Anatomy of a Neophyte Mountain Bike Racer
“Killer course” says it all.
August 18-19, 2001 marked the dates for the fifth annual Claim Jumper Cross-country and Downhill Races sanctioned by NORBA and organized by T-Rix Mountain Bike Shops of Elko, Fallon and Austin, Nevada.
Each year, Austin, which is located high on the eastern slope of the Toiyabe Range in the geographic center of Nevada, plays host to almost 200 racers from nearby western states who come to vie for prize money and scare themselves silly. The Toiyabe Range, described by many as the most beautiful in Nevada, provides spectacular butt-clinching, teeth-jarring courses for beginner to pro/expert levels. As an extra-added bonus for the thrill-seeking racers, the course is laid out around old silver mine shafts, which are marked by colorful flags; these dangerous pits are to be avoided at all costs! Many racers return year after year just for the adrenalin rush the Claim Jumper Race affords.
Friday,
mid-afternoon, on the day before the race I worked registration and met Jean
Holveck who lives in Pahrump, Nevada (about one-hour drive west of Las Vegas).
As we chat between signing in racers, I learn that she is not only a paper-pushing
volunteer like myself but also intends to ride in the race. Immediately my
ears perk up and I start pulling out her story.
Jean, a very trim, pretty woman, age 55 years old, retired from a multi-state, multi-specialty medical billing company where she worked as a claims manager. Three years ago she decided to take up biking. “I’ve never been much for any athletic activity, but I do enjoy playing volleyball. When I decided to start riding, I wasn’t sure how long it would last.” Over the last three years she has ridden nearly every day in both the cold of winter and the heat of summer. When the odometer clicked over 3,000 miles on her old bike, her husband Louis said, “Jean, you deserve a new, good bike.” She smiles proudly when she says, “Lou thinks my riding is great.”
Jean’s thousands of miles on the bike have been ridden almost exclusively on flat terrain; tomorrow will be her first bike race. The altitude at the summit starting line for the Claim Jumper race is approximately 7,500 feet. The course is anything but flat; in fact, there are no flat spots with the exception of the start and finish lines!
As the afternoon wears on, racers congregate in front of our registration table trading horror stories; we listen to their conversations. A middle-aged man is squatted next to his friend who is seated on a metal folding chair. “Man! I just thought I’d go up and run the beginner course. I took a wrong turn and ended up coming down the downhill course! Those guys are crazy! I crashed and my helmet split right in two…” His friend breaks into laughter and says, “Why do you think they’ve got helmets on sale in the shop for 50% off this weekend?” The gray-haired biker smiles, “Yeah! I know, I bought one already.”
Jean
and I look at each other and start laughing also. Then she confides in me that
when she first started thinking about doing the race she figured the Downhill
Race was the race for her. “It just sounded easier.” Her friend Patsy Waits,
who runs the Bike shop in Austin, set her straight. “Jean, downhill doesn’t
mean it is easier, it means that it’s right down the backside of a mountain,
it’s the killer course!” It was at that point that Jean Holveck signed on as
a 45-65 year old woman cross-country beginner racer.
A little later a seventeen-year old kid who grew up in Austin coasts to a halt in front of the registration tent. He is hot, red faced, and covered top to bottom with a thick layer of gray dirt, which used to be part of the mountain. Still dazed from his crash on a practice run down the expert course, he swings his leg over the bike and starts slowly pacing back and forth in front of our table. “Are you all right? asks Dee who organizes registration every year. The kid hesitates, when he answers his words come slowly, “Sure, I think so.” She advises him to head into the bike shop, clean up and rest a while. Jean looks over to me and I can see that she realizes that this kid knows the course like the back of his hand and still wiped out-- big time. “Where do you think the race starts?” she asks me. I’ve hiked the route the course uses several times. “ Well, we can see it from here. See that uphill line cutting into the side of the mountain up there?” My arm and index finger are pointing like an arrow in an upward motion to the summit of the mountain in front of us. “Oh my God! that’s it?” “Yes, Jean, that’s the start of the race, straight up that mountain.” At this point, Jean certainly seemed concerned about being able to ride this race.
A pre-teen boy steps up to the desk with his paperwork. A man in the area hollers out, “Planning on getting lost again this year?” The boy smiles and says nothing in reply. In the background we hear people talking about the fact that last year this kid missed one of the signs pointing to a turn in the course and peddled an additional 8 miles before resurfacing at the finishing line. From the boys good-humored smile it seems clear that he isn’t planning on missing any of the directional markers this year.
At 5:30 PM Jean leaves for the RV Park to cook supper for Lou. Despite the stories and sights she’s been exposed to this afternoon, it is obvious that she has every intention of returning the next morning to help with registration and then warm-up a bit before the start of her first mountain bike race.
Saturday morning at 7:00 A.M. Dee, Jean and I are back on site manning a very busy registration desk. Cars, vans, trucks pull into the parking lot of T-Rix off Highway 50, the Loneliest Highway in America. There is an intense sense of excitement as the bikers, dressed for the race, get ready to be shuttled up to summit for the start. The small table next to ours holds racing release forms, one-day racing license forms and other paperwork, which must be filled out before fees are paid. We issue race numbers, give out race T-shirts and answer questions or point to people who have answers. At 10:00 Jean, dressed in her racing clothes, disappears from registration to warm-up. By 11:00 all the racers are staged on the summit. Suddenly, on schedule, an F-18 Fighter Jet from Fallon Naval Base, screams into view in a low level fly-over the starting line signaling the official start of race day. In a few minutes the F-18 re-appears. This time the pilot pulls the jet up, directly over the summit and flies it straight into the sky. The goose bumps are huge.
Closing
registration, I quickly catch a ride to the starting line, camera in hand to
find Jean. Wearing her gloves, helmet and sunglasses she sits astride her bike
waiting for her race to be called. Expressions of concern, excitement and seriousness
alternate across her face as I angle around to get a picture of her. Finally
her category is called and a small field of women line up waiting for the official,
who is wearing a white cowboy hat and Bermuda shorts, to fire the starting gun.
Boom! They are off. Someone in the crowd of spectators yells, “Rubber side
down ladies, rubber side down!”
Jean says later that Lou told her
“I wasn’t sure if you really knew what the race would be like.” Lou was right!
Her secret weapon was her odometer, which she checked every 
chance
she could. “Incorrectly, I believed that the race was 9 miles long. As each
mile was completed, I felt a huge sense of accomplishment.” Trouble hit when
the odometer read 9.2 miles and the finish line did not appear. In fact, Jean
says, “The finish line, which I expected to see right around the corner turned
out to be 3 extra miles and 3 bruises later! The course, in fact, was 12 miles
long and not the 9 miles she had anticipated.
“Nothing could compare to how I felt when the finish line finally did come into view. I’ll make it! were my thoughts during those last few wheel revolutions. I wanted to shout… It’s not the best time, but it’s accomplished and I completed my goal!”
Lou waited on the finish line, he gave Jean a big hug and a great smile. “You made it, I’m so proud of you.”
That
afternoon I caught up to Jean after she had received her medal for second place
in the race of her life! She had already been back to the RV Park, changed
clothes and was dressed in a very crisp looking pants suit. She looked very
put together, none the worse for the wear after a long, hot, grueling bike race.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. Her radiant smile required no words but she
answered anyway. “I feel great, that was wonderful, I’m glad that I did it,
but I don’t think that I ever want to do it again!”
After she returned home to Pahrump, she spoke with her two daughters, who are also businesswomen. Both are so proud of their mom and surprisingly had the same one-word comment for mom: “ALLRIGHT!!”
When I last e-mailed Jean, I sensed her wavering on the decision not to ride in the Claim Jumper Race next year…after all she’ll only be 56 years old, and maybe there is a downhill medal in her future after all.
By Elizabeth Rassiga, The Outdoor Neophyte, © 2001