A RACE BROKE OUT- TAM'S TRIPLE CROWN

By Den Satake
So I was having a giant cup of coffee Saturday morning, munching on a
nice fatty pastry and Julia walks in...
Julia: Hey Den, are you doing the Hill Climb?
Den: What Hill Climb?
Julia: The Triple Crown. It starts in 15 minutes.
Den: No. I was planning on a long, poach on my squishy 5" travel trail
bike. See, I have an 8 lb Camelbak ready for a nice long hot 3 hr ride.
Julia: You should do it.
Den: Uh, okay. Well I'll go watch the start at least.

So I watched the start and decided to follow the race up Summit. The
pace wasn't too bad, so I started moving up. But I still wasn't racing. I
could pull out whenever I wanted. Dario, Steve Cherry and Greg Allen were all
on road bikes weighing about 10 lbs less then my Spider, with 0.0000" of
travel. They jumped on Tamalpais and I never saw them again. But since
I wasn't racing, I could just put down a hardish effort and see where I
would have finished. I got past Julia and reminded her that I still wasn't
racing. Then a few more guys fell. By the time we hit the upper part
of RR grade, I was racing. By the time I hit the West Point Inn, I was
thinking about my leisurely morning ride and cursing Julia. When I saw
a couple of guys within catching distance I laid it all out and cursed
Julia some more. I ended up 7th a mere 8 minutes behind Dario. Tom
Rosencrantz was 4th and the first mtn bike. Julia won the women's race going away.
Since I raced, I decided to register after the fact. No one had change,
so my twenty covered the entry fee for the day's race as well as the next
day's race - the road race up the mtn...

This time I brought a road bike and spared the large coffee and bear
claw. The cast of characters was mostly the same. We started from Old Mill
Park, but headed the opposite direction from the day before. Cascade, Marion,
Edgewood, Walsh, Panoramic etc. The neutral ended once we turned up
Marion.
There were about 7 or 8 guys in the front when Dario just rode off to a
25' gap. I felt fine, so I bridged up and sat on his wheel. I wasn't sure
what was going on behind us, but I kept thinking "man it would be nice
to still be on this wheel at the top of Bay View." The problem was I was
getting a decent draft, but when we hit the short dirt section at the
top of Walsh Drive, the speed slowed and I lost the draft. So of all places, I
got gapped on the dirt, and Dario was gone for good. In about a mile, we
were going to hit the flat spot on Panoramic. This wasn't really the place
to be hanging between 1st and the chase group. So I backed off a little
and got caught at the top of the last climb before Mtn Home. With 6 of us,
we worked a pretty dysfunctional pace line through the flat. Steve Cherry
was trying to get the group to work together, but most everyone had figured
out that we were in a race for 2nd - so why make the sacrifice? At the end
of the flat I rolled off the front again and was joined by a guy from SF
named Mark. His breathing didn't sound too good and I wasn't sure how long he
would be there - but some guys just sound like that - Shady - and can
keep it going. As it turned out Mark and I worked together all the way to
the T at Rock Springs then I was on my own. I was afraid to turn back, but I
think I was only 15 to 20 seconds ahead of the chasers at that point. I
decided to ride a hard tempo (Damn it Julia!) and see where I stood at
the top of West Peak. When I got there, I was still too afraid to look, so
I kept the hammer down (Damnit Julia!) until Middle Peak. I turned around
and saw that I had lost a little bit of the lead, but unless someone had a
truly heroic effort in them, I was going to hold 2nd, and I did. Tom
was about 10 seconds behind me in 3rd. Steve, Greg and the rest of the
chasers were just seconds behind him. Dario won in 44:30. I was happy to only
be 2 minutes behind vs the 8 from the day before. Julia again won the
women's race by a lot.

Since I had done the first two days, I felt obliged to do the run on
Monday.
It was all up hill so I figured it wasn't too different from biking.
Yeah right. There we a lot more runners for this. 103 to be exact. I
finished 37th, somewhere behind Rachel Lloyd, who only showed for the run??? I
am pretty sure Julia won the women's triple crown - she started the day
with an 18 minute lead. Greg Allen, started the day with a 4 minute lead
(Dario don't run), but lost 5 minutes on the run. There was ranger danger all
over the upper part of the mtn and apparently Greg - and a lot of others -
had to take a much less direct route to the top than the winner. So Greg lost
the men's Triple crown in heartbreaking fashion.

Not exactly the way I had planned to spend the Labor Day weekend, but it
was a lot of fun. Everyone should do this next year.