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!