Racing the Shenandoah 100-Plus

The darkness of a moonless sky was both creepy and exciting as I rolled away from Harrisonburg. Out to test my fitness and nutrition skills, I was riding the 20 miles from my house to the start of my “hometown” National Ultra Endurance race: the Shenandoah Mountain 100. I planned to race the event, and see how many more miles I could add on after the finish.

This “Shenandoah 100+” was my plan to recreate the aid station skills necessary for The Munga and chew off a big challenge—one that I could possibly fail. At The Munga there will be no outside support. Who knows what they will have at the aid stations? Some zebra stew and some bush berry candy?

The top races at the NUE hundred-milers usually shuttle drop-bags to the aid stations: we self-prepare all our regular and reliable food choices and they’re waiting for us on course. My idea at the Shenandoah 100 was to forego the drop-bags and instead come screaming into the aid station, scan the options, grab something quick but carefully, and set off. I’d see how odd drink and food choices treated me.

During the race, I was crafty and used the group on the dirt roads for some drafting and to cut down on Cameron Cogburn’s balls-out breakaway in the first half of the race. I had Keck “The Butcher” Baker and hardman Sam Koerber to work with on the major road section. Then on the rocky, technical Bridge Hollow trail, I launched a counter offensive and got into the lead.

A sixty-mile time trial was not my plan, but with a three-minute lead after Braley’s Trail, I said, “I am NOT giving this time back; they have to come get it.” Nose to the stem, I hammered and held strong to the last climb. At that point, the heat was oppressive and baking like an open oven door against the yellow, stony dirt road. I was fading from the intensity of the effort.

Just hang on!

My hands were tingling and my head was spinning from the bonk that was coming. I ate the last gel I had, and figured that even with no water it would give me a few minutes with a clear head.

I made it. I passed through the finish and hoisted my Cannondale Scalpel high in the air. “YES!” It felt so sweet to make it to the finish line and see my wife Erin and my kids Conrad and Bea.

I’d completed the first two parts of my challenge: I rode to the race and threw down a fast 100-miler. I even won in a record time of 7:08—about four minutes faster than last year’s time set by team Garmin-Sharp pro roadie Ben King.

Now my focus turned to Munga. The SM100 finish venue spread was like a Munga rest station and full of heavier foods. I was feeling shattered, legs aching with fatigue, but I grabbed a cheeseburger and wrapped it in foil, chugged a Coke and pint of water. I filled my bottles and then (using a Chris Eatough trick) filled three cups: one with pasta salad, one with baked beans and the third with fruit.

Setting out for the extra three-plus hours didn’t even seem possible at first, but I just said to myself, “I’ll see if I can ride some more.”

I realized most of the racers were still just approaching the Death Climb, and they could be hurting more than me, so I headed out on a mission.

Misery loves company, and indeed the highlight of my day was slumming hard with guys like Joe of Joe’s Bike Shop—one of my first sponsors—and Bryan Parr who I wrenched with at Princeton Sports way back in the day. It was awesome. There were folks walking to shake out cramps and a couple on a tandem bobbing their way in unison up the climb.

Eventually I deviated from the course and dropped down one of my favorite descents called Buck Mountain. It’s an epic descent through one of the largest roadless areas on the east coast.

I felt like a mountain man, dropping away from the company of others into a raw wilderness of rock gardens, small bald ridges and lots of bear poop.

My rotors were hissing in the light rain. My smile grew from the butt-on-the-rear-wheel, hair-raising single track turns. As I got off my bike to climb over one of the forty downed trees on the trail, I put my foot down right next to a huge charcoal colored rattlesnake. “YIKES” I yelled as my foot sprang skyward like a rocket. I gotta be careful out here, I’m on my own I realized quickly.

Then I forgot if I was in the first hour or the twelfth hour of my ride: my legs were back!

Returning to the growing party at the finish line, I’d clocked about twelve and a half hours moving time and 169 miles, including some very nasty back-country conditions carrying the bike over downed trees and through riverbed rock portages.

The “training” that started in the dark as prep for The Munga shed new light on my riding and what it means to go big and enjoy the ride.

— Jeremiah

Searching for My Twin in Toughness

I was pumped to see my training buddy Ben King get the most aggressive rider jersey at the Pro Cycling Challenge in Colorado. He is country-tough and known as a hard man of the pro road peloton. I nearly had to pry him off the phone when we last talked about the Munga, his voice revved with curiosity and excitement at the prospect of days in the bleaching desert doing something outside the norm.

Unfortunately just got news back that the Garmin-Sharp team coaching staff think Munga is too much, even for Ben!

No worries, I thought, I’ll just catch up with plan-B: the real-life Indiana Jones, Kurt Refsnider, geology professor by day and mountain bike steamroller by night. He holds the records on both the Arizona Trail 750 and 300.

But then there was another surprise, like a scorpion in my cycling shoe!

Kurt Refsnider has decided to team up with Jay Petervary, another legend of ultra-endurance toughness. Jay is a mental juggernaut and has the record in the Iditabike—I read accounts of him making the 60-hour journey with no sleep for two nights.

Dang. What took me a few months of scouting has me back to the drawing board.

At least my training is going great. I have been pounding some serious tough-man miles; some of the hardest of my life. Like the six-hour ride the other week deep into the mountains of West Virginia followed by jogging squats and lunges until I was ready to collapse. I have also been doubling-up with some of my wicked-fast coaching clients, training in the afternoons. The work is paying off and I feel tougher than I ever have in my life.

The plan for this past weekend’s Shenandoah 100 was to ride from my house at 4 a.m. to the race, try to win, then practice my quick 4-minute Munga-style pit stop and go out for an additional 60 miles for a total of 180-200 miles for the day. Am I nervous? Yep. Excited? Hell yeah!

Despite the fact that my training is going great right now, in The Munga you’re only as good as your weakest link. So, in Munga terms, right now I am “stuffed,” as they say in South Africa.

So, to find my Munga teammate, I have devised a plan to make two of my hardest training tests into “Mini Mungas;” that way the mountain can sort out the umpteen, emails, tweets and FB messages I have received from people who think they would be the prefect partner.  Mini Munga #1 will be in a few weeks. Stay tuned right here for details and updates. It’s going to be like American Idol with a touch more destruction and beat down.

Don’t get me wrong, I am in it to win it and the fact is: winning a race like Munga is all about persistence, persistence, persistence.  So I will train hard and keep looking for my twin.

— Jeremiah

[Editor’s Note: Dirt Rag Magazine will be running Bishop’s personal diary as he prepares to conquer The Munga. As of yet he has no teammate.]

Back on the Box for SHO-AIR / CANNONDALE

The heat was on for the Cross Country and Short Track USA National Championships at Bear Creek Mountain, July 16-20; the cross county course was intense and my preparation had turned a corner with some killer workouts; off-road motor pacing (a first!) and some killer cross-country training sessions had me pumped to tackle the race.

My start position left a lot to be desired and I was bogged in traffic on the first lap! By the end of the lap, I came thru in eighth place and thought my medal chances might be lost. Truth is, I really wanted a solid race, and so I kept my head down and pushed on. Once I hooked up with my longtime teammate and friend Alex Grant, I found some mojo.

The spectators and fans added to the excitement along the course. Some of them were kids from a mountain bike development camp I’d recently worked with. They had a piñata and I punched it hard on lap-3; it must have had some magic because my legs came back to full-strength and I surged to take over sixth place, then fifth. At that point, I knew I could get on the box. I kept pushing, and raced into third place to earn the bronze medal.

Later in the weekend, the Short Track was fun and crazy with a wild first-lap crash in front of me when Mitch Hoke put another dude into a tree. It took serious effort and some juking and jiving, but I made it up to the lead chase group of Grotts and Finsty to fight for a solid fourth-place finish!

The next weekend I followed up the Nationals with a return to big mile racing at the National Ultra Endurance Series Wilderness 101. It was sweet: the course was super-fun; riding fast and the action was great. The Rare Diseases Cycling Team with Fluge and Rob Sprig got off the front early, but my fellow Cannondale rider Keck “the Butcher” Baker got in the move. Early on, the 20-mile stretch of dirt road made it like a road race, but I marked multi-time NUE series champion “The Frenchman” Christian Tangy. My stealthy attack on the mid-race gnarly descent was just the ticket and no drafting would come into play for the rocky technical mid-piece of the race.  It was a lot of time to go solo for 45 miles, but I was fired up to put down my best effort. I won in 6 hours 50 minutes – a new course record.

Now it’s time to gear up for the final races of the summer, to try to lock down the National Ultra Endurance Series and of course prep for the big adventure of the Alpine Loop Grand Fondo!

Thanks for following my summer adventures, and for cheering me along!

Jeremiah
Team SHO-AIR / CANNONDALE

Epic Training Pays Off

It’s like golf (or so I hear); the more you practice, the better you get until a limiting point. Then, it’s about making breakthrough sessions. (Guess I’ll have to ask Wells.)

After an on-the-ropes spring, I was fired up to get the fighting form back. I was angry. The race at Sea Otter wasn’t bad, but a lost chain made it frustrating to lose the top-5 and I’d badly wanted to hit pay dirt for Team Sho-Air/Cannondale

Since I stepped off the plane from Sea Otter, I decided to put all the chips IN! The past four weeks have been soldier training and things finally started to click.

Though there haven’t been many races since my win at the Cohutta 100,

I have been feeding the beast with a win at the Middle Mountain Momma and knocking down Strava segment like dominos.

It’s been a blast smashing it with the road pros Joe Dombroski (Kky) and Ben King (Garmin) as well as my protégés Cameron Cogburn (Cool Stop/Mountain Kakis) and Dave Flaten (US Armed Forces) on the big days. I took some awful beatings and then started handing out some beatings. My form has gone from decent to killer-2013 levels in 4 weeks! Of course there have been some epic soul dirt rides to near-uncharted regions and the tune-up at Catalina Island Gran Fondo was a great low-pressure chance to drive the pace and have some fun.

My energy level has been awesome lately, and I’ll find myself going for a spin only to find my thumb dropping five gears to attack a hill.

It feels good to fly! More time in the thin air of my altitude tent is paying off with some awesome VO2 max performances in the 7w/k range, and I am able to crack out big diesel endurance power like the 290w np for four hours yesterday on the Tomahawk Loop; and logged 74,000 feet of climbing in the last month.

The best part of being back is the good feeling that some pay off for Team Sho-Air/Cannondale is ahead; I have already reaped the rewards of some epic training. Stay tuned, but don’t blink cause I’ll be a flash of green and black and red.

Trans-Sylvania Epic is the next target and I’m coming at it like an un-caged gorilla.

I am in yellow after three rocky tough stages: Day one was a fast and furious prologue; I gave it everything and punched it hard. Stage two was long and hot; Lots of super technical rocks and deep dark forest that are the graveyard of bikes!

My trusty scalpel was amazing and my Kenda tires withstood a beating, Kona set a hard pace but as the final climb approached, I knew I had more in the tank and attacked for another win and GC lead of 4:30

It’s good timing too; TSE is perfect springboard for the national championships in July and the meaty part of the season.

Whatever happens this week I will give it my best and enjoy this good form and campground atmosphere here at the Trans-Sylvania Epic; the start of good things!

I owe a big thanks to Scott Tedro and the rest of Team Sho-Air/Cannondale for the support to make the magic happen!

Jeremiah

Catalina Wine Mixer

I kept hearing the term thrown around and wasn’t sure what it meant, but then I remembered the movie scene from “Step Brothers.”

Post-adventure, it makes sense sort of. We hoped on a jet boat ferry with bikes, tool boxes and gear. It was the first time I have traveled the open ocean to ride my bike, in fact. As we approached the island, I was intrigued by the stories I had heard from the years before.

Alex and I went on a spin, climbing one of the sickest switchback roads I have ever seen. We even had a hair-raising encounter with a 3000 lb wild animal with horns. Check it out on the Team Sho-Air Facebook page and hit the like button!

The roads and trails there are steep and scenic. The views where stunning like I have only seen on the western cape. The sound of steep cliffs and beaches being smacked by waves below us. The water was as blue as bottle of Bombay 1000, a sight not easy to forget!

We shredded and diced, being a touch more careful than if it was a race. Alex, Tinker, Max and I made up half the lead group by the mid-way point at remote feed called two harbors. Max and I managed to ride the steepest hill I have seen since La Ruta de Los Conquistadors. It was 15-minutes long and 33% in spots; it pretty much murdered the legs. At the top we navigated a knives edge ridgeline where a mistake would send you 200 feet down into the ocean. The scene was surreal, the fall line decent was like the pictures you see in alpine climbing magazines, rideable and so sweet.

As a group we stopped at the aid zones to replenish our food and water supplies. Heading home on the final climb I took turns on the front to keep the pace up, testing myself at every chance. After some spirited hammering, it was time for a nice meal water front.

Max and I displayed some brotherhood and instead of our normal lets nuke each other race face we decided to take in the unreal cliff side ribbon of dirt that was our final decent and roll across the line together!

A Gran Fondo it was!! So not a race but a mixer that made it a lot more fun! A few drinks on the beach and a buffalo burger wrapped up the weekend. Now I understand the wine mixer, it was an unexpected great surprise.

I can’t wait for 2015!

JB