Summer 8 Hr Epic Mountain Bike Race Report

It was a rainy day in Pizzaville…actually it was a warm day in Hardwood Hills this Saturday.  Me, NewfieSteve and EnglishJim pulled in to set up our pit area for the race.  We were lucky enough to get a pit spot right on the race course in the solo area since EnglishJim was attempting his first 8 hour solo.  This worked great for me and Steve cuz, as a two man team, we could transition right at our pit rather than standing in the hot sun in the transition zone.

I tried to convince the guys that our team uniforms should be like below, but I couldn’t talk the Englishman and Newfie to join the tribe.

 Anyways, back to the race (pun intended); Steve took the first lap, which was great cuz I really should not have had two large mugs of coffee to start the day and needed that extra half hour to pee 13 times (it is tough to get old).  With that we were off to the races (OK, just this race)…and I have to say, a few people argued with me that tag team is tougher than solo.  It is not even close to true; tag is so much easier.  You get to rest, stretch, eat, drink in between laps.  It makes all the difference in the world.  And you don’t have to pace…you can go full out every lap, knowing you get to legitimately stop for a lap.

I did take one tumble.  Tearing down a piece of singletrack downhill that curved right, and just came off the track enough that the front wheel sunk into the very loose sand, and over I went…just short of a rock garden.  Heidi was a bit alarmed when I came home looking like this:

Actually, other than noticing a couple of bruises yesterday, all was OK and I was back up a gone in seconds

Then Steve broke his derailleur hanger on his last lap…while I waited for him to get my last lap in.  I knew something had to be wrong because we were each averaging laps just over 30 minutes each, and he was over 45 minutes.  He came by just past the cutoff time for me to get our last lap in.  So we ended up in 8^th place with 13 laps (the one extra lap would have only put us in 7^th).  Top 10, but we were hoping to be more competitive; but plenty of fun was had.

The course was fast for the most part, with a couple of long, loose, gravelly climbs to slow down the lap times…and things got looser as the day wore on.  However, there was lots of singletrack, which made it tough to pass; so getting caught behind other riders was common.

As for EnglishJim, on his first solo, got in the 8 laps I challenged him to shoot for…and he flatted on one lap, otherwise he might have had 9!!  Well done Mr. Jim!!  Here is Steve congratulating Jim:

We finished the day with refreshments, and recovery, waterside on our back deck (I peed in a hole in the dirt behind our trailer).  So, with another race under our belts…time to train and try to get faster for the next one. 

Onward, ho!!