Race Report: Cascade Chainbreaker - Pavlovian suck fest with a sandwich

My bike. Because it looked better than me. This was the 3rd year I've done the Cascade Chainbreaker in Bend. I like the course. It's got a stupid busy section close to the start/finish that's great for spectators and then it winds out on some genuinely fun single track. It's got a few punchy climbs but not too much of anything, so the whole race seems manageable. When I say "manageable", I mean that in a sort of theoretical sense. If you started off by yourself with a full hydration pack, following a nice breakfast, you'd be able to ride the whole course and finish with a smile on your face in time for lunch. If, on the other hand, you started off with a mini hydration pack designed for a six year old, did so with 350 other riders, and someone was cranking the weather dial all the way over to broil while you were riding, the overall experience would be a bit more... unspeakably horrible. You might still finish in time for lunch, but you'd just coug