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Jeff 'I CAN DO THAT' Linder does it again!
Back in May 2003 we reported on Bike Friday booster Jeff Linder placing 5th in the 24-hours of Adrenalin mountain bike race against world class competition. Refresh your memory here. Well, not satisfied with being #5, he went on to win the World Championship this year in his category. He's an inspiration to all post-pubescent folk who moan 'I can't... I'm too... I used to, but ... yeah but...read on to understand how Jeff 'Just Did It' ...
What would YOU do if you had earned an invitation to the World's 24 Hours of Adrenalin World Championships in Whistler, B.C.?
Some thought it pretty insane to enter a local California 24 Hour event last May, where all I had to do was load up my brother's VW van with just about every cycling piece of garb and equipment that I owned and drive the 3 miles to the start line about an hour before it all kicked off.
But to venture forth via commercial air to a 'foreign' country where they speak 'sort of' English toting along the requisite gear to contest another 24 Hour event was just a little bit over-the-top in even my endorphin-impacted frame of thought.
But alas, as soon as my adoring 12 year old daughter said, 'Dad, you oughta do it!' I was committed. You see, I'd do just about anything to capture admiration in the eyes of my 'little' girl. Yes, I thought, I can do this, I can pull it all together, I can borrow vacation time from next year to cover the week before the event, I can slide another block of vacation days into the time period after the event - I figured there might be some recovery time required - I can shoehorn 116 pounds of bikes and clothing into two bike boxes, I can get my daughter excused from two out of her first three days of school, I can arrange for housing, rental cars, support team, I can call all of my friends in the cycle industry to pony up product support, things like back up lighting, second pair of shoes, second and third helmet, liquid diet supplements, gels and Gu, many, many pairs of socks, 6th, 7th and 8th pairs of riding shorts, extra undershirts, glove pairs numbering 5 and 6, extra tires and tubes, quick fill CO2 cartridges and dispensers, etc. etc, and I mean big time ... I CAN I CAN I CAN!
So after all of this time and energy and preparation, we found ourselves on the slopes of Whistler mountain contemplating, 'How bad can it be'
Well, on Friday, about 18 hours before race start time, I got a chance to pre-ride the course. What I discovered, was that I was totally ill-prepared for this kind of mountain biking racing. I was used to the wide open sandy and choppy conditions of the trails at Fort Ord, U.S.A.
British Columbia trails, however, are of a totally different breed. Word of the day was rocks, roots, drop-offs, log obstacles and ladders. Ouch, at least that's part of what I said as I found myself kissing mother earth during what I later began to call the rock-garden.
When I got back to the hotel room, my wife inquired, just like the cowboy did when the horse wandered up to the bar, why the long face? So as not to alarm my daughter, I signaled to the privacy of the bedroom, where I informed Joannie that if I had had a chance to preview the course before we came, we'd have stayed home!
I really didn't know what I was going to do during the race. I certainly didn't want to be in the way of the better racers, the trails were so narrow in parts that if I was going to have to walk certain areas, I was going to have to be very alert for riders overtaking from behind so as not to impede.
Anyway, I showed up the next morning for the start and ratcheted up my nerve a notch or two and put my toe to the start line. The beginning of these events include a 1 1/2 km foot race to string things out a bit.
Even with that, the first part of the course, the 40+mph straight-down-the-fall-line-of-the-ski-run, found all 200+ of us contesting for the single pallet sized bridges placed to get us over the erosion control run-offs. VERY exciting! The first lap found us doing a lot of mambo lines through the single track, but with only 23 hours to go, I was confident that things would spread themselves out and I'd be able to navigate the course at something of my own speed in certain anonymity.
As night fell and we all donned the requisite lighting systems, I noticed that one by one, the competitors in my age category began taking sleep breaks. I knew that my strengths were now going to be put to their best use - for some totally unknown reason, I'm able to forgo sleep for several days at a time [We're very glad to hear that from a commercial pilot, aren't we passengers? - Ed]. This 'talent' or is it aberration, certainly can come in handy during times like this.
I began to slowly pull out a lead and at the end of each lap, my fantastic support crew would advise me of my progress. Before long, I had put together a full lap lead, and, by the end of the race I had wrested from my fellow competitors a comfortable 3 lap margin of victory. I was so totally thrilled to have won a World Championship, and to do it in front of my wife and daughter was the best part of it all.
But, you know what, all of that stuff above was thrilling, but the truly wonderful part of the story, at least for me, was the part about my support crew. You can't do these 24 hour races without a totally dedicated and competent support team - not if you're a mere mortal and hope to win.
Just days before the event, my support team had to cancel out for some very understandable and unavoidable reasons. What to do now? Here it was on Wednesday, just 3 short days before race time and I was about to embark on putting together a new crew - but where to look? I called my partners at Bike Friday and asked if we had any customers in the Vancouver area that I might contact to see if they might be interested in helping. That, my friends, was a stroke of genius.
A review of The Bike Friday 11,000-owner customer database offered up the angels of my racing life, Stan and Liz Jang. These wonderful people, along with their darling two children, came to our rescue, showing up Saturday morning, with canopy, tent and tools in hand to set up shop, at pit number 151. These wonderful, wonderful folks, along with Joannie and my daughter Kelsey, kept me going through day and night and day again.
Each time I came in to the pit, there was fresh clothing, water-bottles newly filled with my choice of nutrition, snacks for a little jolt to the flavor buds, a cleaned and freshly lubed bike, re-charged batteries during the long night and spiritual and psychological encouragement to keep me keepin' on. Those pit stops during the night laps were especially critical to get me in and out before hypothermia began to set in. As long as I was moving, I seemed to stave off the worst affects of the mounting fatigue and chilling temperatures. But allow me to sit down for more than a moment or two and you find me beginning to get the shakes and shivers that seemed to be uncontrollable.
I constantly remembered the words of a woman competitor that I exchanged a brief conversation with during the early evening hours. She said, 'If I'm still on my bike at 6:00 a.m., then the real racing starts. I took this philosophy to heart and was determined to 'be on my bike at 6.'
I walked, ran and pushed my bike whenever the terrain threatened to un-seat me, which I figured was about 10-15 times per lap. Ugh and ouch. I finished my 13th and last lap at 12:09 Sunday afternoon - yes that's 24 hours 9 minutes and eleven seconds to be exact - but who's counting - and gladly accepted the cheers of the crowd.
It seems they announced me as the elder-statesman of the race (I'm a greying 54 just like many of you out there) and many were bowled over that I even dared to challenge the event.
For me, it was an athletic accomplishment of a lifetime, and one that I will cherish for many, many years to come. Yes, I rode a big wheel bike. I had to. But 70-80% of my cycling preparation was in the saddle of my Pocket Rocket Pro and Air Friday. Being an airline pilot creates a very irregular training schedule and requires creative solutions to potentially fitness-draining trips away from home base and all the equipment that springs to life from one's garage.
Bike Friday has been my salvation in more ways than just keeping me fighting trim. I've met so many wonderful people and have had so many fantastic experiences because I had access to this little invention.
A huge thank-you to Bike Friday for providing these fantastic tools. Well, thanks for listening and I'll keep you posted if I every get another 'BRIGHT' idea like that one again.
Just remember, never say never. Never never never. Say ... NEXT WEEK!
Jeff Linder, jjl@redshift.com
 Qualifying Whistler at Laguna Seca, CA In this 24-hour qualifying race a few months earlier, I was entered in the open/elite division (they didn't offer age specific categories) and finished 5th out of about 50 riders of all ages. I rode 187 miles and climbed 36,000'. I started the race on the Air Llama but used a total of 3 different bikes depending on the mechanical needs of the bikes during the event. I got a lot of enthusiastic support from the spectators and other racers when they saw the BF working its way around the course - read more. |
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