Four weeks ago tomorrow I got out of bed way early to travel up to Warda for the annual Dirty Dozen/Super 6 12 and 6 hour mountain bike races. I signed up for the 6 hour race. Turns out there were some pretty bitchin' storms that rolled through the area the night before the race. So my getting up early, checking the weather, checking the website for any delays, checking the weather again, and then hesitantly climbing into the car to head up for the race WAS for nothing, the race was delayed for three hours, that would have been some great sleep! The races had also been shortened from 12 to 8 and from 6 to 4 hours. I call my race the Filthy Four instead of the Super Six.
So after some socializing and then a short nap I got all ready and put my bike in the bike area and lined up for the Le Mans. (A Le Mans is when they start all the racers some specified distance from their bikes so the racers have to run to the bikes, this helps to separate out the field). The start was good, wasn't too far back going into the singletrack. I was doing well, passing people, and feeling good. Then the second lap happened, I was about 1/4 of the way into the lap and all of the sudden had a hole in the tire. Knowing Stans is kickass, I jumped off my bike and tried to get the hole to seal with the Stans, no luck... DAMN!! With no tube, I had to run the bike in, find a tube, fix it, and then head out to kick more ass. Luckily the trail was real muddy so all of the events that had transpired led me to not being too far behind. For the rest of the race I kept a good pace, stopping every lap to wipe the mud off of my glasses and get something small to eat. I had to wash my bike 3 times to keep the caked-on mud at a manageable level.
I kept mashing until the last lap, didn't really want to go out on the last lap but I did. I'm glad I did because I was able to drop the guy who was trying to hang on to my wheel, that was a good feeling!
I ended up fourth in the Men's Open 4 hour race, not bad considering the flat!
I'll post pictures of the race and the mess soon.
Was sore the next day!!
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