Ben Thompson

Just got back from La Ruta - wow, what an event. Brutal. Would love to have the report posted to the OBRA list. La Ruta Day 1:brain is dead so this will be brief. 3am wakeup/breakfast, rollout at 5am in 80deg, 100% humidity. Into the slickest, snottiest, reddest mud for hours of hike-a-bike climbing out of the coast. Evil. Blew out my rear tire at about mile 20 and had to Clif wrapper the gash and put in a tube. More climbing, then more with a 15k road climb near the finish. 14,500ft ascent in 60miles. 6hrs and change in a soaked chamois. Ouch. Tomorrows a new stage with 11,500ft of climbing in 41 miles. Should be interesting. Ciao.Check out the Garmin 305 GPS stats from stages 1 here:http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/4472795 Day 2:Well I now know how they can fit 11.5K of climbing into 43 miles but haven't figured out how to recover from a 6+ hr race apparently. Getting the call-up made me feel like I should "race" so tried to keep up with the skinny fast guys up climb #1. Lasted about 35min of running up dirt too steep to ride and doing the cyclocross flying mount to chase before my legs gave me the curtain call. After that, we essentially climbed up gravel and pavement at a 30% grade for 15 miles. Thats a long time in the granny gear. Besides the incredible countryside, pain tolerance testing and friendly, happy locals the highlight so far has been the chocolate funnel cake they have at the aide stations. Good Lord its a good sugar rush. After 4hrs of climbing, we had a gnarly fresh cut descent straight down a couple of thousand feet of hillside, drainage, riverbed, etc. Couldn't bend over to take my shoes off my back hurt so bad after the steep climbing after narrowly beating a 5hr ride time. Tomorrow we get to climb over Irazu, the 9500 ft volcano looking over San Jose on our way to the Atlantic coast. Another quick 45 miler...ha! Check out the Garmin 305 stats for Stage 2 here: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/4472796 Day 3:Another 4am wakeup call for breakfast of gallo pinto (white rice and black beans) and a mound of eggs. Leaving the outskirts of San Jose in a "neutral" start gave us time for brief glimpses up into the building clouds around Irazu volcano - our destination for the day. By "neutral" I mean motorcycles were trying to corral the field for safety reasons through the city but sure enough people were zooming up sidewalks, yards and any other available real estate to advance a few spots. Didn't really matter in the end as we did a straight shot up the flanks of the volcano for a 3hr - 8750 ft middle ring road climb. Climbing up into the rain sufficiently spread the field as we peaked at 9000ft with clouds of breath steaming in front, rivers of water cascading down the road and limbs locking up in the chill. After passing the checkpoint we began the gnarliest, chewed up descent on a clearly unused mountain sidecut that was embedded with babyhead rocks, cut by wash-outs and rain ruts all at a 25-30% down grade...in the pouring rain...after a 3hr climb. Went through a set of brake pads and a few of my 9 lives navigating this absurdly hard downhill. Needless to say the ambulance was wailing late into the night retrieving the wounded, gathering the lost and generally trying to keep people from throwing in the towel. Drew a sigh of relief as we zigzagged in amidst the vast coffee plantations of Aquiares to the finish line and another cold shower and lunch, finally having arrived on the Caribbean side of the country. Finally finished a stage with no mechanicals (day 1 blown sidewall, day 2 broken chain)! One more to go. Day 4: Once again we woke to a steady downpour and plowed through yet another 4am plate of rice, beans and eggs. I was hoping for a couple of hot cups of some of the world-famous Costa Rican coffee being grown on the hillsides surrounding us but found out that over 95% of it is exported and not so readily available as one might think. Back at the start we all lined up in our rain capes, standing in the downpour looking forward to the final day - a long 120K stage back up through the coffee plantation then down the final range of moutains to the Atlantic coast. Once again, taking the course description listed as "downhill" with a grain of salt, made the repeated granny gear climbs a little less harsh. The rain also kept the normally swealtering heat at bay however did feel like someone was pointing a pressure washer at your face as well hit 45 mph on some of the long pave descents to the coast. After a couple river crossings, one of them waist deep, we arrived at the notorious railroad tressle crossings - a terrifying 300yd tiptoe on the oily wooden ties 100+ feet over a rushing river. Can't really begin to explain how not-fun this was after already riding for 3 or 4 hours, being tired and having carbon-soled (no grib) bike shoes on. Some of the ties were even missing so you go to take a step over a 2ft gap in the bridge, carrying your bike on your shoulder while looking down at the river far below. Even better this ended up being one of many bridge crossings for the day, all in various states of decay. The final 30 or 40k run-in to the coast took us through some seriously poverty sticken little Caribe shanty towns and then north along the bay to the port town of Limon. Because the roads here were were more paths in and out of the vast Dole pineapple and banana plantations the race organizers ever so kindly kept us on the railroad tracks...literally. What seemed like an eternity of bone-jarring thump,thump...thump,thump we rode down the middle of the tracks over the concrete ties and chip rock. This is where I cracked. Each pedal stroke produced a nearly simaltaneous jolt of pain up my arms and back meeting in a growing knot in my neck. The first 3 days of this journey were phycially the most difficult experiment I'd ever done but this took the cake for mental fortitude. Finally after what seemed an eternity of swearing I'd never ride my bike again and wondering if someone at the finish line wanted to buy it, I saw the sandy finish line on the Atlantic coast surf spot of Playa Bonita and my finish time of 5hr 51min. All the trials and tribulations of the last few days quickly passed into memory as the cerveza Imperials started flowing. After a shower to wash away the grit and grime of the day, a large meal of pork, chicken, snapper, steak and various veggies and potatoes (no beans and rice) I was soon sharing stories with new friends and competitors and shaking hands with the guys I'd raced against but ultimately survived with. Managed a 3rd place in the Master A category that I was placed in now that I'm an old man at age 31.Naturally the journey didn't end there, and what became badged as Stage 5 took me about 30hours of straight travel to finally get back to Bend. The main road back to San Jose had washed out because of all the rain so the 2hr bus trip turned into 5hr. Then our bus broke down and we were forced to jump on a local bus and stand in the aisles for 3hrs. We finally arrived back at the Best Western in San Jose about midnight to find our bikes had not made it back from the coast. They finally arrived around 3am and I had just enough time to get, break it down, pack and catch the shuttle to the airport for my 7:15am flight. Got through customs in LA around 1pm only to find that I couldn't get a flight to Bend until 9:15pm that night. Fun times.What's labeled as the hardest moutain bike race in the world certainly lived up to its name. The ride combined the hardest and most severe elements of nature, wickedly steep climbing, terrifying downhills and mental torture even George Bush would be proud of. To cap it off I've even managed to bring a piece of Costa Rica back with me and have been layed up on a heavy dose of antibiotics to purge my system of the hitchhikers.

If you're interested you can check out a few more photos of the cool wildlife, zip lines, etc at: http://campthompson.spaces.live.com/
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