Finally, my ride report from Gold Rush.

Although I did all the qualifying rides last year's Hoodoo 500, Gold Rush was my first 1200k, and I was somewhat nervous about the ride.

At first I went out with the fastest group, but they were really hammering, so I eased up a bit. Never having ridden 750 miles before, I decided to ride conservative in the beginning. I dropped back to the second paceline, which was moving at a good pace that felt comfortable. As I was dropping back to the second paceline, John Lauer (who I rode the entire PCH Randos 300k with) passed me on his recumbent, headed for the rear of the fastest paceline. He was really moving. After about 60 miles, just after it got dark, I flatted due to a huge thorn. My paceline left me immediately. And two or three others passed as I was changing my tube. Upon completing my repair, I jumped on my bike and time trialed onto the rear end of the nearest paceline. I caught up just in time to follow them down the wrong road--Butte rather than Butte House. After a mile or two, I figured out that we weren't on course, turned around and retraced my way back to the course. Luckily, once back on course I came upon a secret control about a mile down the road.

Over the rest of the way to the Oroville rest stop, my freehub began to squeal every time I would coast. This has happened before to my Ksyrium SLs. I've done the research and it turns out that the freehub on these wheels is prone to drying out and requires semi-regular lubing with a light mineral oil. I had lubed mine a few months ago, just after the San Diego Randos 600k. My hub had been silent ever since. It's didn't squeal once during the Grand Tour just a week earlier. Nonetheless, it was squealing pretty loud every time I stopped pedaling at the outset of Gold Rush. As much as the sound was unpleasant, it scared my fellow riders, who had no idea if I was braking or if my bike was simply about to fall apart. I decided to seek out Lee Mitchell and his amazing support van at the first available opportunity.

With all the fast pacelines long gone, I jumped in a group going at a moderate pace and rode with them to the first rest stop in Oroville, at mile 100 or so. I was in and out pretty quick, but didn't manage to catch any of the faster groups. I left with one other guy, James. He wasn't particularly fast, but he had ridden the Davis 600k, which shared the first part of the 1200k course, so he knew his way, which helped in the dark. We rode together over the long ascent to Jarbo Gap. Along the way, we passed a handful of riders, including Audrey Adler, another So Cal rider. My hub emitted a forlorn squeal the entire descent into the Feather River Canyon. Luckily, despite the unpleasant sound, my rear wheel didn't slow me down and we caught a bunch of riders at the rest stop, the charming, rustic and pine walled bar and dining room of Tobin Resort. Luckily, Lee Mitchell with his super support van was there, but he was taking a nap. After about 15 minutes he awoke and swapped out my rear wheel for a Shimano 105 10-speed rear wheel. It was heavier than mine, but at least it wouldn't scare my riding partners. I ate a little and headed out into the night with James and Albert Kong, who we'd caught at Tobin.

I didn't get too tired the first night. It also didn't get too cold as we were gently ascending until just after sunrise, when we were heading into the next rest stop, Taylorville, through a valley with my thermometer reading 36 degrees.

The Taylorville rest stop was a rural community hall full of shivering cyclists. While we warmed our fingers and toes, volunteers cranked out eggs, pancakes, bacon and oatmeal for anyone with an appetite for real food.

From there, James, Albert and I set out for the next rest stop. Luckily, the sun had risen, elevating the temperature to a comfortable degree. We rode conservatively through the mountains, climbing up to the next rest stop near Antelope Lake. After the mini-rest stop, we began the mountaintop traverse and the subsequent descent down the Janesville Grade. My enjoyment of the very steep descent was tempered a bit by my knowledge that we would be climbing this same grade on the return trip... with many more miles in the legs. By this point, both Albert and James fell back a bit. But I caught up to Isabelle Drake, who we'd been leapfrogging since sunrise. She was riding strong and steady, her ebullient personality seemingly unchanged by the miles and the lack of sleep. I pulled a bit ahead of her on the rollers, so I continued alone until the next rest stop in Susanville.

James, Albert and Isabelle caught up to me again at the rest stop. Albert wanted to shower, so I waited for him. We ended up leaving later than I would have liked, but at least I wasn't riding alone. Once everyone was ready to go, we set out for the next rest stop, which was up and over two long passes with a lush green valley in between. We caught another three or four riders on this section, including Isabelle, who'd left Susanville before us, and Chris Hanson. But I began to feel sleepy. A few times I found myself weaving a bit on the bike. As we descended to the shores of beautiful, expansive Eagle Lake we encountered our first real headwinds. Between the fatigue, the climbing and the headwind, this section proved the most trying for me. Luckily, it was gorgeous, which took my mind off of the other factors a bit. The next rest stop, Grasshopper, proved the most rudimentary. Although it was basically a canopy with folding chairs and tables, it had plenty of food and refreshments as well as the solicitous and enthusiastic volunteers that make all Davis Bike Club events such a pleasure. By the time we left Grasshopper there were about eight riders in our informal group. Albert and I must have felt a bIt better than the others, because we made good time over the miles and miles of rollers, leaving the rest of the group behind.

By the time we rolled into Adin, a tiny farm town, we had been all alone for awhile. We headed to the rest stop, which was also the third bag drop. I grabbed my drop bag and headed to a nearby hotel room, which had been reserved for riders to shower in. I bathed, changed into fresh riding clothes and relubed the nether regions. Afterwards, I headed back to the Adin rest stop and ate. The darkness of our second night on the road descended as we enjoyed pasta and burritos. I considered taking a nap since there were ample cots available for sleeping, but Albert wanted to continue, which was fine with me, since I secretly wanted to get to the turnaround before napping. After more climbing up and over Adin Pass, we descended a bit then started a 20-mile section of rollers to the next rest stop in Alturas. At this point we saw a headlamp and headlight approaching in the on dark. Nearly 60 miles ahead of us at that point, Wade Baker passed us on the beginning of his return journey to Davis.

A little way up the road Albert bonked. He could hardly ride. I didn't want to leave him alone in the night, so I coaxed him on to the next rest stop. There, he needed to sleep. So we ate and laid down for about an hour and a half. Although there was a room for sleeping in the Elks Lodge of Alturas, it had only one cot and one mat on a hardwood floor. As someone was already sleeping in the cot, I gave Albert the mat. I found a little stage area covered in thin industrial carpet, where I tried to sleep for an hour and a half.

Then we got up and headed out on a fairly flat 20-mile section to the turnaround at Davis Creek. It was soon clear by his slow pace that Albert was still suffering from lack of sleep. It was too difficult to ride so slowly, so I went ahead, figuring he'd catch me at the turnaround. I felt good and made good time to Davis Creek. I arrived on the heels of Linda Bott, the first woman. She was the ninth person to the turnaround, which made me tenth. I waited much longer than I expected for Albert. Two Lithuanian guys who had been trailing me but had also passed Albert showed up and turned around. They reported that Albert seemed to be suffering and was riding really slowly. I waited for him to arrive then set out on the return trip alone. I hit the Alturas rest stop for the second time, grabbed a quick bite and continued on. After a few miles, I caught the Lithuanians, Vidas and Gintautas. Rather than pass them, I decided to work with them, and we set up a three-man paceline. We went at a conservative pace, but it was nice not to be alone. Just as we began to climb Adin Pass for the second time, I flatted again. Since it was all uphill and downhill back to Adin, I told the Lithuanians to go on without me. I fixed my flat and rode alone to the next rest stop. I arrived as the Lithuanians were leaving.

I ate quickly and gave chase. After a number of miles, I caught them. But my left knee began to feel a bit tender. I popped some Ibuprofen and kept on until Grasshopper. The Lithuanians were riding very conservatively, so I was able to hang with them despite babying my knees. The three of us had good chemistry, so we continued back to Susanville together.

When we got there, it was about 4 p.m. and we were pretty beat. Gintautas showered and promptly fell asleep. Vidas asked me if I wanted to continue on. I did, so we left. The next section contained the most difficult climbing of the course... Janesville Grade... a super steep 6 mile section averaging between 7 and 18 percent with sustained sections well over 12 percent. I was really worried about my knee going into this section, but ironically my knees felt fine despite the difficulty of the climbing. So did my ass. Following the long climb, we tackled a bunch of rollers and a descent back to the Taylorville bag drop/rest stop. We arrived and had the place to ourselves. We rested about a half hour. Lee Mitchell showed up, so we asked if he'd seen our third man, the other Lithuanian. He said that the only person behind us was Albert Kong, but that he was many miles back, just beginning to climb the Janesville Grade.

Since Vidas was only going to go until Tobin Resort before he stopped to wait for Gintautas who we'd left napping at Susanville, we took it real mellow. Also, we were now riding through the darkness of our third night on the road as we made our way through the Feather River Canyon. After a couple of hours, we reached Tobin. Again, we had the place to ourselves. We sat down to eat, and within about 15 minutes another rider showed up. To our surprise it was Gintautas. Apparently he'd been in the mini water stop when Lee had passed, explaining why Lee hadn't noticed him on the road behind us. Since there were beds in this location, we decided to sleep from 1:30 am to 3:30 am and leave at 4. Honestly, I felt good enough to continue on without the sleep, but I prefer not to ride alone at night and I knew the sleep wouldn't hurt, so I stayed with my new riding partners.

At 4, we set out to ride up to Jarbo Gap, the last high pass between us and the finish. As the road in the canyon is frequented by big logging trucks, we wanted to complete our ascent before sunrise to avoid most of the truck traffic. We managed to do so, reaching the summit just at sunrise. From there we had a long descent and some rollers back into Oroville. Again, we had the rest stop to ourselves, except for a fellow PCH Randos rider on a recumbent who had decided to turn around at Susanville. Officially a DNF, Dana decided to ride home, renaming his ride the Gold Rush 800k. He had slept for a number of hours in Oroville. He wanted the company, so he joined us for the last 90-mile, pancake flat section back to Davis. We all rode pretty mellow. My ass was the sorest it's ever been. Actually, it wasn't that my ass was so sore as that i think I'd developed a bit of a rash in the contact spots, which meant I couldn't find a comfortable sitting position.

In a fairly leisurely fashion, we rode through the only receipt control on the course and a secret control. From there we set out for the finish. At about 1:20, Dana announced that we had 18 miles to go. I knew we were on course to come in a bit after 2 pm, or 68 hours. I decided to up the pace, just because I'd rather finish at 68 hours even than 67 hours and 67 minutes, as Gintautas kept joking. The two Lithuanians were up for the challenge, so we did our best exhausted impression of a team time trial. Despite hitting a number of red lights, almost the only lights on the entire course, we continued to hammer to the best of our abilities. By giving it every last ounce of effort, we finally made the finish... at 68 hours exactly. My best guess is that I slept a total of about three and a half hours total throughout Gold Rush.

My squealy wheel was waiting for me, so I put it back on my bike and left my loaner wheel for Lee, who would be leaving shortly to crew on the Race Across Oregon.

Other than my ass, I felt pretty decent at the end. My knee pain never really advanced beyond mild discomfort. Of course, I'm still tired even today. And my ass still has lingering soreness. Makes me wonder if putting a second seat in a drop bag might not be a good idea for future 1200s.

Ride safe,

Joshua Talley