Team Feed the Machine at Explore the West, Big Bear, Sept 9-10, 2006
By Mark Richardson

When I decided to race the Explore the West So Cal event I had no DA teammates available to race with me. They were either participating in a ropes clinic arranged by Will to get needed certs for Adventure Extreme, or they were planning racing the ill fated Cal Eco Finals near Downieville the following weekend. Not to be easily defeated I threw my name out on BAAR and SCARABS and was promptly contacted by Christian Burke of Team Feed the Machine. We exchanged e-mails and spoke a bit and decided to race together as Team Feed the Machine along with “K” who came highly recommended after a strong performance at the event in Baja earlier in the season.

As of Wednesday morning before the race we had no crew to move our gear for us. Then Christian found Evan and his girlfriend Clara. The next day Bill from Big Bear returned a call to Christian and confirmed that he was also available. Now we were fat!

On race day we’d requested a 3am wakeup call with a plan to leave the Motel 6 by 4am. We woke to a knock on the door by our local crew person, Bill…it was 4am. We dressed and flew out of the rooms and arrived at the start tem minutes before the race was supposed to start. The race started at 6:05, we started at about 6:08. As we rode along, Christian noticed that his chain was making a lot of noise. A few mile from the start his chain broke…oh no, BAAR Brawl 2 rerun? Christian repaired the chain while I left some bait for the dung beetles behind a rock. We were off again and not far along when the chain broke again. This time I discover that Christian’s hub is broken. It’s clear that the chin will continue to break and Christian didn’t want to ruin the race for me and “K” so he wished us well and returned to the start with my phone.

As Christian left us we continued on up a mostly uphill dirt road. “K” was struggling a bit so we towed as much as possible. She was growing more frustrated as we went on as she’s usually pretty strong. Even the hike a bike was a struggle. I just kept hoping that she’d get over the hump and start to feel better. As we neared CP1 we met up with Christian who’d run down from CP2 to meet us. He joined me as we trekked up the “lollipop” to CP1. A short way up the hill “K” sat down and told us to go on and meet her on our way back down. We asked if she was sure. She was sure and we were already unofficial so we went with it. We arrived at CP1 with at the same time as Rob Harsh in last place. We flew down the hill and picked up “K”. “K” and I rode and Christian ran to CP2. By the time we got there we’re passed several teams.

At CP3 “K” called it quits. She had a headache and nausea, the altitude was getting to her and the course wasn’t going down hill anytime soon. She was pretty disappointed, I don’t think she has many bad days in competition. Christian and I took off at a brisk pace, going just slow enough to allow the food we’d just eaten to digest. We took a cross country route over a knoll and descended a hillside directly into CP3. By the time we got to CP3 we were in 17th place. As we left the CP, solo competitor Bob Myers was arriving. Out cross country route may not have saved any time but it was more fun than taking a dirt road. As we neared CP 4 we passed a team and met up with another team where the dirt road we were on met the Pacific Crest Trail. Our map showed the PCT paralleling a creek line but the trail clearly labeled as the Pacific Crest Trail was making switchbacks up a hillside. We followed it with another team for a couple minutes before I was sure that we didn’t want to go that way. We returned to the intersection and discovered the old PCT route. The erosion of the trails made it clear why this section had been rerouted. We got to the summit and crossed the highway right into CP4.

We did a moderately fast transition at CP4/TA2 and started the second bike leg. This leg began with an uphill hike-a-bike that took us from Onyx Summit at about 8440ft to a peak at 9465ft peak about 4K away. I made one minor nav glitch on the way that cost us about 25 minutes. Once at the summit we descended some rocky and treacherous single track until we met the dirt road that took us to CP5. At CP5 the volunteer made sure that we knew how to find the single track trailhead to the Wild Horse Trail. The course instructions said we could only travel on Highway 38 between Heart Bar Road and Wild Horse Trail. Unfortunately this left two options and we might have chosen the wrong one if we hadn’t been given the huge hint. The single track started a side slope trail across a steep and moist hillside. We followed it until it came next to a creek then we crossed the creek. After a short time we were greeted with miles of fantastic single track descending. About 2/3 of the way down there was a series of waterbars made of skull sized stones. The last one was pretty beat up and as I crossed over it my bike stopped and I did a very acrobatic endo but managed to land on my feet. Christian was impressed. As we finished the single track we caught three guys riding as a team. We passed then on the way to the trailhead for the Santa Anna River Trail (SART). The SART is an amazing single track trail that travels west to east following the contours of the valley with plenty of down and very little up. It’s a must do for any mountain biker and was easily the highlight of the race. Unfortunately it was too fun to stop and take pictures.

This TA was fun because we had a huge crew. Evan, Clara, and Bill were there as well as “K” who’d been crewing since she had to drop out. Christian’s girlfriend Melissa had also arrived and so we had five people taking care of two racers.

We saw the Dirty Avocados/BAARBD team leaving the TA as we approached at dusk. We transitioned pretty quickly. I took out the map to plan our route and our crew suggested that we bushwhack directly south to the SART. I studied the map and decided to go with their idea. We had some thick bush right by the stream but we managed to get to the trail in just a few minutes, a fine example of the advantage a good crew can be. We started trotting down the trail at a brisk pace, cruising on autopilot. We caught a couple guys just before CP9. From CP9 we jogged a bit more before we began to follow a fire road up to CP10. We stopped jogging and strode briskly up the road. Our crew was a bit surprised to see us so soon as we were expected to take 2 hours and did it in an hour and forty minutes. We were surprised to find the Dirty Avocados were there at CP10, we thought we’d passed them on our shortcut. We were the 9th team to arrive at that CP/TA. It didn’t appear they’d been there long. In fact our crew guy Evan did some brake repair for the Avocados.

The next leg was on bikes again. The map showed an non-existent intersection across the street from the CP. We dove off of the road with our bikes and looked for the trail we wanted below the highway. The DA’s went west up the highway and were stopped to figure out a plan when we left the road. We descended to CP11 down a bunch of switchbacks on the SART. After the CP, there was a cliffed out section of the SART where the trail was also very sandy. The dark of night made it even more nerve wracking so we proceeded through that section with great caution. We popped back out on the dirt road we’d hiked to the prior TA. I knew when we left the TA that the bladder in my pack had lost some liquid when I set it on the bite valve. It was here that I discovered that my bladder had drained completely. We had to stop at a small stream to refill the bladder and drop in some iodine tablets. We got back on the trail and caught up to a team that had been short coursed for arriving at CP10 after 10pm. As we descended to the river with them we were joined by the Avocados/BAARBD team again. We all crossed the river together. Christian and I stopped at the left turn to Clark’s Grade which caused the other team to stop. The Avocados/BAARBD rode up the road and around the corner. That was the last we saw of them during the race. We rode about half way up the 3000ft Clark’s Grade before we dismounted and started hike-a-biking though the moonlit night to the top. Christian was going just a bit faster than me so we hooked up a tow between the bikes and hiked briskly up the mountain. We stopped only to eat and took one three minute rest. We were the 6th team to arrive at the Clark’s Summit and CP12. I added a couple layers for the freakin’ freezing downhill to Big Bear Lake. We caught some nice single track at the top but the cold made me tremble which shook my whole bike so it was a bit dicey at first.

We arrived at CP13 after 4 hours 40 minutes where we transitioned to the Kayak. We were a little slow in this transition but knowing that some one just left on a kayak before we arrived kept us from lingering long. Out fingers were freezing cold and stinging like crazy. Our crew had our gear laid out for us in a running car with the heater on, sweet. They’d moved it into the car because when they’d laid it out by the boat if was quickly covered with frost, burrrr. I changed, warmed my fingers in some gloves, ate a Cup-O-Noodles. I’m larger than Christian so I sat in back of the 23ft kayak and handed him the map. As we approached CP14 it was hard to follow the shoreline because of all the large floating docks on the lake. We weren’t sure where we were for a bit but eventually found where I was sure the CP should have been. We were within ten yard of it and never saw it. Christian even got out of the boat and looked around. After taking over an hour and twenty minutes and not finding CP14 we were pretty frustrated. We decided to remember everything we could about the location in case the marker was lost and continued on. Teams after us found it but confirmed my suspicion that the glow stick had died. Oh well, we were unofficial anyway. At least no teams passed us on the kayak leg. We got the next CP easily and headed towards the end of the Kayak leg as the sun rose behind us. The paddling inside the 5mph buoys sucked.

From the kayak take out we did a cross country scramble directly up the very steep hill and scrambled around at the top until we located Gray’s Peak. From there we began to follow a hiking trail towards the finish. We expected the trail to fork and intersect with a dirt road but it didn’t. The trail kept going east and we wanted to go south. I spotted a road grade below us and to the south. We cut through some pretty open country to the road. A few hundred yards from the road we met the hiking trail that would take us to the finish. The finish required that we leave the trail and cross country. I initially missed the point where we should have left the trail and we had to back track about three minutes to the spot. We left the trail and headed south. Within a minute or so I spotted pick-ups with kayaks in top of them parked at the bottom of the hill. The finish was about 100 yards east of there.

We crossed the line just after 9am, 27 hours from when we started. Our crew and Karen took our pictures and Paul handed us a bottle of Champaign. Christian sprayed it all over the place, then I took it and enjoyed a few swigs. Kristen came over and handed us each a Newcastle beer which was the best beer ever at that moment. I hung out to watch the Avocados finish, socialize with other racers, enjoy the cool and eclectic music mix playing on the PA system, and wait for the awards ceremony. 28 teams started the race. When I left it think 11 had finished and 4 were still out on the final trek. The promoters said this course wasn’t for novices and that proved true with about half of the teams dropping out.

I had a blast at this race. I have never had so much fun at a race that I can remember. The course was epic but the trails were so cool that we hardly noticed. Christian and I both didn’t eat and drink enough during the Kayak and ended of feeling pretty weak on the last trek to the finish. Good thing the kayak was so close to the end. We overcame a lot of initial adversity and salvaged an pretty great experience for our efforts. We had the best and largest crew at the race which was very cool. Christian and I had never met but raced together like we’d known each other forever. It’s sad that such a great event was also the last Paul and Karen are putting on in California.

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