Headhunters win Timberline Climbing Duel (After a 530 Mile Warm-up)

Twenty-one hours into the Race across Oregon in a rainy dawn we sent a scouting party to Ochocho Pass to see how much further our lead rider would have to go to get the descent. Twenty minutes ahead we saw Team Four Play furiously inching toward this last summit before the 25 mile downhill to Time Station Four in Prineville.

This ultra cycling game is not a sport where position changes are frequent. The last four person team we had seen was sixteen hours earlier and 250 miles back where we weaned ourselves from team Bag Balm. All the previous day and all night long we had been racing as hard as we could. Four riders taking thirty minute pulls climbing endless hills, hammering the flats and making eerie high speed descents in the lights of our pace vehicles.

We knew that five four person teams were ahead and four behind. All the teams ahead of us were in the men’s division. The idea that our mixed team had a chance to catch and pass a men’s team now fired us all with ambition. Though we had only one female, Denise, (who looks like a girl but rides like a man), I guess we qualified as a mixed team on account of yours truly, who looks like the 60 year old geezer he is and rides like a girl. The idea of passing these four young bucks was a real cup of coffee to we four Headhunters who had now been riding for over twenty hours and we hammered it on up over Ochocho and on down to Prineville.

Despite no sign of our prey we kept pushing the pace hard for the next seven hours down the Deschutes Valley and up onto the Warm Springs reservation. Fierce cross winds assaulted us as we struggled to keep clear of passing semi trucks on Highway 26. Bob Croucher was tagged by a passing tumbleweed but kept his bike rubber side down and finished his pull to turn it over to me. My pull included a screaming wind buffeted descent to the river bottom and up off the main roads up onto the prairie. Denise hammered a short pass and several rises and then turned it over to Mike who made a snaking descent faster than the pace vehicles could follow. Below we could see the Casino and I cautioned my teammates to go straight on up the hill in the bottom of the canyon and not turn as one of the riders had done three weeks ago when I rode the course training for the event.

Unknown to us at that moment, our rivals had made the same critical error and turned toward the Casino putting us ahead for the first time. A half hour later as we eased up out of the canyon onto the plain we caught sight of them below, three minutes behind of us now struggling to erase the blunder. Inspired by our good luck and their misfortune we resolved not to give up our gifted lead, though there were still sixty miles of the course remaining, almost all up hill.

On her next pull Denise really gave it her all and fell over after her pull, too exhausted to unclip. We thought she was done for the day as she had a look of pale nausea which accompanied her anaerobic efforts. We all took short 15 to 20 minute pulls now hoping to keep our slim lead. Their crew cars passed us and were pleased to see both me and Denise taking our pulls and offered their smarmy encouragement “Nice Effort Pops” and so forth. We knew that we had to keep Mike and Bob as fresh as possible for the six mile 2000 foot climb up to Timberline Lodge that provides the finish to this amazing race course.

In a moment of truly sick inspiration George Thomas had doubtless envisaged such a struggle years earlier when he designed the finish of this remarkable course. According to Terri Gooch, through the years there had never been a duel to the summit but now we were about to get the benefits of George’s demented plotting. A six mile climb with two thousand feet of climbing at the finish of a 538 mile race with more climbing than the summit of Everest is truly an unmatched finish in the world of cycling.

Pushing hard we kept our slim gap and even opened it a little by the time we got to the Corner Market forty miles from the finish. Many more hard short pulls got us to the Chevron Station 10 miles out where I blew 20 seconds by having to call for my helmet after Bob passed. The plan now was for me to take it to the base of the hill and then we knew our climbers would have to go it alone up the hill. Though Denise and I can stay with Bob and Mike on the flats we all knew their lean power to weight ratios gave them an advantage on the climb where we could only hinder the team. A couple miles from the turn off I dropped a chain and Mike instantly put his bike on the road because he thought I was bonking. Our wheels crossed and he dropped me like a hot rock before I could object. Though he had to ride a couple extra miles extra this was probably best for the team as the Four Players were now closing hard.

Around the corner and up the hill Mike exchanged to Bob and our van hung back to time the gap. They put out their best climber only two minutes behind Bob. We offered our encouragement to our charging teammates and drove up to the finish line to await the outcome which Denise and I now could not affect. On the way up we passed the solo leader, Kenneth Philbrick who had started four hours ahead of our team and was the sole solo rider we hadn’t passed.

It was snowing and foggy at the finish and we waited news of our team mates. A few minutes after our arrival, Kenneth finished his record breaking ride three hours ahead of his nearest competitor. I had gotten to know this cheerful young rider some weeks earlier on a four day training ride and it was dismaying to see the stricken look of pain on his visage as he pedaled the last few meters across the finish. But the realization that he was done and had won this grueling race soon brought happiness to his spirit as he feebly poured champagne on his crew.

Then the Voodoo Doll van appeared and the crew said our boys were riding together now a mile out and three minutes ahead of their apparently spent rivals. At the end they made a pact that they would fend off any challenge together to the line with whoever still had the most left leading the final charge. But, they crossed the line shoulder to shoulder and it was good to see these two fine athletes and old friends victorious at the end of our almost 32 hour team effort.

So, as a result of our last five hours of supreme efforts, we finished fifth instead of sixth in a race that will receive little notice but will not soon be forgotten by those who were there. Our slim margin at the end was the result of absolutely no errors in our team tactics or pacing. Though we are novices at ultra bicycle racing, the Headhunters are not new to challenging events. Our riders are all Ironman finishers and our crew is very experienced from running on and crewing countless Hood to Coast two hundred mile running relay teams. Though we riders gave our total efforts, our crew, with their flawless support in the execution of our race plan, was the critical margin. The Saturday before we had actually practiced racing up the Timberline Hill just in case a tight finish would develop. As it happened, all our training and preparation came into play in the final hours.


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