One of my hardest days on a bike

Berryman Epic 2010, great weather, great trail conditions, great bike and a little luck. Up to that Friday a week before when I crashed, I was planning on maxing myself to at least better my time from last year and hopefully beat my time from two years ago. Within 30 seconds of crashing I knew my goals had to change. 10 minutes later I was hoping to shake it off, ride some more that day and I was sure it was just temporary pain. I swung a leg over the bike on a flat section of trail and after several tries to simply get moving I was successful. I made it 10 feet and almost passed out. From there I began walking back to the car. It took me about 30 minutes to walk a little less than a mile using my bike as a crutch. Thoughts of possible internal injuries and my placement miles from anywhere weren't doing me any good. I knew that where I landed on the rock, which originally was the source of pain, wasn't where the debilitating pain was coming from now. Scary shit!

We ran into Ryan, one of the promoters for the Epic at the parking lot and right then and there I told him I was probably out for the race. I couldn't get my shoes off and definitely couldn't put any back on so I drove home in my cycling socks. I wanted to drive so I could control the speed and the heated seats helped a ton. When I got home, my shirt had a big spot soaked in blood. Long story short, I was planning on taking my son on a once in a few years' chance camping trip that night to S bar F scout ranch down south of Farmington for two nights. We were going to sleep in the "treehouses" which are elevated bunkhouses built on a steep hillside that falls off into a beautiful lake very similar in size to Council Bluff Lake.



Once I got the okay that I wasn't going to drop dead if I went we packed up and headed out. I'm glad I went, but it was tough. I took my tentcot which is just that, a tent on top of a cot, and I was glad. I would have been sleeping on a pad on top of plywood. 10 days later and I still have not slept in my own bed. It sucked but I got through the nights. The older kids got to do a high ropes course that looked awesome. We were just visiting and Adam was not allowed to do it, damned insurance. He got to do the low ropes course, do a 5 mile hike and burn lots of stuff.

I figured out in the next day or so that I had at the very least fractured and bruised a couple of ribs. This explained the pain I was having and it brought back memories of my first go around with broken ribs back in 2006. By Wednesday I was feeling a little better or at least coping better. I still had a hard time putting on socks and could barely tie my work boots. I got part of the day off so I headed out to Lost Valley. Since I'm very familiar with this particular ride I figured it would be my best test. I had already decided that if I was going to ride in the Epic it was going to be on my full squish bike. All in all the ride went okay and although it hurt, I decided then, I was going to try and at least finish my 3rd Epic. If I backed off it hurt less so my plan was to set a goal and stick to it to avoid quiting. I sat down and looked at last years results. What pace did I think I could manage? I looked at some of the times and who set them. Soon I settled in on 7 hours. I looked at the splits.

It's one thing to be able to go fast. You push harder, but you are out there for a lot less time. I admire the people that can ride at their own pace and stick to it. It would be so easy to quit knowing that other people were showering and you haven't even made the last check point, but look at all the people that just flat out love to ride their bikes and keep going. This thinking started to scare me and I started to doubt my perseverance in my current state of mind so I decided to change my goal to 6 hours. I wrote down the splits for Ray Porter who finished 42nd last year. I rounded up his split times and ended up with a true goal of 6:05, printed several copies and taped one to my top tube just below the "Pedal Damn it" decal on my Niner. I just figured that if I was out there any longer, I would for sure quit. After all, I had a good excuse, right? BS!

The bruising started to resorb but I felt about the same. The forecast looked gloom but I was in it for a good time. It's different when there are over two hundred other people, friends, out there to do the same thing, we all have our issues. Didn't rain Friday night, sidewalks were dry Saturday morning and it was warm, too warm for me. Sleeveless jersey was it for me. Not even a little cool. Two years ago it was well below freezing, I won't even comment on last year. Jim Vandeven crashed and broke a bone in his leg two weeks earlier at Burnin' so he showed up to assist us, again my problems were BS! He took our drop bags and we headed for the start line. I was planning on starting at the very back. I kept seeing people I wanted to talk to so I moved around a little. Bob Arnold had provided Scott with a mini stick of dynamite to start the race and off we went. I felt good and didn't start too hard but seemed to move up, more than I planned. Once up the worst part of the big climb I pushed on the flats and kept passing. On the last push before the trail I got into a good position. No one right in front of me so I had some control and could roll the flats and downs how I wanted and back off on any ups. I soon gapped the riders behind me and caught Zach Brace. I did not want by him, there I stayed. Later he wanted some alone time so he let me by and cranked up the toons. I rode up to Larry Koester humming along on his single. I matched his pace up the long but gradual climb before the drop to the first check point, Brazil Creek. My goal was 1:10, I made it there in just over 59 minutes. Cool, but there was a problem.

I was now having some pain in my side, chest and my breaths had been reduced to what seemed half of what they had been. I knew it was time to back off. I started up the long climb after Brazil and really started to feel it. Quick version, I let at least 20 riders go by but that was okay. I was feeling every bump, every effort made me wince. I felt bad for other riders around me as I was very vocal, but on I pushed. I did catch two or three riders before the next check point and blew by Jeff Winkler pushing his bike, I could still ride! It sucks when someone like Jeff who actually had a good chance of making some money has bad luck and ends up destroying his bike and his chances, another reason I won't quit. Even with the stops I had to make, I still made the 2nd check in 2:05-my goal was 2:25. That was a pick-me-up.

A quick stop to pick up a new bottle and I headed south on the Ozark Trail, my favorite section of singletrack. By the time I was half way up the climb after the creek and sand pit, I had picked up 4 more spots. One by one each rider I encountered, I caught and passed. Catherine Walberg was the one rider that I passed and she passed me back, back and forth we went. She dropped me on the last section of single track before we got our 3rd tie and headed for the gravel. I settled in and started my methodical big gear push. Soon Doug Long came and went, he was cramping. I could now see Catherine again. Right before I caught her she made a turn where she shouldn't have and I yelled for her to follow me. I thought she would jump on my wheel but soon she fell off.

Approaching Hwy 8 I could see a group of riders. I recognized Jim Krewet's bright green back pack. I thought I would hang with them up the mile long climb back to Berryman for the 2nd time but I locked up and had to stop for a while. A few minutes later Catherine came floating by me and disappeared over the top. I coaxed my hamstrings into some soft pedaling and slowly made it to the top. I finished my spare bottle that I had in my feed bag and grabbed a fresh one. I was without a doubt dehydrated and it would only get worse. I made it to the 3rd time check in 3:42-my goal was 4:15. That was a great pick-me-up! That and the P-nut gallery cheering me on-Jim Davis, Todd Holtmann and Todd Hecht.

This was it, I couldn't quit now, the last section-the section where I had crashed last week. I have to admit, I rode puckered up tight, I rode with caution. Right at about same point, the last point I remember having fun on our ride the day I crashed I came up on a group of three riders, all from the same team. I was too delirious to notice what team or who they were. Turned out to be Brad Huff and his team mates were sticking with him, riding it out. 9 days of professional racing in China ending only two days prior, flying home to end up here and not quit-that's class! He won a stage, placed second in another and had yet another top five.

I pressed on. One more cramping session, merely surviving the climbs and doing everything I could to stay upright I was soon at the end of the Berryman section. I got to watch Catherine ride away from me one more time up the double track leading to the final gravel. 5:00 was my finishing time last year and where I was starting this final leg today, I was certainly going to smash my goal. Passed a few more riders and got passed once but I was done. 5:21 and change for 33rd place overall. Didn't make the shirt this year but managed to get my name on there for the first two years with 14 other solid doodz and I'll be back!

In some ways I could think that it just wasn't my day but I think it was my day, I just had to see through the pain.

Got broken ribs?

Needless to say, I won't be racing hard for the Epic this weekend. Still hoping to ride. Kind of nice not having any pressure on myself.

Wausau 24(formerly 24 hours of Nine Mile)

Wanted to finally do a 24 more than one time to see how I would do year to year. Granny Gear bought the rights to this race last year when Dwayne and I did it. Well, they decided that one of the oldest running 24 hour events didn't net them enough cash so they canceled it this spring for 2010. Man, was I and hundreds of others a little pissed. This is where the bad asses step in. Since GG now owned the rights but wasn't willing to use them, the more grassroots, less cash infused promoters had to come up with a new title. The Wausau 24 it became. Hundreds of dollars less to race for this soloist, I was happy with the change. Amazing that they put this together in such a short time, and they did it well. I would say in EVERY way, they out did GG. The only kink in my experiment was that they completely changed the course. So I couldn't compare very easily to last year, we still had a blast.

When I say we, I'm not referring to me and Dwayne. He had to man his responsibilities and stay home. Todd Hecht showed interest early on enough to save some dough on early registration, planning on racing the 12 hour. At the last minute Jeremy Bock and Greg Ott decided to go. Turned out great and we all had an awesome time. Greg was doing the 12 and Jeremy figured he could ride when ever he wanted if he did the 24, so it was.

We headed out Thursday afternoon and drove to Madison and spent the night. After a short drive Friday morning we arrived just before the noon time gate opening. We were 3rd in line for the solo camping and got our pick of the sites. We set up(in 75 degree temps) and hit the trail for a trip around the 11.5 mile race loop. I rode the Jet 9 squishy bike.....PERFECT! Just to confirm, we did a partial lap and I took the hardtail out this time. Nice ride, but I knew the Jet was getting the call up. Pretty sweet having the Air 9 for a back up bike. I would describe Nine Mile as being as close to riding in Colorado as I've been but without the altitude, as in, you can breathe. Lots of pines, so lots of roots. When it's rocky, it's rocky. Not too much in the way of sharp rocks though. Generally a sandy, but firm trail surface so no mud. One spot where the road had some water seeping across but not bad. We got a little rain Friday night and other than a few sprinkles during the race the weather was perfect. Got down to 60ish at night and 75 during the day. Very foggy in the wee hours of the morning.

Race started with a(back by popular demand) Lemans start. I didn't demand to run 300 yards to my perfectly functioning bike, in shoes that suck to run in. So I walked......so I waited for a long time when the first single track section came. Not worried at all, Jeremy and I soft pedaled the first lap in about 1:10. Our second lap with less traffic was 1:00. We did the first 5 laps together until he had some gut issues and had to stop. I caught Greg on lap 7 and saw him on lap 8, but never passed him. I was taking 10-15 minute pits by now. I finished lap 9 and stopped to mount up the lights. I decided now would be a good time to take a break and clean up. I washed off the legs, put on new shorts and made some food. Greg hung out for a while knowing that he only wanted to do one more lap and the rules stated that a racer HAD to be on the course when the race clock ran out, meaning, he didn't want to go out too early and risk having to go out again or get a DNF. I was getting comfy and started dreaming about the looming free pizza that would be showing up soon, so I decided to take an extended break.

After Lumberjack in mid June, I hadn't had a chance to ride much. My expectations weren't high because of this and thought I would finish better with a nice rest now. The pizza was real good! I think I had 7 pieces and a few beers. Now I felt like sleeping, so I tried. I couldn't. But I did lay down and rest the legs. Set my alarm for 4am and actually got up after one snooze. I felt surprisingly good and set out on my only full night lap. This was a disappointment to myself but I think it was the right way to race on that weekend. I proceeded to turn 3 laps in just over 3 hours, got to see the sun come up and moved way up in the standings. Jeremy was dressed and ready to go when I came through and we killed 3 more laps in just over 3 hours. 6 laps in 6:13, after riding over 100 miles the night before! Absolutely amazing how much faster we were going than all the other soloists still riding. I did manage to protect my placing on the last lap. I was in 11th before we started lap 15. I stayed in 11th, but I would have dropped a couple had I not gone back out. There were tons of people waiting to cross the line after the 24 hour mark when we finished 14. One guy was way ahead of me at 5am and as soon as I started the 15th lap, I overtook him. He could have gone back out and raced for it, but his last 5 laps had an average around 2 hours per lap. Jeremy and I averaged about and hour and 3 minutes.

Greg did 10 laps, Todd did 8 laps, Jeremy 12 laps and I did 15 laps. We all finished and had fun. Todd and Greg had most of our compound torn down by the time we finished our last lap which was AWESOME! I broke down and bought a image from the poor guy that was out there all day taking pictures.





My Garmin reset itself when I plugged it in to charge so my race is divided into two -parts.

Lumberjack 100

I heard this one was going to sell out fast and some friends from here were going to do it, so I signed up on a whim. It was going to be a stretch as I was the leader for my son's week long summer camp out the week prior and I'm putting on my own race the next week.

My son and I geared up. When you are the "leader", you really gear up. Funny, me, a leader. Anyway, you have to bring all the stuff to keep your pack going all week long. We packed well and I think did just fine. They provide only open bottom canvas tents and cots. After chasing seven 10 year-olds around all week I wasn't sure I'd even be able to finish a 100 mile mountain bike race.

Todd and Karen Holtmann, Dwayne and myself headed out Thursday night for Manistee, MI. We drove until about 2 am and got a hotel room. Got up the next morning, ate at Denny's and finished the drive. We checked into our hotel in Manistee and then raced out to do a little Lumberjack recon. As soon as we got there we could see the masses had already been there. Canopies everywhere. We found a primo spot for ours, claimed it and then set out for a "12-15 mile" pre-ride. See the problem with that was Dwayne and I haven't been able to ride together much this year. We all took one bottle knowing that we wouldn't need any more than that for a "12-15 mile" pre-ride. The four of us started up a gradual but long climb at a nice pace. It wasn't long and another group caught us. I let them by. I looked up and Dwayne was up there right in the middle of their group buzzing one of the leaders' wheel. Dammit! I sped up and quickly Todd and Karen were no longer with us. We figured they would just turn around when they were ready to. Dwayne and I backed off and let the testosterone crew go ahead. I was leading now and we were just chatting. Soon we caught one of the guys they had dropped. Not long after that I rode through their group while they were waiting for their buddy. I kept a reasonable pace but the trail just started flowing and soon I was ripping it! Long story short, I stopped and waited for them on some double track and we all rode together, minus Todd and Karen. They had the sense to turn back by now.

We stopped when the course left the double track back to single track and talked for a while. The other group knew their way around and said they were going back. I wanted to see a little more so I suggested we skip the section of trail in front of us and ride a little more in another area. I didn't give Dwayne much of a chance to say no and took off. It became apparent about 1/2 hour later to me that we were out there and I had a feeling that we had passed the point of no return. Dwayne wasn't sure where we were and of course we didn't bring a map. We pressed on and soon came to the aid station which was at the 17 mile mark on the course. Good thing because I was out of water and filled up. Again, long story short. Us two smarties ended up riding the entire loop minus about 200ft! Like I said, we haven't ridden together much and it's just in our blood.

Race time now. We started the race about 2 miles up the road and then completed 3 thirty-something mile loops. It was cool at 7am and I actually felt much better after the previous day's ride. I started out about mid pack, Dwayne closer to the front. I was planning on racing my own race which is what I did. Back off at the beginning to get good and warmed up and capitalize when the terrain better suited me. Very few riders passed me and I passed tons on the first lap. Parts of the trail flowed and were awesome, others made you say,"what the hell, who would build a trail like this?" They ride snowmobiles in the winter as well as cross country ski, so bikes seem to be the bastard of the user groups. One section just flowed around a falling ridge for a long time, all bench cut and fast. It made one switchback, headed back the other way only to turn the corner and go straight up the hill side, ruts and all. Even with gears I walked one section the first lap, a few more the second and even a few more the third.

So first lap went well. I hit my lap button as I crossed the timing line at 2:40. My goal without the 2 mile lead out was 3 hours, so all was good. Grabbed two new bottles and took off in a lot less traffic. I felt like I was going much faster as I could hold more momentum and clear the steep stuff much better. At about the 10 mile mark I noticed my front tire going low. I really had to pee so I stopped, couldn't find a leak so I hit it with some CO2 and took off. The rest of lap 2 was good. I ate 1/2 of a pb&j, some pretzels and some banana at the aid station. When I pitted to get new bottles I used my floor pump to make sure I had good pressure. It was a little low but I wasn't concerned.

At almost the exact same spot as lap 2 I had to add air on lap 3. Here is where it started to bum me out. I felt I had made the right decision up until now. Adding CO2 only takes a minute. From this point on lap 3 until the end I had to stop 7 more times to inflate my tire. If the course didn't beg for me to push the corners and hit the dips hard to make it up the next climb I would have nursed it back. I remembered the course well enough that I would ride it until I came to a section where I could really fly and add air there to make it as long as I could. Would I have been better off just putting a tube in? Maybe. I'm okay with the decision I made and would do it again. I just got lucky that my seat bag was noisy on the pre-ride so I stuffed 2 more CO2's in it to keep it quiet, used them all. I figure I lost about 10 of the 17 minutes that I wasn't riding to my tire troubles. I'm not 100% sure but I think the tape sealing up my rim is leaking. I just haven't had second one to do any work on my bikes, so it's my own fault.

Doug Davis rode like a champ and finished in 8:00:31. Mike Best was about 8 minutes behind him. Dwayne came in a little over 8:15 and I finished a little over 8:20. My goal was 9 hours. I was tired but never cramped and after an hour or so I felt fine. Todd finished on a bastard bike that he had never ridden in 9:44 and Karen who normally rides a single speed finished on her 1X9 set up in 11:39, her first 100 miler. No one from this area quit. 199 started in my class, 155 finished and I placed 39th. I would recommend this race to anyone wanting to attempt a 100 miler. Just as a comparison, a racer from Chillicothe, MO-Mitch Bernskoetter did it two years ago in 12:17, last year in 11:08 and this year in 9:19, so I think Karen should be stoked. It's cool to see such improvements as people start to figure things out.

I have been finding that when doing really long stuff on tight trails that the Garmin tends to miss some points and usually you wouldn't notice it. But when riding for 8 hours you can really see the lost distance. So I don't really know how long the loop or the race was for that matter.

Here is a video that has Dwayne and Doug Davis in it a lot. It's not everyday that you run across stop signs out in the middle of the woods on single track!

MFXC, a Seagal non-race

If you weren't there, then shame on you! All you had to do was follow a few basic rules and show up for the fun. I ended up mailing my post card to register for the free non-race from Washington D.C. As much of my life has been this year, I just didn't have time before our vacation to even think about it. Soon we were getting secret updates and yes, there were custom shirts to be had.

The day finally came. The feeling was much like the days before x-mas when you were a kid, couldn't sleep, couldn't think about much else. I traveled down with Karen and Todd Holtmann on a hot and finally rain free day.

The course was a touch of Council Bluff, the Tellock connector, a short stint on the South Trace section of the Ozark Trail, most of the Middlefork section of the OT, about 10 miles of gravel and finished off with a couple miles back up Middlefork to end in a different place than you started. It started off with a short run and then directly into singletrack. I trotted and went in behind about 10 other riders of the 30+ riders there that day. Flats were not unheard of, bonking was prominent and man was it hot!

All was going well, I had worked my way up to 3rd place but the heat was taking it's toll. One rider, a more disciplined rider, took advantage of my poor heat management skillz and passed me on the one short asphalt section. That rider was Jeff Yielding. He proceeded to put almost 6 minutes into me in the last 40 minutes. If the race had been 10 minutes longer, Larry Koester would have had me too. I was done. I had a cold PBR and relaxed for a few before riding back to get the car. I still felt really bad for quite a while, that is until I had two moar PBRs. Matt James tore it up for the overall win. Dan Fuhrmann claimed second on a single speed.

Hats off to Team Seagal. Other than a bunch of fun for us they gained nothing from putting on this event. Jim Davis, Mason Storm and many others did lots of work to the trails. THANK YOU!

Syllamo got its Revenge, again.

What is it with this weekend and the weather? Greg, Jeremy and I headed down Friday morning exactly as we had last year only this year we didn't drive through the tornado, it waited until we got down there and set up camp to show its face. We had to take shelter in the bathrooms at the campground after the sheriff came through with sirens blazing scaring the crap out of everyone. We of course took to the women's bathroom. I'm not as dumb as I look. Crowd into the stinky men's bathroom or bring a chair and make yourself comfortable in the less stinky women's. After about an hour with only some light rain we headed back to our campsite and hung out for the evening. By the time we went to bed, there was only some rogue lightening and the rain had stopped.

I was feeling much better the week prior this year unlike last year's head and chest cold filled week. We had at least ridden the course once this time so had a basic idea of what to expect. I gave in to the idea that whatever you race on at Syllamo will take a beating and brought my Niner MCR with heavier and less expensive stuff on it. I would say the conditions were much better this year although I still had a healthy dose of chainsuck and was forced to ride 90% of the race in my bigger ring. Because more sunlight reaches the forest floor after all the trees fell last year, it seemed much more overgrown. If that was all I had to deal with I would have been as happy as a lark. I made it a whole 8.35 miles before I had my first flat, a 5/8" slice in the sidewall of my front tire. I took my place in the woods with a half dozen other riders fixing the exact same type of flat. After making a custom tire boot, adding a tube and inflating-all while fighting off hundreds of mosquitoes, I watched Matt Grothoff come sailing to a stop as the last bit of air left his now lifeless tire. I rolled my eyes and started down the trail wondering how the rest of this day would treat me. By now I had been dealing with chainsuck for a while, lost my glasses and was down a tube, but still having fun.

This time I got to mile 13.14 before I had flat #2. I pulled over because the leaking air that was clearly exiting from my rear tire this time, only it was a slower leak. I hoped I could get the sealant to take care of it. Once I stopped and looked at it I noticed the sealant in three different spots, WHAT THE HELL? Seems I pinched my tire, on what I couldn't tell you as I felt no rim strikes. A hole at the rim on both sides of the tire at the bead and one more in the tread. I didn't mess around and went into fix-a-flat mode. At least I didn't have to boot the tire this time. I was leap frogging Mason Storm and a few others so they were now hazing me and wondering what tires not to buy that I was riding. Seriously thought about pulling the plug, wasn't even at the first checkpoint yet and could make an easy return to the campground-after all, I had no more tubes, only a patch kit. It wasn't long and I was at the checkpoint and without thinking, headed back out to ride the green loop. I would return to this same point, hopefully, about a half hour later so I could reevaluate my status then.

I started up the small gravel climb to start the single track and saw Stuart Munson. Haven't talked to him in years. It was awesome to see him back on a mtb and of all the races to come back to! I went by him but would see him again, several times. Green loop went okay and so I filled my bottles and took off on one of the more "out there" sections of the trail, the blue loop. Managing to get just past the 20 mile mark, I succumbed to my 3rd flat. It was almost funny now......not really. Having only patches I found the hole, oops, holes in my limp tube-pinch flat! Patched to two holes and let the glue dry as long as I could stand it, it wasn't long enough. Aired it up and by the time I could get my head straight I could tell it was leaking. Lucky for me Keith Weinkein had stopped to make sure I was okay. When he could see my fix wasn't fixing he offered me a tube and a co2. I felt bad about taking his stuff but the prospect of a long walk wasn't very appealing, so I did. What a life saver, THANKS! For some reason I don't know why, I didn't use the co2 and gave it about 280 pumps with my tiny hand pump. Before that 30 minute dual flat fix I had been yo-yoing back and forth with Ryan from the BTEpic and he really got me thinking about bailing but after someone giving me another chance, I couldn't. Off I went, trying to ride carefully I was still picking off riders one by one.

I got into a nice groove and was having fun, starting to catch people that had been ahead of me the entire race like Greg Ott. Passed right through the check point on the blue loop and fought my way over the climb and back down to Hwy 5 for the second time. A few minutes after crossing the small river, which was much lower than last year, marks the start of the longest climb in the race. Still only able to use my big ring I marched up it, dismounting more than I wanted to. Finally caught Keith and felt bad about passing him, but he was having his own race. Saw Stuart for the last time just before we came out on the double track that leads you to the top. That last push sucked. I tried one more time to use my small ring and didn't make it two pedal strokes before it locked up-big ring it was. I knew that once you peaked and came to a gravel road, it was a much "easier" road ahead. At least now the miles were clicking off relatively fast. After a few grunts I made my way to the check point at the start of the red loop. Filled up my bottles again, lubed my chain and took off.

I had a hard time on the red loop last year because I was cramping so badly. This year I was feeling pretty fresh and it was flowing nicely. It's easy to think of the red loop as the "fast, or easy" section of the race but it's still 1/4 of the total miles so it seems to last forever. Everything was going fine until I rounded a corner and my back tire rolled due to low pressure. I stopped and aired it up once but it wasn't long and I knew it was done. No tubes and no one around I started running, or trotting, or walking. I had passed Pete Goode a few minutes earlier and soon he came rolling around the corner. Not to my surprise he was immediately offering up one of his spare tubes to me and I graciously accepted. He asked if I needed anything else and I said no. I found no thorns or anything in the tire and proceeded to finish the fix with a few pumps from the mini pump. No dice! Pete had given me a super light tube and the valve stem was very short and had no threads. Boy was I glad that I hadn't used that co2 that Keith had given me earlier. Emptied that thing into my tire and figured I would make due with whatever pressure I had.

Not long before finishing the red loop there was a tree across the trail that you could ride under if you saw it and ducked down, I didn't see it. I ran into that thing full speed and have no idea how it didn't knock me out or at least throw me off my bike. I paused for a few seconds, looked at that tree and carried on. Got my last mark at the final check point and took off down the remaining yellow trail. That red loop took me 1:30 last year, this year with some running and a flat I did it in 1:22. Only a few short ups to lead me back to the last mile down to the campground. Went by our campsite and saw Jeremy already clean in street clothes. Still feeling strong I was flying. I passed three more riders attempting to sprint, I felt bad but I was just riding. 6:37, 28 minutes slower than last year in better conditions. My ride time was 1:05 less than my race time and I'm sure I was walking for 10ish minutes, so I feel good about that. 5 flats for me, Dwayne ended up having 4 and finishing 20 minutes ahead of me. 60 people beat me, 127 finished after me. Wohoo! Top third! Jeremy ended up 6th overall and being in the most competitive class, 4th in 30-39, so no prize, no anything. I really think the top ten should be recognized as they do in every other epic style event.

We ate some awesome spaghetti, cleaned up and were home by 10pm. Thanks to Keith and Pete, I would still be out there if not for you guys! One of these years I will get my revenge on Syllamo!

Bone Bender 2010

I know, I know, it's been a while. A few things, I've been busy and haven't had much to write about. Did a fair amount of riding this winter the least of which was on the mountain bike. The inevitable always seems to happen though, as my riding took a back seat to life right around the beginning of March. I still managed some good rides, but couldn't get back on track. That brings me to this past weekend.

After the conditions last year at the Bone Bender 6 hour I told myself that unless it was very dry, I wouldn't be going. Dry conditions in the weeks prior made Smithville Lake's trails fast and loads of fun. The weather could not have been better so off we went. Made it up early enough on Saturday to get an easy lap in and hang out with friends before making our way back to our hotel.

When we pulled up more than an hour and a half before the start I couldn't believe the amount of people already there. We found a spot to park and got ourselves registered. In no time at all it was time to line our bikes up for the run. This was my biggest mistake of the day. By taking my usual laxed approach in the run and not-so aggressive style of passing, I found myself waiting for 30+ riders to funnel into the first section of single track and for much of the first lap, waiting at nearly every turn. The leaders, my competition, were gone. With nothing in your way, a 55- 58 minute lap was very feasible. My first lap was 1:08. I found myself riding with Brian Busken and soon we caught Christian Stitz which was cool. At that point I wasn't too worried about who was in front of me or how fast we were going, just staying smooth and yakin' it up. 2nd lap with a short pit was just over 59 minutes, big difference!

My goal with this race was to get through my first event of the year without bonking, to get back in the mtb groove and just ride consistently. Excluding my first lap with all the traffic, I managed to complete five more with a time difference of only 3:40 between slowest and fastest laps. VERY happy with that. Never cramped and managed to easily stay in the bigger of my two chainrings, the 39t on my new XX cranks. I also didn't need the largest cog at all, so the speed was high. I will say that despite this course not having any extended climbs, it was still a tough six hours in the saddle. What is different about a trail like this is that to go fast and keep going fast-you must push, push, push all the time. Almost no place to rest, drink, eat or stretch. There was one new section added to this year's race and I thought it was the most technical section of the race, I loved it. A very narrow, off camber rocky trail with little room for mistakes. A few notable drops along with a few "squeezes", this section was littered with rock and a few roots. One drop off in particular drew a crowd for the first four laps and I witnessed a few good enders.

I was never passed and passed many, but the best part was riding with different people I know. There were about 95 six hour soloists and I managed to take 8th out of this bunch. A cool 11th overall, including the 18 six hour teams was very surprising. Broken down into age groups, I placed 4th in the 35-49 category. With so many racers on such a long course, it was tough to tell where anyone was. The one thing I will say is that I didn't get lapped by Jeff Winkler. He came in second overall to Cameron Chambers and Travis Donn, a very strong Duo team. Otherwise he could have claimed the overall victory. Cameron and Travis beat Jeff by 8:10, that's it!

This race kicked off the season for many including me and I hope to keep things rolling now. Oh, thanks to Jim Davis for the 4th lap beer hand up, it hit the spot!
Here is a link to my race on Garmin Connect. Lots of new info on there and I managed to get all the laps recorded in the "splits". Syllamo's Revenge, here we come!