Scott Taylor reminds me of a hummingbird. Very high energy. Very quick movements. The first year I volunteered for him, he was so abuzz, flitting and fluttering around his house, showing me the course, the finisher’s caps, the water bottles, the race plates, the Facebook posts, and the crates of watermelons. I thought he might be on the verge of a nervous breakdown from the stress of race directing, but it turns out Scott was not harried; fluster is his natural order. The man’s intense, but that’s how he’s created and sustained one of the most successful mountain bike endurance events in the country, the Cascade Cream Puff (CCP), which took place this last weekend outside of Westfir, Oregon.
In Scott’s own words, “When I founded the CCP in 1995, it was my goal to get other local people to step up to the challenge of longer rides. It use to be hard to get anyone to ride a 33-mile loop with me.” This year, around 90 participants were willing to ride the 100-mile course, which starts at the Westfir’s red-covered bridge and takes you up FS 1910 to access Alpine at Windy Pass. Next you go over and down Tire Mountain onto the Winberry Divide and Winberry Tie trails, then up 150 to 151 to 1802 to 141 to140 which gives you access to Alpine’s Jedi section, which shoots you out at Windy Pass, where you get on Alpine again and do the loop all over. After the second lap, you take Alpine back to the red-covered bridge and the start of the North Fork trail, which takes you back to FS 1910. On this 3rd lap, you only climb about five or so miles taking Alpine back down to the bridge for the (whew!) finish.
During the day, the red-covered bridge is aid station 1, but in the evening, it morphs into a post–race celebration, complete with beer garden sponsored Ninkasi and run by the Greater Oakridge Area Trail Stewards (GOATS). The GOATS, by the way, in addition to keeping the taps aflowin’, also put in hours of work on the trails every year as do the Disciples of Dirt, Scott Taylor and his group of stewards, and Derek Bell. All these people work together to make sure the Cream Puff system is in primo condition for the upcoming race and season. It’s important to note that Scott’s race is one of the first biking events in the Oakridge area. It has been around since long before the International Mountain Biking Association’s on-going initiative to turn Oakridge into a $400,000 ride center. It can be argued that one of the reasons anyone thought Oakridge would make a sweet ride center in the first place is because of the exposure the Cream Puff gave to the area from the race itself as well as from the trail maintenance done for the race, which opens-up these trails for use the rest of the year.
The course is at it sounds, a rat’s nest of trails and logging roads, but it works because no one marks a race like Scott. No one. Some would say he’s excessive about it. In a Facebook update last Thursday, Scott wrote, “Course is marked, adding more marking today…” and tomorrow and the next day. Last year as a volunteer, after Scott had marked than added more markings, he sent me down the trail the Saturday before the race to add still more markings. Then, on Sunday, he sent me down the trail ahead of the front runners to make sure no one had moved or messed with the markings.
Scott takes care of his riders. He knows he is sending you deep into the woods, and he knows he might be sending you in a dehydrated and downtrodden state, so there is flagging and signs with large arrows to show you where to go, and there is different flagging indicating where you should not go, and there is a third kind of flagging marking all the places you could hurt yourself, so even if it’s mile 75, and you are preoccupied with counting petal strokes because that’s how you are keeping your mind off the pain in your legs, you should not miss or go off the trail.
And then there are the Cream Puff aid stations. Oh the aid stations. These are five-star, world-renowned aid stations. My first experience with their magic was when I attempted the race myself in 2009. Station 2 sits in the nook of Windy Pass, about ten miles into the race. At first light, we took off from Westfir School along Rd 19 in what Scott refers to as a “neutral start.” Based on his description of what that meant, I thought we would be rolling out comfortable as a group until FR 1910 where the race truly begins. I was right in that no one tried to break-away, but the leaders pushed the pace, and I wasn’t prepared to keep up. By the time I hit FR 1910, I was in dead last.
Through eight years of high school and college cross-country and track running, three marathons, and two seasons of the Portland short-track series and the Oregon XC series I have always been mid-to-front pack. Rarely am I in the lead group, but rarely am I in the bottom half. Upon the realization I was riding up FR 1910 next to the sweep, I had my first inkling that the Cream Puff was going to be different and more difficult than anything I had done before, but I was not yet worried, because a number of race veterans had told me that folks will take off fast in the beginning, only to suffer for it later. Due to race day adrenaline, a classic Cream Puff mistake is to go gangbusters the first 25 miles. The day is still cool and it’s fun picking-off riders as you climb, but such early surges are sure to haunt you later in the day. A much better strategy is to play the long game; stick to your planned pace, even if it means getting past a lot at first. It’s more satisfying and encouraging to pick-off riders in the second half of a race anyways.
Since one of my strengths as an athlete is consistency, I was confident I would catch up soon enough, and I was right. Around mile 4, I reached a group of riders and was able to stay with them for the remainder of the climb, up through aide station 2, which at half past seven in the morning was already raging.
The station is designed as a chute, which takes riders around refreshment tables, a mechanics station and a large grill, out onto FR 683, which leads you to the trailhead. Scott offers continues shuttle service throughout the day to and from the station, so all along the flagging of the chutes a gaggle of spectators cheer and ring bells as you pass. It’s all very exciting, which is why another piece of advice many veterans gave me was to not stop at any station for too long for they are Dionysian bastions of temptation that will drain you of both time and momentum. In addition to the typical gels and energy bars, CPP stations have fresh fruit, sandwiches, candy, chips, sports drinks, burgers, and a bevy of volunteers who will offer to re-fill your camel, give you a massage, oil your chain, or hand you a beer. In addition to all this, you also have access to your own supplies like fresh cloths since Scott offers a personal bag drop-off service to any aid station the evening before.
A big reason why CCP stations are the best is because they are run by the same volunteers year after year. This year, though, there has been a changing of the guard. Long time station 3 captions Justin and Misty Mitchell retired and the GOATS took it over. Long time station 2 caption Eric Dengey also retired this year, passing-off his torch to the Disciples of Dirt. Station 1 continues to be run by the Oakridge Kiwanis club. As you can see, the Cream Puff, like the other biking events in this area such as MBO are community-based affairs.
Even though station 2 was a party, nobody in my group stopped except for me. I had to. It was starting to rain, the next section of the race had an extended decent, and I was already cold. I had heard horror stories of years past when it was so hot and there was so much dehydration, less than 50% of participants finished the race. These stories fueled my preparation, and I trained at the height of the day to get myself acclimatized to full sun and heat. It did not, at any point, occur to me that it might not be hot but rainy and cold instead, which is why I did not bring either rain gear or layers. Luckily my friend was volunteering at station 2 and let me borrow her thermal shirt. This stop, though, however brief put me in last place again and out-of-sight from any other participate. I kept my moral up until I got onto Tire Mountain, but the trail was slick by now, and I started falling.
Falling is par for the course in mountain biking and usually doesn’t bother me, but falling several times in a row on one descent is demoralizing. Plus I was shivering and in last place, had been in last place for the last hour, last and alone, so very, very alone. After I slipped on a root for the forth-time I started crying while I rode. If I could have, I would have quit. I tried to think of a way off the course. There were plenty of intersecting logging roads, but I didn’t have a map and even if I had most of the roads were not marked. I had no choice but to continue, at least to aid station 3. So I slogged through mud, tears and a very dark mental pace until I caught up to two women. Caught up to and passed. This parted my black clouds slightly, and when I passed another women and then a man, a little ray of sunshine broke through. I still wanted to quit when at 9:40 am I arrived at station 3, but I knew I would have to wait, as a quitter, for a long time to get a shuttle. The pain of ridding seemed a better option than the pain of waiting. Two hours and 40 minutes later, when I arrived back at station 2, I was enjoying myself. I was finally warm and riding strong. Not only did I not want to quit, but I thought I could actually finish.
Going into the Cream Puff I knew not finishing was a big possibility perhaps an inevitability considering how little I had trained. (The longest I had ridden a mountain bike before the race was 60 miles, once). A large number of participants do not finish, which is part of its appeal for someone like me. It means something to have a CCP finisher’s cap. Only an elite group of riders do. The challenge of the event, though, is not only the race itself. The training will kill you too. In order to put in enough hours to truly be prepared, (and even then there is no guarantee that you will finish unless you ride a smart race), training will take over your life. If you work full-time, the vast majority of your free time is spent either riding or recovering from rides. Unfortunately, even though I love the idea of endurance events, I don’t seem to have that kind of discipline. I’ve never had, even as a runner. I stopped training a month before my last marathon, because I was sick with it, yet I still earned a PR that year. That’s why I thought I might be able to cheat my training and still finish the Cream Puff. The thing is I can get away with cheating in running, because I have been running long-distance for close to 20 years now. Going into the Cream Puff I had only been biking for 3 years. Not surprising, I did not get away with cheating.
I figured that out on my next pass over the 17 mile, gravel road climb from Winberry Tie to the top of Jedi. Since my meltdown I had been steadily passing riders all day, but when I hit 150 for the second time, I began to get passed again. I still thought I could cover the miles, but I questioned whether I was going fast enough to make it within the cut-off time. (For safety reasons, Scott will not let anyone race in the dark). I had calculated that as long as I kept my current pace, I could eke out a finish, but when a third rider passed me on that road I knew I must be slowing down. I tried to hold her wheel, but I couldn’t. My legs would not spin fast enough and by the time I was back on single-track at Jedi they would not climb any hills either. Once I started walking my bikes up accents, I knew it was over. I would never make it in time.
By the time I made it back to station 2 it was 6:40 p.m. and the place was dead. Only three people remained: Eric, the station caption, and DOD members Abe and Albi, the course sweeps. I still thought if I had more time I could finish, but when stopped for good at the station I almost passed out. Luckily Eric noticed me losing it and immediately got me food, water, and warm cloths. As I sat by the fire in a stupor of exhaustion I finally admitted that I was kidding myself. More time would not have made any different. I did not have it in me to finish this race. At 80 miles and more than 14 hours in the saddle, the CCP had taken me to my physical limits.
Every year since 2009’s race, I have flirted with the idea of attempting the Cream Puff again and “finishing what I started,” as they say. I am a better mountain biker than I was then, and I have successfully participated in other endurance events like Bend’s Big Fat Tour, but my past training failure looms large in my head as does the roller coaster of emotions I experienced in 2009. Currently, I am unwilling to give that much of my life over to biking, so instead I volunteer, which is a good compromise, since I still get to be part of an amazing and dedicated group of individuals, first and foremost of which, of course is Scott Taylor. This year’s race, however, does mark Scott’s retirement from being CCP director. He is getting married in August and new life adventures with his partner Jenny (another rockstar volunteer) await him. Next year Derrick Bell and Michelle Emmons will be co-directing the race, which means it will be just good since both pillars within the area’s mountain biking community. If you would like more information about the race go to CascadeCreamPuff.com. Registration for next year’s event will start sometime in the New Year, and I recommend you start training sometime in February.
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