With Chicagoans tearing up the trails from Leadville to Shenandoah, and from Wausau (at the 24 Hours of 9 Mile) to Dirt Sweat and Gears, we wanted to find out how folks in the Windy City prepare for the extremes of XXC racing.
Chicago has a lot of strikes against it: No elevation gain, few legal trail options, miles of concrete-and-asphalt sprawl, tough winters that seem to never end. But it also has some big wins: A pro-bike mayor, miles of bike lanes and paved paths, even more miles of dirt and gravel multi-use paths, and a dirt community that embraces the XXC lifestyle in all its forms.
So what’s a long-distance mountain biker to do?
“Especially during the winter, I’ll train on the [paved] bike path,” according to Dave Norton, 9th at the 2008 24 Hour Solo National Championships. “And I have my routes [off-path] – I’ll head north on the Channel Path to the Botanical Gardens, then back down, on semi-slicks or sometimes full knobbies, 100-mile routes. Focus on time and intensity – use a heart rate monitor, and get into the zone I want to race in, maybe a little higher.”
Norton said that in his run-up to Nationals, he “really” got to know his body, and focusing on intensity on the road or path was key. “I work the early shift, out by 2 p.m.,” he said. “The bike path is mine at 2. When I could ride dirt, I would, but I don’t remember any social, recreational rides. That sucked -- I’m sure I did, but I don’t remember it. I worked, slept, and would come back and have a recovery drink, stretch. I don’t necessarily like doing it, but it was part of the routine.” He also said finding a nutrition strategy and getting quality rest made it possible.
Taking advantage of every opportunity makes the routine worth it. The gravel next to the bike path is “a magnet. I jump up on there on my road bike. Heck yeah man!” he said. “I daydream, even though cars are whizzing by me on Lake Shore Drive. Oh yeah. The [30-foot] sled hill? Hill repeat city. Even when I’m riding with someone. Without saying anything, just split off. You crave it, it’s in our blood. We see it, we just do it. It’s pitiful. I have to jump into the daydream. I should move somewhere else. I look stupid riding a $3,000 Specialized Epic on the bike path.”
So why does he put himself through it? “Ever since a young age, I really like doing things that when you tell someone what you’re doing, I love when people respond with, ‘what?’” he said. “I love doing things that make people say ‘What?’”
Indoor training is a last resort. “I do have a trainer, if it was off the hook outside,” he said. “I’d get sopping wet, dripping sweat.”
For three-time Leadville finisher D.J. Burns, indoor training is part of the build-up to a successful season. “How do you train for Leadville? Put a bag over your head,” he joked. “Seriously, start doing long rides in November, as early as you possibly can. Start with 90 minutes, build each week adding 15 minutes to the time. Teach spin classes at the same time. Tempo riding, wattage high, 280-300 watts. By February you’re up to like 6 hours.”
And get outside as much as you can. “You’re talking to a sick individual, who rides more miles in the winter than in the summer,” he said. “It’s easy, you just have to get a mindset for it. I’ll throw 25 pounds of weight in my panniers to get more weight on the bike. A couple of times, the lights would go out in my head. You have to be prepared, you have to have the clothing for it.”
Burns said he’d work up to 24 hours a week outside in the snow, “not going that fast, just 8 miles an hour, but over snow.” He also used the Arrow 125 race as preparation. But it’s important to remember that Chicago is flat: “To train for altitude, each person is different,” he said. “My way is get in and get out. It takes me 3 weeks to acclimate; I can’t be there that long. The altitude and climbs are brutal. There are some steep climbs there. I heard Lance say it was tacky, easy to climb’ – I say screw you. There are 11%, 12% grades for like 2 miles, at 10,000 feet. All drainage ditch, powerline. But it’s great going down it.”
Nutrition is not as much of a concern for him. “For people who have never done it and want to get into it, eat what you want and eat often,” he said. “Don’t worry about the Clif bars and stuff; they’re good and lean, but if you want PB&J, BLTs, go ahead and eat it. If you’re going to eat, you might as well enjoy what’s in your stomach. You just gotta’ love riding.”
Racer Amy Dykema. Photo by Gary Smit, xtrphoto.com
At the other end of the training spectrum is Brittany Barran-Stanley of Evanston, who began racing XXC this season. “As far as training, I just ride,” she said. “I go to Kettle and just ride. Training takes the fun out of it. It just becomes a chore like everything else. It’s not my job.”
She and her husband Mike drive to the Kettle Moraine State Forest in Wisconsin – a 2-hour drive from her home – many weekends each summer, instead of going to “nearby” Palos Forest Preserve, just 45 minutes away. “I just go out and ride hard for 2-3 hours,” she said. “It has to be fun. That drive is second nature for us now. Last week we rode all day Saturday, and it’s never the same thing. It’s amazing.”
She will ride closer to home depending on the season. “I’ll ride the mountain bike on the path just to get used to it,” she said. “Or ride the [semi-legal] Skokie Lagoons, there’s nice single track, but it’s short. I hate the path, and stick to fall and winter only – during the summer it sucks because it’s too busy.”
She’ll also ride the Des Plaines River Trail gravel path in the fall, but pointed out the difficulties of Chicago’s trails. “The Skokie Lagoons are so infested with mosquitoes all summer, and it takes forever to dry out,” she said. Palos and the DPRT suffer the same fate when it rains, or when the snow is melting in the spring.
The trip to Wisconsin makes it worth it, she said. “When I was road riding, I never understood Amy [Dykema] packing up every weekend to go mountain bike,” she said. “Now I do.”
For her part, Dykema, also of Evanston, relies on racing as training. “I hardly ever trail ride,” she said. “My riding is my racing. My weekday training, I’ll ride on the road during the week. I would love to have more time to trail ride, but the racing is fun for me. I still like road riding, I don’t hate it.”
Dykema is a former road rider who also races cross-country events in addition to 3-hour XXC. “I felt like this is something I can do – not a huge, mass start, it seemed like a good way to get back into mountain bike racing [after a bad road crash],” she said. “You didn’t have tons of people mowing you down, you can go your own pace. That was really appealing to me. And it has appealed to me ever since then!”
She spends nearly every summer weekend in Wisconsin, alternating between Wisconsin Off-Road Series (WORS) XC events and longer Wisconsin Endurance Mountain Bike Series (WEMS) events. In fact, she is a several-time “WORS Head,” meaning she raced every event in a season. “I make a choice,” she said. “Every year I say I’m not going to do all these. But I’m having fun, so I do one more. Do one more for the series. And somehow I end up doing them all!”
Johnny Sprockets shop manager Sean Palmer says the reality of retail schedules limits his racing. “But I like the training,” he said. “You have to like the training, have to like being on the bike. Most importantly I just like being on the bike.”
Although riding has always been “part of my life, I was a bike messenger, been part of shops for a very long time,” his XXC racing career is fairly new. “Not having the experience, I’m still formulating a consistent training program,” he said. “The thing I’ve suffered with is where you can do the volume but not burn yourself out and build the intensity. For me, the summer season is tough – I try to be more consistent, try to be on the bike every day no matter what. I try to get two days on dirt every week. Days off are important; you get the big volume times in, and buffer that with consistency.”
Chicago resident Brad Majors at the
2009 24 Hours of Big Bear
Photo by Theresa Svoboda, iplayoutside.com
He said he finds inspiration in others from the Chicago XXC community. “Strength is strength,” he said. “That’s the thing I think I’ve learned the most, riding with Brad [Majors], Chris [Strout], riding with Dan [Brennan, 5th 24 Hour Solo Nationals in 2007] –I dropped Dan on our first ride together. To see Dan’s progression, I think it has more to do with my motivation. If you get yourself in the mindset that you need to be in some Colorado backcountry, you defeat yourself right away.
“Working with the limitations you have makes you stronger, accepting those limitations,” he said. “[Training] time does not lie. There’s no way to cheat. People who do the work are going to do well no matter where they are. That’s what’s inspiring about the people here. That’s all there is to me.”
“If you get yourself in the mindset that you need to be in some
Colorado backcountry, you defeat yourself right away.”