Cateye Enduro brings home more "Goods"

Here is a write up from my teammates from Trans-Rockies in Canada and 12 Hours of Willamette Pass in OR

CatEye riders Eric Warkentin and (24hr nat'l champ) Louise Kobin went into Trans-Rockies a bit beat up; as it turned out, Eric was still suffering from a shoulder injury received at the Trans-Alp race.  But they toughed in out and ended up in 2nd in the mixed category and 12th overall, overcoming several challenges during the arduous Canadian stage race.

Louise wrote up another excellent report which is at the bottom of this post.



12 HOURS OF WILLAMETTE PASS

Not to be out-done by his teammates, Sloane Anderson headed to Oregon the following weekend for 12 hours of racing and came home with the victory!

Sloane's race report:

Well I guess you can chalk up another victory for the Cateye Enduro Team, I won the race!  Pretty non-technical course with the exception of a 4 mile steep fireroad climb.  It was a 9.5 mile course and each lap took me between 40-55 minutes as I finished with a total of 13 laps.  Two of the biggest obstacles to overcome were the heat and altitude.  The race started at an altitude of 5200 ft and the temps were in the mid 80's.  My fiance' (pit crew) did a great job once again keeping my electrolyte balance where it needed to be so I wouldn't dehydrate.

It's a good feeling heading into Worlds with a win.

Everything on the bike rode exceptionally well, especially the combination of the Cole wheels and WTB tires.  The wheels made the course feel like butter and the tires allowed me to keep my speed high during some of the loose descents.  I love the Fox fork!  Can't say enough about it.


TRANS-ROCKIES RACE REPORT

A few days before the start of the Trans-rockies both Eric and I were questioning if we would be able to race or not.  My ribs were still hurting really bad from the wreck in the TA, and Erics back and ribs were
not feeling any better after his crash with a truck. I have been looking forward to this race since last year and I didn't want to miss it. I figured hopefully I could get through it with a lot ibuprofen.

The Trans-rockies challenge has a completely different atmosphere than the TA.  With only 125 starting teams, and a lot of people returning from previous years, it almost seems like a big family of racers.  People are really friendly and the race-organizers and all the volunteers seem genuinely happy to be there. The mechanics are great, and it is amazing what they will do to fix someones bike to allow the racer to continue the next stage, no matter what is broken.   I know sometimes they were up until 4 in the morning working on bikes.  The race ends at a campground most days, so the organizers have to lug all food, race equipment, tents, sun-showers, trucks, pressure washers, etc around the middle of nowhere.  Most people sleep in the tents provided by the race, and a few stay in RVs.


During the race you get into this routine each day. After finishing, you suck down a hamburger or sausage the volunteers grill at the finish-line. Then you wait in line to wash your bike with the one or two pressure washers that are brought in.  Sometimes water is carried from a nearby stream.  After taking care of your bike, you try to scrub off most of the mud covering your body in one of the 4 sunshowers that are set up.  Then it is almost time for dinner and after that there is the award presentation followed by a movie of the stage.  There are photographers out on the course and there is even have a helicopter
shooting pictures.  Very cool.

Eric and I had a good race.  We ended up in second place in the mixed category, about 21 minutes behind Canadians Marg Fedyna and Nic Christoffersson.  I think we were 12th overall, behind 10 men's teams and one masters' team.  We won 2 out of the 7 stages and got 2nd place in 4 of the stages.

The racing is pretty brutal with a lot of single and double track, fun rocky descents, lots of roots and ruts, many hike-a-bike sections, technical climbs, and a little bit of gravel road and pavement.  One day we
had to hike 6 km in thick clay-mud carrying our bikes. You couldn't even push the bikes, because the thick mud got stuck on your tires and all of the sudden the bike weighed 50 pounds.  I wasn't even able to pick my bike up without using a stick to scrape of some the thick mud.  I could not believe the bikes held up as well as they did in the muddy conditions. My bike actually shifted pretty well after riding through mud, streams, and cow-crap!

The only major incident was a broken derailleur hanger on my bike 13 km into a 97 km stage.  Eric replaced the hanger with the one from his bike, and made his into a single speed!!!  A few km later a guy on a
Rocky Mountain let Eric take his bike (his partner was planning on dropping  out because of a knee injury). Unfortunately, the bike was about 2 sizes too small with semislick tires, really crappy shifting, and terrible suspension.  They also had to trade shoes and that was the long hike-a-bike day, so that was not the greatest either.  Although we really really appreciated the favor, I think Eric was pretty happy
to be back on the Giant the next day.  We actually ended up catching a lot of the mixed teams that passed us during this 30 minute incident and ended up in 4th that day.

As you can probably tell, I love this race and I would highly recommend it to anyone, competitive or not. The scenery is absolutely amazing, the riding is awesome, the race organizers are great, and you get to
hang out with some really  cool mountain bike enthusiasts.