Gary Ballas

Race report

This was a great course and well-organized, as usual, by Vicious Cycles. The weather was perfect and the views are amazing. I had a good day despite some cramping and general flame-out on the last climb. The descents were super rough, so plan accordingly. I'd highly recommend this event.

Race report

Great to see NW Epic Series back and a fun course as always.

Race report

Another fun Stotty race with near perfect conditions. I had a fortunate start and worked to hang on to the front pack of geared riders as long as I could. A little gap formed to #2 SS and then I just tried to keep the rainbow socks of the #3 woman in sight (she was rocking it). Love that new jump section.

Race report

The former Iron Horse Relay is now the Iron Horse Traverse under new management. This is always a very fun event, and this year I put together a team with 2 of my brothers and a good friend who is a super fast roadie. The new organization did a great job and I liked that they extended the mountain bike to 27 miles. It's really just a gravel road, so the CX bike is the magic ticket. The weather was amazing and our team did well, taking 2nd in the Masters Men category and 8th overall. I was happy to have repeated the 3rd overall in the mtb leg. Next year we're going to find ourselves a faster boat!

Race report

Lake Chelan is always fun and it was even better this time having friends and family racing. There were 4 of us out there from our newly formed and quite informal team, Epoch Medical. The weather was perfect and the course was well-marked with great support from the NW Epic Series crew and volunteers. I had a good initial climb and clean ride, but I caught a glance of nice blue Niner SS very close on a switch back about 1/2 way through and knew I had to keep it full throttle to the end. The splits show Bill and Ben were close, so I was fortunate to hang on to the lead this time.

Race report

A huge turn out and classic NW muddy conditions made it a fitting start to the 2014 NW Epic Series. It seems everyone had the same race strategy; be near the front into the woods to limit the traffic. It was a drag race for the first 2.5 miles, then log jam for the first lap through the chocolate pudding. Once it opened up it was really fun trying to catch the leaders through the 5000 tight muddy turns, but I never saw them again and was happy to hold off 5th. Thanks Roger for keeping this awesome series going!

Race report

This is the new and improved version of the Mountains to Sound Relay, now centered around North Bend. Our team "Five Decades of Fun" finished 5th in the Team Open division. I ran the short cyclocross leg (5.7 miles) and finished in 19:41 (1st place of 80 participants for my very brief leg of the race). This is always a great event and the new format makes it even better.

Race report

This is always a great event and this year drew a much bigger field in the SS class (27 or so) including some pros. The course was changed to the single 100 mile loop with 80+ miles of sweet non-repeat single track that looped around Mt. Bachelor. I had a good ride with no cramping and managed the right intake to keep from fading. I was targeting a top 10 and <10 hrs, so mission accomplished.

Race report

This was a very well organized event on an incredible series of trails near Bend. We had a perfect day, but the 38 deg start was rough. This was my first 100, so I was unsure about my ability to maintain fueling and hydration for 10+ hours, but it worked out. I was in it to simply finish, but found myself having a lot of fun and feeling good until about mile 75. At this point it was just survival mode, and it was pretty miserable pushing the extra distance they threw in for us for a total of 109 miles. Ouch.

Race report

The course has one short steep climb, then is 5 miles up a 2% grade fire road, then 12 miles back down the same road. It's hard to call this a mountain bike race, but it's a fun challenge regardless. The SS wasn't going to give me enough range to do this justice, so I picked 4 gears that I thought would be right from an old 7 spd cassette and managed to cram them onto my short SS freehub. I then ran a cheesy derailleur and an old 7 spd Grip Shift. It worked awesome. Anyhow, I spent the entire race working with 2 guys on cyclocross bikes trying to catch two ahead of us. It worked out, yet their road racing skills got the best of me on the final sprint. Oh well, 2 seconds down from 1st was fine by me and I beat the target time I promised to my team. We went on to take 4th for the whole relay.

Race report

This is the same fantastic course as described in the 2011 Capitol Forest race report. This was my first SS endurance race and I had a great time, but recall thinking how impossible it would have been to do another 50 mile lap, as those on the 100 had to do. Given that I somehow pulled off the SS win, I have to say that this was strong motivation to keep it going.

Race report

See the course description in the 2011 Mountains to Sound Relay race report. This was my first time with this event and found it to be extremely fun. I was on a full suspension XC bike and was wanting something a bit more efficient. I fixed this in 2011.

Race report

This was my first SS race and my first race after a good hiatus of at least 5 years. The course is the Duthie cloverleaf and the race was simply 4 laps. I ride this area often and know it well, which was an advantage. I got a good start up the road and dove into the single track in 3rd place. The 2nd place guy slid out and I made a pass that I was able to make stick. I had some brutal cramping that I had never experienced before (part SS effect, part lack of training). It was fantastic to land on the podium for this first time back.