One Hundred Miles On a Mountain Bike: Racing the High Cascades 100


Chelsea refueling me at an aid station.
WHY Would Anyone Ride a Mountain Bike 100 Miles?
Hoooold up. Surely one of you is thinking the above. Friends’ responses ranged from, “Wow, I could never do that” to “that sounds like my private hell” to “that’s on my bucket list.” To each their own! For perspective on difficulty, High Cascades is 70 miles of singletrack, 14 miles of road (to/from the trailheads to break up the pack), and the rest on fire roads. Riders climb (and descend, wheee!) ~10,000 feet of elevation on the extensive trail system west of Bend, Oregon in the shadow of Mt. Bachelor. Here’s the map of the entire race course if you’re interested! Mike at Mudslinger Events put on a well-organized, awesome event. (Also, here is my blog post about my second shot at the High Cascades 100, which was even more fun.)
High Cascades 100 course map for 2017
The Verdict
How did it go? It was radtastic! (It’s a word. Look it up.) The race environment was stimulating, my competition was friendly, and my overall experience was positive. Yes, I worked hard. Yup, there was dust and it hit 90 degrees. All part of the challenge! Results: I finished in 9 hrs 17 min, handily beating my 10 hour goal and good for 64th out of ~400 people. I only stopped for ~2 minutes total at the aid stations and my body felt solid the entire time. Ok, ok, I could have used more chamois butter to ease the chafing from mile 70 on… I finished with energy to spare and think I could have gone below 9 hours. Still, for my first-ever mountain bike race, I’m stoked with the results! Check out the ride details here on Strava.
Done! Feeling good, if a bit dirty from all the dust…
Good Friends, Sage Advice
Let’s be clear: I didn’t race to stand on a podium. High Cascades is a popular race and attracts pro racers and badasses with sustained power output that makes my quads shiver in fear. For me, racing was simply a personal challenge. My buddy Joe, a seasoned 24 hour MTB racer, gave me two pieces of advice for my first endurance race. 1) Don’t stop and 2) Ride to finish, not for a time. Competitive numbers guy that I am, I wanted to shoot for a time – 10 hours or bust! – and so advice like Joe’s was helpful. My friend Julie, a fitness coach and endurance racer, shared a mantra that I adopted: “slow on the uphill, steady on the flats, free speed on the downhill.” For such a long ride, hard efforts early on can torch chances of success later. I stuck to Julie’s advice and am glad I did. Given the energy I had left at the end, next time I can toe the line a bit harder. Since I’m a good descender on a mountain bike, I made up time ripping downhill. That said, High Cascades is more of a cross-country race, so the people who do well are stronger climbers than descenders. It’s no enduro race!By the way, dig these kinds of posts? Sign up for the free 2x/month Traipsing About newsletter for more tales from the mountains and creative challenges like drawing and piano when I’m off the bike.
Snippets From Race Day
Some pros, like the famous boxer Floyd Mayweather, are relaxed before fights. As he’s said, ‘I’ve done everything I’m going to do. Nothing I do in the next little bit is going to change anything, so ain’t no use getting worried about it.” I knew I was ready, but I didn’t feel quite so laid back. Thanks to jangled nerves, I only slept a few hours the night before. (Our cat Oliver contributed, yowling all night because he gets worried when we appear to be packing for a trip.) Luckily, the training was done and only pedaling my bike remained.
Miles and miles of training, luckily some like this one of Mt. Hood that Paul is taking in.
Race Moments:
Breakfast at 4 am: I stuck with tried and true foods my stomach knew well. Green tea, a giant bowl of quinoa with fruit and nuts, plus a smoothie. Starting line at 5:30 am: 400 athletes pent up and raring to go as the sun creeps over the horizon. The gun goes off and we surge off in a giant peloton on the road toward Mt. Bachelor. It’s 9 miles of road to split the group before we hit dirt, a necessity to avoid a terrible bottleneck at the start. People chat with buddies, vie for position. Mile 9: The pack splinters as we hit the first fire road, the uphill part of Tyler’s Traverse. It’s 6.5 miles to the top and the dust clouds billow and swirl. Some racers (myself included) use a buff or bandanna to curb the dust. I’ll still feel a pinch in my lungs for a few days after the race. The hardest part on this climb is letting people pass when I know I can go harder…pace, Dakota, pace!
Riding with friends on Tylers. I didn’t even glance at this view during the race!

Best aid station team ever. Thanks for the help, Paul, Bayen, Emily and Chelsea!

Mouth full of rice bars!

At long last, the finish line!

Annnnd adrenaline gone. TIRED. It hit me just like that.
Aftermath, a.k.a. Did I Hacksaw My Bike to Death
My bikes are all still intact! I still like mountain biking (strangely?) and the race didn’t take TOO much out of me. In fact, the next day I spun around the neighborhood and felt great! (My chafed undercarriage, on the other hand, was scorched.) All the training paid off, I guess.ALL THE DETAILS: Training, Gear, and Fueling
Interested in details and/or looking to race 100 miles? Read on below for allll the dorky talk about my training, the gear I used, and what I ate/drank during the race.Training for a 100 Mile Mountain Bike Race
Similar to marathon training, most people don’t ride a full 100 miles straight preparing for the race. In fact, my longest ride was only 7 hours, and my maximum distance was only 61 miles. I focused more on volume, i.e. pedaling pedaling pedaling! Consecutive longer days (3+ hours) were the most important, since nothing emulates tired legs in a race like tired legs in a training ride. I’d crank out a 50 mile ride on Tuesday, then wake up the next day and do the last thing I wanted to do: go ride my bike a few hours. To make sure my body could handle the physical duress of a long mtb race, I focused on mountain biking and didn’t touch a road bike the entire time. For my next longer XC race, I’ll likely add a day of harder tempo/threshold road riding efforts to focus on increasing my power so I can crank harder uphill.
Typical training weeks from late June.
Gear for Race Day
Biking, while more complicated than running, is still basic. My gear list for High Cascades was straight-forward:
My noble steed: Santa Cruz Tallboy CC

Did I mention all those riders kicked up some dust? Clear shades with a little UV filter were key!

All the gear!
What Did I Eat? Plants!
Most people who toe the line of a 100 can ride the distance. It’s the fueling and hydration that take out competitors. As I caught up to a guy 3 hours into the race who blew by me earlier, I learned he hadn’t eaten or drank anything yet. I’m no seasoned endurance racing expert, but I knew he was in trouble. (He didn’t pass me again.) FUELING IS KEY. If there’s one thing to get right, learn how to eat and drink on the bike while moving. My goal (which I met) was to only stop at mile 40 and mile 75 for my rad wife and friends to help me swap out hydration packs and reload my food supplies. I multi-tasked and snuck in my lone pee break while walking up a steeeeep, sandy fireroad. Otherwise, I was on my bike the entire 9+ hour race.Food Plan:
During Training: Lots. Of. Food. I follow a vegan diet (#plantpower, woot!) and have for four years now. Probably related to that, a couple people asked me if I changed my diet during training. NOPE. The only thing I did was increase calories, eating huge varied salads, lots of burritos, big rice bowls with vegetables, and the occasional pizza.
Doofy smile time! After one ride, I ate two of those giant burritos…

Easy on the stomach, quick to digest, and full of water, these are GREAT!
Hydration Plan:
After kicking around ideas, I decided to a) maximize water access and b) minimize transition times. To accomplish this, I had two hydration packs that Chelsea cycled out and handed to me at the aid stations, refilled and ready to rumble. I also had a water bottle on my bike with water, salt, and some lemon water. I used 70 oz. of water in each pack plus three Nuun electrolyte tablets. The secret weapon: per my buddy Eric’s idea, I made Nuun ice cubes and put those in the water on race day. Cold water was so, so, so good when temps tipped into the 90s in the afternoon. My goal was simply to drink water, and lots of it. For a race with so much singletrack, the hydration packs made it possible for me to drink basically whenever, as opposed to only on smooth trails or fireroad. My approach worked well and I’d recommend it!Final Thoughts on Racing 100 Miles
The only thing I have left to add is this: you can do it! Put in the time for training, steel your muscles and your mind, get a game plan in order, and get after it. I hope the experience I’ve shared helps you realize it’s doable even if you’re someone like me who has never raced off-road before. Want to race the High Cascades 100? Here’s the link. Ride on!
My first big ride after the race took me here…how can we not love mountain biking?!
Great detailed and actionable content Dakota! This is an excellent reminder that it’s possible to accomplish just about anything we want as long as drive and a dilligent plan are key ingredients. Huge congrats and nice to see you rocking the SC Tallboy!
Thanks dude! I figured that if I went through the entire process, I may as well spell out the details and maybe help someone else out. I got the Tallboy so I could ride like my shredder friend AO…and because the second version of that bike is rad!
What an amazing race…it reminds me of a Zen saying from The Ven. Khai Thien, ” Every step of the journey is the journey”, in your case Dakota every rotation of the pedal is the journey, your writing is so descriptive the reader is placed on the seat, excluding the chaffing…thank goodness.
Ah, good quote! So so true. Glad to share the story and exclude the chafing. No one needs that unless it’s part of a bigger experience. Here here to continuing the journey!
Great recap and well done with the prep and execution!
Admirable!!! Such a helpful post. Thanks a lot for sharing the experience.