty hosed after the prior day’s efforts and day 2 was looking to be another epic day. While short in stature it had plenty of vertical, taking us up above 9500ft!! With all the climbing on tap I was wondering how the legs were going to possibly feel and would I be second guessing my 26/36 dual chainring?

The first 10k was a road climb, right outta the gate tires started on the incline. Surprisingly I actually felt really good. I like the long climbs (as much as you can ‘like’ a climb), especially when you’re not running full tilt with such a long day on tap. As usual the front teams took off the front leaving us gringos to grid away till we hit the village at the top.

I was feeling pretty good and sat out to ride some nice tempo up the climb, Todd who had a great day prior was suffering a little bit with effort out of the gate. So I yo-yo’d up and back for a bit with a few small groups. As cool as it was (mid/low 70’s) it was extremely humid. I made the right choice to go pack-less and even had to fully unzip on the climb as I was dripping in sweat. I woulda been dryer had I jumped in the lake.

We continued to climb till we hit the top and blasted down a dirt/concrete road. Only thing with blasting down a super fun fast switchback road, is the locals are still driving up and down the single car wide/blind corner road!! There were more than a few close calls of descending at 65kph and slamming on the brakes around the corners so we don’t collide head on with truck!

After the first descent it was time to go up a bit more (see above). This time we paired up with the Green Machine. Trisha and Steve, a canadian team who were leading the mix category race and gave us a beat down the day prior. Trish is a crazy good climber and spent the day bolting off the front every chance she could, while I gave chase and Todd/Steve were stuck behind yelling curses at us while we climbed away. We had some good laughs and great chats up the climbs together and spent a good majority of the race and after each day hanging out (there were only 4 anglophone teams).

Once over the top of the 2nd climb we had an amazing descent into the valley. Some nice cliff edges and beautiful views of the gorges and surrounding mountains. But as had been par for the course it meant a nice long climb out. The climb out was actually fun as it had some nice steep sections and some good rolling recovery sections. Todd was ready to roll at this point and we flew up the climb passing a few team and making up some ground. As far out as were were from any village, there were still locals kids here and they even were running along side and pushing me up the climbs. I got a kick out of it cause they were all too far gassed to offer any help to Todd!

Though once out of the valley climb it was back onto a long grind dirt road climb. After the fun of the previous singletrack climb, it was actually kind of hard to really get ourselves into a rythmn and get moving. And lo and behold the Green machine like the crazy robots they are churned away and pulled us back in.

A quick stop at aid station #2 for a refuel and were off to make the long singletrack hike a bike to the top. This trail seemed to go on forever and with all the climbing we had done mixed in with the elevation, it was gnarly to try to get moving and just put down any efforts. There were more than a few pit stops to catch my breath as I felt like I was just going to black out from the fatigue and the elevation.

Once we got to the top things opened up a bit and we were able to get back on the bikes and rolling.

I tried out my trials skills on a very tiny off-camber rock section. Got the front wheel up and across the gap, but the rear wheel slid and some big consequences. Off the side down into the ravine I went. A good 20 foot fall, somehow I jumped off the bike landed on my feet, but was moving so fast I had to jump again and again each time going down about 5-10 feet and finally slowing down by jumping into some bushes. I came out unscathed, but had the adrenaline flowing now!

Another pit stop at the aid station for some more of that delicious watermelon and still had 45 more minutes of climbing!! As we topped out at 9580ft of elevation it was time to do nothing but go downhill!! A super fun long descent all the way down the other side of the mountains we had just climbed. The descent was super fun singletrack, rocky, rooty and even got some crazy greasy clay sections with loads of ruts.

At one point were flying down the descent and came across a group of locals carrying firewood. Generally a good Ola! gets em moving out of the way, but for some reason this time they didn’t hear or decided they weren’t moving! Well it was a super greasy clay descent with loads of ruts everywhere and we were descending around 50+kph and they happened to be walking the best line. I moved off the line across some ruts and suddenly my rear wheel came sliding around and was know in pretty darn even with me and within my peripheral vision. Seeing your rear wheel at that speed isn’t usually a good thing. I started to think about how damn hard the crash was going to hurt as the wheel was sliding around and then, BAM! the wheel caught the side of a rut, straightened right out and I was on the move again. Todd who was descending right behind me could barely believe I pulled out of it, I jokingly bragged it was all in the skills (the chamois stains proved I was scared though).

Once off the singletrack it was onto some farm road descending for what felt like a good 20-30 minutes. Super fast 50 kph, slightly downhill banging it out at full speed flying along riding. It was the best part of the day, just churning the pedals away feeling like you had no chain. The road was pretty buff as far as no rocks or whatnot, but it was still dirt and bumpy making you really pick your lines at that speed. But it felt great to just punch it as hard as you could and feel like you were really flying. In fact the descent was so much fun, it made you forget about all the pain and suffering of going uphill the whole day.

Day 2 was in the books 5:45 of time on the bike. Grabbed our bags, showered up and grabbed some lunch as quick as possible. After the long lunch, it was back to the room for an hour of naptime and then right back to the restaurant to eat a 2nd lunch. We were quite famished and the first one barely touched us. Our 2nd lunch gave us some incentive to rest some more and then head to the dinner buffet where we gorged ourselves on anything we could find to fit in our bellies. Stage racing,,, ride, eat, sleep, eat, sleep, eat, sleep. What’s better than that?

Day 3 to come soon…we’re almost there!

Ok finally…not all but at least it’s Day 1

It’s not too often that you take your definition of “Epic” and completely redefine it. Most of the time the word often gets overused a bit, but I doubt there is a better term for the El Reto de Quetzal race that I participated in October 9,10,11th in October. I teamed up with local supa fast roadie Todd Scheske (who convinced me to go last winter). We put in lotsa miles on the 29ers down in Naples hitting up the trails and working on riding together.

I was a a little tentative and scared to head to Central America at first, but in the end everything worked out fine and it was actually pretty easy to get there and deal with customs. We arrived on wednesday prior to the race. Giving us some time to get settled, rest up, put the bikes together and explore the city of Antigua via bike. We rolled through the cobbled streets and markets with the locals gawking and staring at us and finally made our way out of town. We climbed up the highway out of the village up the mountain, but unfortunately we couldn’t find the way back down! This meant we ended up doing the ‘death descent’ down the highway using the shoulder into oncoming traffic. I’m pretty sure I’ve never been that freaked out on a descent in my life before. There are pretty much no rules for driving in South America and cars were whipping all over the windy blind corners, passing the chicken busses wildly and not even realizing we were there to try to descend down. Luckily we made it down without dying!

Day 1

Day 1 started us right in the City center of Antigua. Rolling out on the cobbled streets of the city, zig-zagging out way to the day’s first climb. Right away the fireworks hit and the front runners pulled no punches and lit it up the first climb. It started out steep and just got progressively steeper. The first parts of it were paved in the city and then we hit the dirt. With the slick clay it became pretty easy to justify hopping off the bike and saving the efforts.

Once we got up over the climb we did some rolling fast efforts through the farms. Lots of little ups and down that quickly took their toll. As we worked ourselves over on the bikes, the locals were toiling away in the fields, often rarely noticing what we even doing. (BTW Guatemalan produce is insanely large, cornstalks are 10-12ft tall and the carrots are as big as baseball bats!)

However, when we did come across and thru the several towns, there were loads of school kids with flags and plenty of enthusiasm to cheer us on. All day the kids and the locals yelled. “Animo, Animo, Animo!” It wasn’t till afterwards that we really realized what animo meant, kind of “get moving” or “go forward”. Every now and then the cheers allowed you to crack a smile through the grimace.

The reasons for the grimace were aplenty. For it seemed for many miles, the them of the terrain was insanely steep switchback descent, followed by an incredibly steep hike-a-bike climb out. We did this more than a few times. At one point, Todd and I were griping about the lack of noting that these were hike-a-bikes and someone yelled down, “What I don’t mark well enough, for ya”. Just happened to be one of the promoters sitting at the top chiding us on as we hiked up the climb.

After we made it through the hell section in which, I was multiple times sent into slumped over the bike/death march mode we proceeded to descend down the road, quickly. Continuing to roll through some small towns and making our way toward the final climb. I jokingly pointed and laughed as we rolled through one of the small towns to Todd, that we were heading towards what looked like the city wall. Well, it was a wall for sure and it was paved and we had to go up it. I’ve not seen pavement that steep, and for the first time I was forced off the bike and walk up a paved climb. I’m guessing it was somewhere in the mid 30% for grade, damn it was steep.

This finally brought us to our final climb of the day. ~8k of pavement in the sun. As hosed as we were at this point, we were no longer ashamed to stop and take a break in the shade. This was rough, but we were rewarded with a checkpoint at the top and loads of watermelon. If you’ve never done an endurance race, it’s worth it just to get the watermelon. Watermelon tastes so damn good when you’re hungry, thirsty and tired…

After the long climb we were rewarded with the gem of the day. The crazy descent into Panajachel. Riding the singletrack overlooking the lake and volcanoes across the lake. It was dam near vertical drop at some points right off the singletrack!

As we descended for what seemed to be ages, we came to the terraces and finally into the village.

Coming through the villages was on of the most fun descents I’ve ever done. Urban singletrack. We were descending through alleyways and corridors with very little room, and loads of continuous stairs. Zigging and zagging down and having some fun! The locals heads popping out around the corners and trying not to take em out.

By the end of the day, after 7:20 of riding I was never happier to be off my bike and finished. Though it was only 1 day down and we still had 2 more to go!

Find Day 2 here

Here’s the photos’s from El Reto Del Quetzal this past week. Great time!!

Write-up and embedded pictures to come later!

Ok, os I finally figured out how to create slideshows from flickr. Since I wasted so much time on it, I’ll just dump it in here and go forward.

This past wednesday night was rad as usual. Headed down to Naples with Chad & Hanggi for some climbing. The legs were still feeling the effect of the cross race, but all was good. I even felt really good rocking the 2×9 on the climbs. We hit up Parish, Woolen and the uber-steep Wolfganger climb and never had any issues with the 26×34. Actually felt really good pushing the gearing on the climbing. It was a tough ride 25 miles with 32000 ft of climbing packed into 2 hours.

This weekend should be a good time. Moonlight ride saturday evening and then hitting up the Parma Cross race on sunday. We’ll see how the 1×10 works there and hopefully not too whacked from all the riding I’ll do tomorrow.

If you’re looking for my write-up on yesterdays Buck Hill Cyclocross race, it’s over on the 29erCrew.com website

Yeah, yeah, you want to see all the cool photos of bike stuff from interbike. Well I’ll try to get those uploaded tonight. In the meantime here’s some quick video clips of cross vegas. Had a great time watching the race and hanging out. The part that sucked though was the 90 minute wait for the bus afterwards!

Video clips I took from Cross Vegas

More stuff to come later, I’m still decompressing from it all and tired from the cross race yesterday.

Where to start, where to start?

Things were dialed in and ready to go this past Friday evening. Fellow local enduro rider Pete showed up and slapped the bike on the rear rack of the car while I tried to convince Lizzy girl that she wasn’t going with me on another bike ride (it’s really hard, I mean she does have a sad puppy face!). With the bikes loaded up, we were on our way Virginia.

Some 6-7 hours later or whatever, we rolled into the Stokesville campground. Unloaded the bikes, kitted up and headed out for a pre-ride. Followed a few riders and took the road over near aid station #2, then rolled back and climbed most of the way up the first climb. On the way up, got something stuck in my front tire and decided to swap out my XR1 for an ACX, and boy did having the bigger volume help on the downhills the next day. After the pre-ride wolfed down the usual pasta and salad supper and had a nice chat with Todd. Rolled back to the hotel, popped some sleeping pills and crashed hard till I awoke at 5ish am.

Early morning came fast, and the 550 strong racers rolled out of the campground. It should be mandatory for mountain bikers to race on the road sometimes, as it seems nobody knows how to ride in a big pack. Thankfully it was short lived and after we got across the bridge, I was able to move forward and get in a good spot heading onto the dirt road climb. On the opening climb last year, I had blown my load and put myself in the top 10 across the top but it cost me waaay too much later. This year, I rolled it easy and eased into it. Made my way up and worked through the groups and used the outside line on all the corners to carry speed and rip up the climb. I was feeling great and comfortable, and made it into the 1st section of singletrack and just shredded the descent (as usual).

Formed up in a small group on the road and made my way over to climb #2. Last year I came unraveled a bit here, but was ready this year and climbed the majority of it and only had to walk a small section. Raged the ensuing descent like a man on a mission and hit the road with a small group heading towards aid #2. When we hit aid #2, I took some time to recollect and lost my group. As a result I was on my own and heading toward the 3rd climb. On the 3rd climb, I came a little bit undone mentally, suffered a bit on the climb and just took it easy trying to wolf down some food and just get over the top. I ripped up the descent and hit the next aid station and stuffed my face with some fig newtons and jumped on the road. I managed to slip into a pretty elite group, taking pulls with Sue Haywood (the women’s race leader) and towing ol man Gunn4r Shogren on the Singlespeed around. Swapped pulls with Sue, and almost got dropped till Gunn4r literally pushed me right back onto her wheel when she hit a rise in the road a little harder than I could hang onto.

The next climb though didn’t go to well. My stomach was churning from the figs and I had to pull things waay back. About halfway up the long singletrack climb, I pulled off the trail and pulled the trigger. Emptied the stomach and got myself going forward again. Felt good to have the blood leave the stomach and go back to the legs. Tore up the descent and linked up on the road with Ryan Heerschap. Chatted and hung with Ryan for a bit, but just faded some more on the “soul crusher”. It took me a long ass time to get to the base of that fire road climb, including pulling the trigger one more time.

Thankfully, once I hit the fire-road turn I could get into a nice solid rhythm and turn the gears over and floor it. I skipped grabbing my bag and just topped off my bottles at the aid station. Rolled it up right to the top of the climb. Ready to rage the final descent. The dude who had just passed me, pulled off to the side at the start. After asking him if everything was ok, he said “Yeah, I rode behind you on this descent last year and you were ripping it, I don’t want to hold you up!”. Well I raged that descent, for a whole 5 meters and crashed right away. Way to live up to expectations I guess. To top it off, my left leg cramped and the dude had to help lift my bike off me. Though after I let him pass, I pulled him back in shortly thereafter (only to have him pass me on a few of the steep climbs cause I walked so I wouldn’t cramp).

At the very very very end of the descent, I flatted when I hit the creek crossing at 45 kph. Somewhere in my mind, something was buzzing about taking it easy on a light tire in the rear, but I forgot at that moment and paid for it. I threw a tube in and rolled it towards the last climb. At this point, I had suffered enough and was just praying to come in under 9 hours. Well, as soon as I hit the final climb, knew that wasn’t going to happen. Off the bike and walking the steeper parts. The left leg couldn’t push because of cramps and the right knee was literally going to explode. Finally at the top I was happy to start the descent and rip to the line, only to flat 10 friggin feet later. A shitload more of walking and someone finally tossed me a tube and a co2. Changed it out and lurched it down the final descent. Shit, that rear tire was so friggin rock solid on the final descent, I thought I broke a few ribs from the vibration heading down. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to finish a race. I’m still not sure if I want to ride it again… 9:16 something, 30 minutes faster than last year and 45 minutes slower than my goal (with a large chunk of it coming in the final 6 miles)

That’s racing though. Nothing to do, but get ready and prep and dial it all in for next season go around… Time to chill, hit some cross and up and do a little night mountain biking an cap the season off down in Guatemala!

Been lagging a bit with the blog posts, but things have been super busy. Summer racing and training is into full swing and the push is on for the Hardcore 24 next month.

5 weeks to get in some heavy training and bring my form up in time for a solo effort at the race. Currently form is a little on the low side but that’s purposeful so I can do the work necesarry.

I did pick up a new road bike! Trek 5200, 06 closeout that the Geneva bicycle center hooked me up with. Haven’t swung a leg over it yet, but will be putting some heavy time on her over these next few weeks. I’ll get some pics up when I return.

Currently en route to NYC to visit my sister and do a little xc race in central park. Should be fun and crazy, shredding singletrack with skyscrapers. A long ways from colorado.

Got out this am and did some openers on the mtb. Took lizzy along for the ride and she was super happy to run along as usual. Feel good and ready for the race tomorrow, so we’ll see how it goes.

XXIXer Crew has the new website re-design up and running, go check it out. The new logo and the “Johnny Cash” black kits are pretty hot for the 2009 season.

After a short easy ride on Tuesday and some quick efforts on Wednesday, was time to pack up and head out.

Made the long drive out to Utah Wed Night. Decided to avoid the weather coming over the Rockies only to encounter it during the drive through Wyoming.

Didn’t quite make it to my destination due to the weather, but made it in early Thursday. Once the snow lifted, got to see where I was and Salt Lake City is quite a beautiful place

Tonight I’ll be making the drive down to Moab in prep for the big ride tomorrow. Should be a blast and look for tons of pics when I return on Monday!

Man, let’s see 35+ hours in my car, 34.9 of them having been spent dealing with snow or blowing snow of some sort and the last 5 hours of the trip spent in Buffalo, NY. The danger zone of all danger zones for winter weather. I made it, no trips in the ditch, but can’t speak for many of my fellow travellers. Majority of whom that had a southern state license plate, got to experience the awesomeness of a tow truck ride.

Driving was pretty boring. Seeing a car off the road next to each mile-marker sign, kept it interesting. I snapped a few pics from my iPhone on the way. Bet you didn’t know it could be a useful driving tool? You see, when the wind blows really hard, you get a “whiteout” and can’t see even the hood of your car.

When traveling at 50+ mph and suddenly going blind, it easily causes accidents when people hit the brakes, because they are scared and suddenly can’t see the road. Well the iphone is handy-dandy road finder! Not the gps part, but the camera part. I turned on the camera and it could ’see’ the road, weird, yes in a way. Let me explain, see the iphone could pick up detail that my eyes couldn’t see, the road would show up on the iphone, but not with my own eyes. Hence I just held it on top of the steering wheel and when things went pure white, magically could reference the iphone and make sure I was going in a straight line and not heading for a snow bank! It took some practice because driving a car using a 3.5 inch screen is a little tough!

See how you can see the road and the detail in the picture? Well, with me eyes it was just pure white!

Remnants of a 10 car pile-up. Maybe they should advertise the iphone’s winter driving capabilities?

Yup, they coulda used an iphone.

Next, maybe I’ll figure how to get it so the steering of the car is controlled via tilting the iphone and then it will be a breeze to get home in the snow, and fun too!

Time to go hit the trails on the xc skis