‘Awesome’ 60-mile course in Ouachitas beckons bicyclists

Early Dec. 17, hundreds of mountain bike riders in 18 states, some as far away as Washington, sat poised in front of their computer screens with index fingers hovering above the Enter key, anxiously awaiting the stroke of 7 a.m. CST.

Tempering speed with accuracy, each had typed information into an online registration form.

At 7, they pressed “submit,” some hesitantly - all too aware there would be no room for error, no time to resubmit a corrected form. Only 15 minutes after registration opened for the 2013 Ouachita Challenge bicycle tour and race, all 500 of its coveted positions were taken.

Participants did not have to register four months in advance for the inaugural Challenge in 2001. Mike Kelsey of Mena hosted that first race out of the bunkhouse of River View Cabins and Canoes in Oden with his mother cooking the event’s first spaghetti dinner.

Don West of Fayetteville rode in that first Challenge. West, author of Mountain Biking Northern Arkansas and a mapping specialist for Progressive Trail Design, said Kelsey had invited him and about 20 other riders in western and northwestern Arkansas to rural Montgomery County to try a new trail route he had created in the Ouachita Mountains. Come race day, they gathered around Kelsey as he pointed at various spots on a hand-drawn map, informing the riders, “I’ll meet you here, here and here to provide whatever support you need.”

With this informal get-together of like-minded individuals, the Ouachita Challenge had been born.

Word of “this awesome 60-mile course” into the heart of the Ouachita National Forest quickly spread through the mountain biking community.

The ride ballooned to 156 participants the next year, and Kelsey decided to move it to the Oden School, where volunteers could better accommodate participants.

A previously unimaginable 249 riders showed up in 2003 to race on the Ouachita and Womble trails so in 2004, in the interest of limiting impact on trails and forest, Kelsey and his volunteers created a two-day event and capped the number of riders each day at 250. Aiming to include as many skill levels as possible, their new format included a 60-mile tour for recreational riders on a Saturday and a 60-mile race for more competitive riders the next day.

Also, in the interest of elevating the “fun factor” for the racers, they included a dreaded ascent over Blowout Mountain (tour riders skirt the mountain on forest roads).

After serving as race director for five years, Kelsey passed the baton to the Ouachita Cycling Club, whose president Jennifer Brotherton Woods, vice president Ed Hawkins and treasurer Scott Hopkins spend a lot of personal time to build the event.

By the 13th Ouachita Challenge, held April 6 and 7, Kelsey’s handful of helpers had been replaced by more than 100 volunteers. Hawkins said the weekend “demands almost an impossible number of volunteers to be at crossings and at aid stations. The riders have to have water and food since most of the riders are out there five to eight hours.”

This year’s race team functioned as smoothly as a well-maintained Single Track Model 240 trail excavator, with the Oden School cafeteria taking over Kelsey’s mother’s duties of preparing breakfast both days, spaghetti dinner on tour day and pizza for lunch on race day (starting at 4:30 a.m. each day); the Ouachita Region Court Appointed Special Advocates handling registration; the Polk County Development Center assisting in the finish area; Friends of the Ouachita Trail (FoOT) providing course marshals and aid stations; Ouachita Amateur Radio Operators filling in communication gaps along the route where there is no cell coverage; and a host of other area organizations pitching in.

The Ouachita Cycling Club rewards volunteer groups by sharing proceeds from the Challenge with them. It also donates to other area groups.

‘EPIC’

Cyclists this year said they appreciate the dedicated support, but another factor that draws them from across the country is the course. A 60-mile mountain bike loop trail race is a rarity for any state, and for that course to include the Womble Trail, which has been designated an “Epic Ride” by the International Mountain Bicycling Association - it just adds the cherry atop a cycling treat.

Methodically applying his knowledge of forest roads in the Ouachita Mountains, Kelsey was able to link the Womble Trail with the Ouachita Trail to create an exciting course that includes vast “technical” sections where riders must apply bike-handling prowess or else get off and walk, fast and sweeping descents, scenic views of the Ouachita River and long, brutal climbs that ratify the “challenge” in the event’s name.

FAST COMPANY

Kevin Conerly, 27, of Team Gearhead Cycle, was the overall race winner April 7, outpacing 234 men and 16 women to complete the 60-mile course in four hours, 40 minutes and 52 seconds. Jessica Rawlins, 30, riding for Bicycles Plus, was the women’s winner, with a race time of 5:18:42, placing her 22nd overall.

The first finisher among the 206 men and 27 women in Saturday’s 60-mile tour (which was not a race) was 53-year-old Larry Price of McKinney, Texas, who completed the route in 4:59:14; the tour’s first female finisher was Cynthia Post, 54, of Plano, Texas, in 6:05:13.

“The story of the day,” as Ed Hawkins summarized the race results via e-mail, was that Team Soundpony’s Brandon Melott, 29, accomplished a second-place overall finish while riding a single-speed bicycle in 4:45:19. “It is just mind boggling that a rider with just one gear could beat all but one geared bicycle” on such a demanding course, with long, steep ascents and long sections on gravel roads, he wrote.

Hawkins should know something about mountain biking, too, being a former U.S. Masters Nationals mountain bike champion and World Mountain Bike champion for his age group.

NEVER AGAIN

The course’s reputation was what attracted professional mountain bike racer Will Kelsay, 32, to the Challenge. When he read a description of the course posted online by a fellow racer, it piqued his interest. He also liked the idea of racing in the mild spring weather in Arkansas as opposed to the snow-covered trails on his home turf in Boulder, Colo.

Kelsay also signed up for the April 6 tour intending to check out the route in preparation for his race April 7. But finishing the tour in about seven hours turned out to be more taxing on his body than he had anticipated. (Kelsay is one of just two racers who also finished the tour; the other was Pedro de Busto of McKinney, Texas.)

Early in the April 7 race, he was feeling that he would easily cruise to victory but shortly after he passed the 45-mile checkpoint in the lead, his energy level tanked. As he struggled to push on, a cyclist eased up behind him on one of the course’s notoriously punishing climbs and then pedaled briskly away from him.

Following this prodigy, to his surprise, other racers began to reel him in.

After he crossed the finish line ninth among men at 5:01:44, a racing friend razzed him, saying, “Yeah man, you almost got ‘chicked’” - a not at all polite reference to being passed by a woman. Kelsay insisted, though, that he thoroughly enjoyed the challenging course and would put it on his list of competitions for 2014. However, he was not planning to ride the Saturday tour before the 2014 race.

Each rider who finished took on more than 5,000 feet of cumulative elevation gain, plowed across many streams - swollen by 3 inches of rain that fell just days before the event - and navigated boulder fields with rocks large enough to terminate their ride prematurely. After enduring the accumulated punishment of pedaling five hours and longer in such grueling conditions, they have earned the right to thump their chests: They completed the Ouachita Challenge.