Ann Arbor's DIRTHAMMER!

Humility Rehabilitation Clinic
The DIRTHAMMER! is not for brittle egos. It will, on any given Tuesday evening, with the right mix of riders, peel away the simpering layers of anyone's pride.

Joe L!!!!!!!! is Partly Right?
Joe--and we all know which Joe I'm talking about, right?--mentioned, in a recent forum, his interpretation of the DIRTHAMMER! origins. It, from his understanding, was begun by Paul Kundrat, Ric Lung, and Ian Lockley, leaving from Northville and emanating forth along local dirt roads. Joe's from Northville. He has pride in his fair village. My guess is that he goes to sleep at night imagining the Tour de France beginning its two thousand plus mile odyssey from Northville someday soon. I'm right, aren't I Joe? Knowing Joe, it could happen.

Well, Joe found snippets of truth in his overexpanding tube of exploding speculations. And half a fact is better than none. And, let's admit it, the DIRTHAMMER! is part legend, part myth, and part delusion anyway.

The DIRTHAMMER! (all caps--as declared by Paul Kundrat) was, in name, Paul's baby. But, and here's where Joe slips down his greasy off-camber hill of truth, this dirt road ride has been going on in Ann Arbor for a while, even before it received the DIRTHAMMER! moniker. And even as the newly rechristened DIRTHAMMER! it originated out of Ann Arbor, beginning from Barton Dam to be specific. So say both Paul and Ric.

Early Origins
According to veteran roadie, Jim Levinsohn, this dirty experience began as an easygoing ride on mountain bikes in the pre-cellphone days. (At first I read it as pre-cellophane and I thought, wow, that is old.) He, Doug Heady, and a guy who is only mentioned in the history books as Dixon wanted a change of pace after a heavy dose of spring and summer road racing. They called this the Dirt Road Ride. Exciting, huh? The regular route of the ride that we now know evolved over time, mostly through the considered attentions and endless wanderings of Jim and Doug.

It has become a route ingrained in the subconscious of anyone who's ridden it repeatedly. In full hammer mode it takes less than an hour and a half to complete, perfect for a Tuesday evening late summer/early fall CX season prep and workout as light fades from the northern hemisphere. The rolling hills are cruelly ever-present and almost perfectly placed to highlight any weakness in the legs of its miscreant participants.

Even in those early "mellow" rides, Jim notes, strange things happened. Dave Koesel fell so hard in a sprint that he was knocked out. He did regain consciousness and finish the ride, but if anyone's come across Dave since (for instance racing a fixie--and doing well--in the Ann Arbor Runway Spring Training Series), this will explain a lot. Paul McMullen, an Olympic 1500 meter runner, rode with his running shoes (truly clipless) and wailed on everyone. Jim and Doug were even chased by a child's remote control car. This is a ride as much known for its imagination as for its exhilaration.

Rebirth
Time passed. Somewhere along the way it lost its sparkle and languished for a while in obscurity. Then, around 2002 or so, a critical degenerate mass reconvened, only this time with cross bikes. According to Paul K, "it picked up momentum with regulars that included myself, Rich Stark, Ric Lung, Brian Rosewarne, Randy Herman, Tom Archer, and others. Inclement weather and darkness were not inhibitors and if you got shelled it meant a solo ride back to A2." Paul, who eventually became president of the Velo Club, considered it the hardest ride the club had to offer.

I picked up on it a year later and I remember regular and irregular luminaries such as Blair Dudley, Ken O'Day, Nick Durrie, Andy Weir, Jason Lummis, Ben & Wendy Caldwell, Jim James, Julie Bellerose, and I'm pretty sure Joe L!!!!!!! among many others, kicking the hurt in as well.

The beginning of the ride has two iterations leaving from Barton Dam, both heading north along Huron River Drive. The first and most common turns right across the Foster Bridge and up the far too soon hellishly steep Country Club Road. The second goes out to the equally unforgiving Tubbs Road climb. Some riders are mercifully dropped this early in the ride and given the freedom to enjoy themselves at their own measured pace. For those who still hang on it's a leg ripping evening of affliction ferociously rolling northwest all the way out to the incessantly undulating Walsh Road, left on Merkel and up a devious little pitch that's dropped many stout riders, and back southeast on Zeeb, Farrell, Jennings, Stein, and Maple, returning to Barton Dam, often shrouded in darkness at this point.

The point of the DIRTHAMMER! is its relentlessness. It builds momentum, reaching not one crescendo but dozens of them. If the pace slackens, it's immediately reignited by those with the freshest legs going off the front, much to the chagrin of those who feel they've just put in the last their own weary muscles have to offer. Whining and groaning is part of the dialogue. It's one ride that's meant, by definition, to repeatedly grind every last ounce of energy out of the legs and lungs, then require more.

The DIRTHAMMER! by any name is an institution in this area. It's a ride that helps racers prepare and stay in shape for the fall cyclocross season, and many use it to lock in their form for Traverse City's ICEMAN in early November.

Whoa! Wait a minute. Maybe the DIRTHAMMER! started in Traverse City. Hey, I'm originally from Traverse City. Yes, yes, it did start in Traverse City. And soon the Tour de Fra...

If anyone has further truths or fabrications to share about this infamous ride, let us know.

..................................oRo...

Cyclocross and (Oxy)Morons

Pre-season Jolly Pumpkin Race at Leslie Park

For a few years now, Chris, my friend and neighbor down the street has been telling me about this friend of his. According to Chris, he's this amazing rider who mountain bikes mostly and he goes out to epic week long races like one in Vancouver and wails. I could never talk about biking with Chris without his bringing up this guy. They've been friends since childhood.




Jonathan Page - Who We Pretend to Be

Chris loves to mountain bike, but his job in recent years has him commuting in a car through the thick of Southeast Michigan hell over an hour or two each way, so whenever we talk bikes, which is every time we meet, he says, "my friend Andy..." and seldom talks about his own exploits. After a number of these conversations, Andy took on epic proportions.

Chris had tried to get me in to Local Loop MTB rides a couple of years ago that he did with a group that included this Andy guy. They rode from Chris's house at the bottom of the street on Tuesday evenings when a crew of about ten riders would assemble, ride, and head to the bar, in that order.

45+ at Springfield Oaks, Mark Wolowiec in Front, Duh!

The trouble was that those were the nights when I did the DirtHammer with the club. The DirtHammer has always been one of my dedicated training rides for cyclocross season, so I never did get out with Chris on the Local Loop. In fact, they were usually just heading out, often with lights, when I'd returned from ripping my legs apart with the club. I'd wave as I rode up the street, Chris would wave, they'd go for their ride, and that was that.

We Look So Relaxed and Like Such Pals at the Beginning, Don't We? (Scott Claes, Ken O'Day, somebody's arm, Mike Seaman, Rob)

So, during the first race at Vet's Park this year, I lined up with the pack. Since this is an Ann Arbor race, I noticed Chris in the crowd and thought how great it was he'd shown up to watch. We were our usual nervous, jokey, group, everyone wondering where Mark Wolowiec was, since he usually sets the standard for chase rabbit. Then this guy in a Biciclibre jersey next to me says, "are you Rob?" It's a question I struggle with at times, but realizing this is not a deeply philosophical moment, I answer in the affirmative. He reaches over and shakes my hand. "Andy," he says, "Chris's friend."

A week or two before, when I didn't know he was The Andy, we rode a few laps at the Lower Huron CX race together and Andy was off the front kind of dragging everyone around the course until he, Mark Wolowiec, Joe Brown, and Mike Seaman made it their own little race, leaving the rest of us behind. A couple of laps after that, Andy was walking with his bike over his shoulder in the opposite direction on the back half of the course. He'd broken his chain. At the time I'd wondered, who the heck was this Biciclibre guy? Now, at Vet's it all came together. The infamous Andy. He came in first that day at Vets.

The Pros Over the Barriers

I really love cyclocross. And to put the words love and cyclocross into the same sentence is truly an oxymoron. And the moron part really fits because cyclocross hurts so much that you have to have something deeply wrong inside to feel passion for something so brutal. The oxy- is about air, or the lack thereof (ie., deprivation), perhaps leading to the reason for the second part of the word in our case.

Worse, I don't win many races. The podium is hard to reach. I've had Wolowiec and Brown beat me so often that I feel like it's really an exercise in self flagellation. In previous years Riege was a dominating force, but this year he was less so. It must not have been a priority for him, because he's definitely someone to reckon with when he's on form.

Blood (Seldom the Accompanying Glory)

I wasn't racing CX last year because of my heart attack (see my 2007 blog article DirtHammer 911) at the beginning of the season, so I don't know who the main contenders were beyond stalwarts like Wolowiec and Brown. I know Mark Lovejoy and Ken O'Day are always in there battling it out. But this year we also had the rise of Mike Seaman, Andy Klumb, Mike Belanger, and Mike Green. They made me and my new tubular Zipp 404 carbon wheelset and old faithful Fuji cross bike dig in awfully hard. No matter what my placing, against these guys I knew that I'd been challenged by the best and that I'd done all I could do on a given day.

I remember watching my first CX race, before I decided to expose myself to the stupidity of it all. It was at Hudson Mills near Dexter. Everybody looked like they were going so darned slow. There's something about watching cyclocross bikes moving over the grass that makes you think, "I could do better than that! Why don't they just pedal harder?"

Barriers Won!

The next year I was on that same course for the first time. On the bike it's different. It's like a Kafka nightmare where you work so hard to go forward and the earth drags your wheels down toward hell so your legs just ache. Always. There's always something in a cyclocross race that pulls you down as much as you fight to drive the bike forward.

On a road bike, on pavement, your bike does move forward. It flies sometimes like there is no road, no earth to tie you down. Even mountain bikes can give you that feeling of a soaring raptor as you dip and glide through the trail. But cyclocross is all about earth and gravity and that simultaneous pull of opposing forces. Seldom do you feel that same sense of glide and lift. Even stretches of pavement often work against you. By the time you hit the tarmac all you think of is recovery. And since it's a fall sport there's usually a nice head or cross wind to extinguish any dream of reenergizing on these paved stretches.

Joe Brown

On my last race in late November at Munson in Monroe (out for the rest of the season after that race due to a pinched nerve and a bout of the flu), snow was falling, the course was slick, and the temperature was below freezing with bitter wind chills. Joe Brown, as ever, had designed a challenging, cranky, flowing course to ride. Munson Park has one big hump of a hill and a lot of flat, damp grass. He'd made the one hill into three brilliant, wicked little climbs.

Rob & Joe at Vets

Joe and I battled that race out together from beginning to end. There was one moment when we were topping one of the steepest of those pitches, our legs barely able to turn the cranks over, and he just moaned, "man these hills are hard." In the middle of all that suffering for both of us I thought it was so funny. Here I was with one of my toughest competitors all these years and we were absolutely miserable, having pushed each other to the limit lap after lap, trying to find weakness, trying to pull away, neither of us giving in. I literally had spit and snot all over my face from the cold and the endless exertion. And Joe just wouldn't let up. In all those years, he never has. And I said to him, "you designed this, Joe. You did it to yourself." "I know," he said, "I know." It said everything about cyclocross in that one brutal, honest, comical moment. We do it to ourselves. And then we do it again and again.