How I Survived Dirt Camp

That gnarly trail isn't a land mine -- it's an opportunity to test your skill.

Skip Hamilton is our guru. His Zen phraseology and take on the sport instantly become ours. Not that we're compliant. It's just that his taut, 52-year-old body makes for a powerful resume;. That, and the fact that he coaches several top pro racers and is training for the 3,500-mile Race Across America.

The first morning we work on skill drills in a park behind Durango High School. ("Where it's grassy and you don't mind falling a lot," offers Kramer.) Hamilton emphasizes words absent from most riders' lexicon: finesse, flow, control. Riding with power and fury doesn't produce results, he tells us, only fatigue. "Racing isn't about punks with nose rings bombing down some trail," he says. "It's all about precise bike handling and knowing all that the bike can do for you."

For many of us, what the bike does is fling us over the handlebars. Hamilton is empathetic. After I do it several times he looks discouraged. About the time I bash my butt on my saddle while attempting to hop a log (and bend my seat to a 45-degree angle) , Hamilton ceases to look at me altogether.

At session's end, we've slalomed a tight, Grand Prix-style course, negotiated simulated switchbacks, "feathered" our front brakes to drop speed, and practiced keeping our pedals at three and nine o'clock -- the most stable platform for fast downhilling and springloaded jumps. As we gather for a pre-ride of the race course at Chapman Hill, Skip encourages us to have faith in our skills. "Some of you will look at the course and see only obstacles: loose climbs, scary descents, debris everywhere," he says. "But keep this in mind: obstacles are opportunities. You measure progress by how well you maintain the bike's flow. And nothing challenges flow like a Colorado trail."

If you don't want to ride off the cliff, don't look at the damn cliff.

Our daily trail rides range from two to five hours. They're punctuated by brief clinics at the obvious spots: a tricky water crossing at Hermosa Creek; the wheel-sucking sandpit near the base of Animas City Mountain. "Point the front wheel where you want to go," Hamilton tells us on the approach to a trail-clogging rock pile, "the bike will follow." Simple, perhaps simplistic advice. It works! The same goes for another gotta-have-faith maxim: "To get control, go faster." You and your bike are more stable as speed increases -- as long as you slow up for switchbacks.

Other lessons don't go over as well. Steven Shapiro, director of communications for Denver's Founders Funds, is battling acrophobia. We skirt 1,000-foot drop-offs near the terminus of the Denver-to-Durango Trail. Shapiro white-knuckles the handlebars and tenses all over. His speed drops. His bike handling gets tentative. Hamilton takes him aside. "Don't look where you don't want to go," he stage whispers. Put another way: "You look at the cliff, you go off the cliff."

Shapiro nods. But the disconnect between understanding and follow-through runs deep. As long as he's riding a narrow trail etched into near-vertical rock face, he's not sure he'll ever make peace with "flow." At the hairiest drop-off, he dismounts. "I'm still waiting for my epiphany," he says. "I'll walk it."

On the day of the big race, remember this about pacing: Screw it!

As race day nears, tension grows. We feel a double whammy: the fatigue of successive training rides and the mental drain from spending each hour anticipating extreme physical duress. At the last night's training talk, William Wright raises his hand: "I've heard it's really not that important if you don't sleep well the night before a race. Is that true?"

Ultimately, more than half the group bails out. On the day before the race, Steven Shapiro is 90% convinced he'll go for it. "[Pro racer] Franklin Henry came to me and said it's really something I need to do, so I guess I'll give it a try," he says. But the next morning, he sleeps in. Instead, he does a rugged, advanced ride up Animas City Mountain -- twice. "My penance," he shrugs.

On the eve of the race, I wake up at 4 AM My heart is screaming along at race pace. I try to reason with myself: How can this be so stressful? Owing money is stressful. Pitching a client on a $20-million ad campaign is stressful. But racing? Nah.

No go. Not since sixth grade, when I was lined up for timed sprints, has the potential for naked humiliation seemed so potent. Even so, there is good news. William Wright, who races in the beginner's category, survives the ten-mile course intact. He even finishes in the top two-thirds of his age group. Jordan Wand also keeps his appointment at the start line. His fear of being dressed down on a major-league course turns out to be unfounded. Racing in the intermediate group (18 miles) , he gleefully barrels down a steep, tight singletrack that on another day, in another place, he'd either do awkwardly or not at all.