Ole Bull Midnight Madness 2006

Aah, sweet victory at last. Jim Hepp and I, along with a revolving cast of other teammates, have been chasing the elusive “W” at the Ole Bull Midnight Madness 12-hour mountain bike race for several years. We’ve come excruciatingly close, once even within a few seconds, but have never quite been able to seal the deal, until now. This year we enlisted the twin powers of Oswald Cycle Works fast men Jared Schneider and Josh Beals to bolster our traditionally not-quite-good-enough efforts, and that finally proved to be the ticket to success.

The race starts at noon and ends at midnight. It can be run as a 4-person team relay or, if self-abuse is your thing, you can do it solo. Whoever completes the most laps the fastest wins. This year was a bit odd for our team because I couldn’t get there until after 4:00pm -- I didn’t have anyone else to cover for me, so I had to run the bike shop. Sometimes it’s great being your own boss, sometimes it sucks sweaty anus. Anyway, the three J’s took up my slack impressively, building a strong lead while racing 3 against 4 with the other teams.

When I finally arrived it was like a bomb had gone off. A big mucky mud bomb. Constant rain and drizzle had turned the course into a quagmire. Derailleurs and cables were completely bound up with grit. Shocks were seized. Brake pads were worn down to the nubs. I performed what mechanical triage I could for some of my pals then suited up for my turn to jump into the fray. Waiting in the transition tent, I watched shell shocked solo riders push their bikes through, looking like zombies that had just crawled up out of a muddy grave to croak their numbers at the timing crew as they shuffled past. Poor bastards. Then Jim came flying in from his lap, handed me the baton, and I was off.

Let me just say here that a 29er is a beautiful thing, especially a rigid 29er with disc brakes and a Rohloff 14-speed internally geared hub. And especially in nasty conditions like we were racing in. Those big wheels just keep on rolling and simply refuse to get bogged down. Having gears that always shift and brakes that work helps a lot too, but the biggest key to good performance in the slop is a bike that fits really well and has good balance. When the wheels are in just the right place under your weight you can have excellent steering control while still maintaining plenty of traction for driving the bike forward or braking. Shamelessly tooting my own horn a bit here, but I’m proud to report that my bike performed flawlessly. And Jim and Josh liked Jim’s Oswald 29er so much that they were both using it. Enough said; end of sales pitch.

OK, so -- big mucky mess, the bikes worked well, yadda yadda yadda. Now -- we’re getting toward the end of the race. It’s been a long day. We’re tired, but we’re ahead by like 17 minutes and Jared goes out for our final lap. He was feeling really terrible earlier in the day but thought he had rallied enough to squeeze another one out, maybe off from his usual pace, but still fast enough to clinch it. So off he goes into the dark and it really starts pouring -- hard. We’re all huddled under our campout shelter thinking man, it sucks to be Jared. We wait the right amount of time and head over to the timing tent to cheer him on as he finishes. We wait there a few minutes, no Jared. Wait a few more minutes, no Jared. Our hearts are slowly sinking with each tick of the clock. The team we were ahead of finishes, still no Jared. First we’re disappointed, then we really start to worry about him. To lose that much time he must have had a serious meltdown, or wrecked. We hope he’s OK. Should we go look for him? Crap! This really sucks. What do we do now? Wait some more, I guess. Finally someone comes up and says Jared is looking for us. What? When? Now? Where is he? These nagging questions prompt us out of our stupor and lead to us the brilliant idea that perhaps we should actually go look at the timing sheets. Turns out he had finished just a few minutes before we got there. He was already cleaned up, stuffing his face and grinning like the Cheshire Cat by the time we found him. That sneaky fast bastard. He absolutely smoked that night lap way faster then we expected and inadvertently gave us an emotional roller coaster ride we'll never forget. Way to go, Jared! And thanks to the rest of the team for putting in 3 tough laps while I only had to do 2.

Jim, Tom, Josh, and Jared
First Male Expert Team, First overall
Too bad they don't photograph as well as they ride.

Eric Franck, First Solo Male 50+
As Jimmy G likes to say, he's tough as woodpecker lips.
And he rides an Oswald.

Kyle Mattison, Matt Fuller, Matt Tomb (Justin Avery not pictured)
First Junior Male Team
Kyle and Matt T. are Oswald team members and are fast young guns