The Off Road Oyster held in Bend, Oregon a few weeks ago can be summed up in one word: totalfreakingblast!
Have a seat in that comfy chair and maybe grab a beverage because the Off Road Oyster gave us seven “passports” to nine locations to do at least twelve different tasks on bike and foot, and here is the race log.
Jason, the race director asked the crowd containing 67 teams of two to four members “Who here is an Oyster virgin?” Just about everybody raised their hands.
This was John’s first race as a Nad; he typically races with his son as an Avenging Narwhal. Although John was holding his hand up, I can’t get enough Oyster races. I have done four Urban Oysters and I am sure after this race John will be thirsting for more. We could only hope my experience would help because everything we knew about Bend we had learned the night before, and besides, this Oyster was Off Road - an entirely new animal. Not to mention there was a lot of spandex in the crowd; if you read Drodgey’s Glenwood Springs Off Road Oyster post, you know exactly what I am talking about.
Jason continued and the group was quick to laugh at his jokes; you could feel the camaraderie as Jason spoke of sportsmanship and the friendly nature of the Oyster.
The Oyster isn’t your typical race; you find yourself making alliances, rooting for strangers and cheering on your competition. Although it was clear every team was ready to compete, we knew it was going to be a fun day on the Oyster course with them.
Passport #1:
The passports containing our first task were distributed, after a few minutes for everyone to get one, read it, and plan their first move, over the loudspeaker was Jason’s voice, “Go!”
The first task was on foot; we were to find two of three specific sculptures shown with three photographs, and snap a team picture with them. We immediately recognized one because you could practically see it from the transition area (TA), and John recognized the other from a park about a quarter mile north. We anxiously sprinted to the park to the north, snapped the photo, then to the sculpture just south.
Passport #2:
By the time we got back a good number of teams were getting on their bicycles to head to the next challenge. We were to ride three miles south to the Tetherow Golf Club driving range to hit a ball through some Merrell windjammers.
After being passed by a team wearing pink tutus, we rode into the golf course parking lot. As John and I compared notes on how long it had been since either of us had touched a golf club and the proportional relationship of a decade to John’s 50 years, versus my youthful 35, we both grabbed clubs and did our best to emulate a golf swing.
An innocent bystander commented on it being a good thing John had a bike helmet on after his first few shots. I managed to get a ball on target; we got our passport punched, received our next one; then we were back on our bikes.
Passport #3:
We were to head to Phil’s Trailhead to find the Flaming Phoenix/Chicken. We knew a road route to the trailhead. As we started our route, we saw a few teams, but certainly not the majority, head off road on a single track cutting a seemingly shorter path. We stopped for a second, discussed, and took a leap of faith that the local teams knew a shortcut. This was the Off Road Oyster, right?
The thing about a leap of faith is it is easy to make such a snap decision when you have a number of people whom you can rely on. I can’t speak for John, but this trail turned out to be a bit more technical than I was used to, since I am used to asphalt. As one team nicely asked to pass, I crunched through totally inappropriate gears and needed a moment to sort out some issues anyway. At that point it became clear that it may be a bit of a challenge to stay with the other teams. If we had lost them, we really would have had no idea where we were in the trail system. After a few dozen near misses on the trail, we caught up to a few groups at the Flaming Chicken, and we snapped our picture.
The other half of this task, was to pick up five pieces of garbage while on the trail. John and I both commend the Oyster on that.
67 teams x 5 pieces of trash = 335 pieces of trash.
Not to mention John and I were working independently so we had eight; I am guessing most teams also had more, and a lot of teams had three or four members. What a great way to use the mob to make an impact. Well done!
After taking a successful, yet complete blind risk by following a fire road to get back to the TA, we felt we were in the lead mix of teams.
Passport #4:
We were to proceed on foot to a location on the river trail where we were to receive further instructions. John and I ran to the trail to find volunteers who instructed us to locate a an unknown number of short lengths of rope visible from the path. Below the ropes were numbers to help us solve the puzzle on the passport, and the passport read “you will use your answer on a future passport”. So needless to say we didn’t want to mess this one up because if we got it wrong we wouldn’t find out until later.
We headed down the path along with the team that blew by us on the single track earlier. We slowly jogged taking care not to miss any ropes; our concerns slowly grew that we may have missed some ropes because we had covered a considerable distance.
I was seriously considering backtracking to make sure we hadn’t missed any ropes when a good-hearted fellow from another team came running around a bend toward us with a fistful of ropes. Apparently, this gentleman had thought the task was to collect the ropes. So we had passed several numbers, there just were not any ropes to signal their location because they had been removed by this man. Now, aware of his mistake, this good sport told us the numbers we had already passed.
After talking to a couple of other teams, all with conflicting information we pieced just enough of the puzzle together to get the answer, Foot Zone. It was a bit of a guess but we knew they were a sponsor, so we thought - safe enough.
John had seen a team in yellow, who most likely successfully solved the puzzle before it was disrupted fubared, heading back on the other side of the river a few minutes before, so we knew there was at least one team ahead of us, although we assumed there were more.
Passport #5:
Back to the TA for the next passport, which we received after giving the correct answer to the puzzle: on bike to Foot Zone.
As we arrived at Foot Zone, we saw the yellow team John had seen across the river leaving for the second task on the passport. At Foot Zone there was a puzzle that only one team member could view at a time. We traded turns looking at the puzzle, took a few minutes and found our next location was the Deschutes Brewpub just a few blocks away. Two teams right behind us at Foot Zone, we hopped on our bikes.
At Deschutes there was a quiz on characteristics of four of their brews. Despite me inadvertently trying to royally screw up the task, John finished the quiz handily without even tasting the beer. Bravely done.
The volunteer told us there was only one team in front of us.
With the boost of adrenaline from the news of our standing, we rode back to the TA and we received our next passport.
Passport #6:
On foot, we were to find the correct canoe launch at Farewell Bend Park. This proved to be a downfall for The Nads and quite a few other teams. The correct location was only 200 yards from the TA on the Farewell Bend part of the river. But unfortunately for us, the quickest way to Farewell Bend Park did not go by the intended location. After spending 20 minutes looking all over the park, some other teams caught up to us, but we never caught sight of the team ahead of us.
We ran around with the other teams and eventually we made our way north to an area quite a distance out of the park, but still in the Farewell Bend portion of the river, to find the intended location.
There were plenty of other teams in the river already, but luckily not so many that we had to wait for a canoe. John got a bag on his head and a paddle in his hand and I was to navigate our way to a Deschutes River Conservancy volunteer for a passport punch.
Nuts! I forgot the passport, and didn’t realize it until we were on our way and John asked “You have the passport right?” Back to the launch to get the passport.
Take two: we were on our way, and I clumsily guided John to run aground a few feet from the volunteer with a hole punch. I push us back out, then reach a bit to far for the passport punch, as I overcompensate and we are both dumped backward into the river. As I fall I thought, “it could be worse, at least I don’t have a bag on my head.”
Passport #7:
Back upstream to the canoe launch and we got our final passport directing us to a obstacle course at the TA. After a log roll on a keg and some stacking of kegs, we slid down the giant slip and slide, then ran through the finish.
The winners were the yellow team (team name: “Sponsor Name Here”), but John and I came out with our heads high representing the Nads with a Men’s Division win. It was a proud Nads moment when team “OMG for Serious” started a chant during the awards, “Go - Nads - Go - Nads - Go - Nads…”
That is the stuff, my friends. That is the stuff.
It was a gorgeous day in Bend and after the race the Oyster took care of all participants with music, food and beer, as well as raffles for Merrell gear, all followed by an after party at the Deschutes Brewpub.
Thanks Oyster for a awesome Saturday, and we will definitely see you in Seattle on July 23rd.
- Tyler
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