going into it, we'd nailed down 4 people, so we took the 5 man team group. well, a week prior one of our teammates blew her knee. and i wasn't at all prepared, so literally the week before we were struggling to cover 2 people. we got one more, and the other never happened. which meant i had to ride.
there were all kinds of wonky rules. for instance, your teammate with the most loops couldn't have any more than 2 laps more than the teammate with the least amount of loops. which mean that dave could do no more than 4 and i had to ride 2. well, those 2 were never going to happen, so we chose to ignore the rule book quickly.
dave and i arrived on thursday, complete with 27' RV. wtf? you might say. well, you'd be right. we had NO BUSINESS driving that mofo. neither of us were qualified whatsoever. but we did it anyway.
the dogs loved it. they wandered back and forth along the hall. the drive down wasn't bad. we didn't take the major interstate, we stuck to the smaller 2 lane highway. it wasn't too bad to drive actually. once you get closer to OP, there's a turnoff from the highway. it's 13 miles of dirt road all the way back to the camp. and that dirt road is SHIT. we switched drivers and i drove that entire section. at one point dave just told me to go - we'd already knocked everything off all the shelves anyway. we laughed and laughed. once we got there we dismantled kelty's play pen and put it around the door to the RV so they could come in and out. they had a great time!
we set up a large camp on thursday. everyone else was arriving friday and saturday, and they take 3000 racers so we knew it'd fill quickly. it all worked out though, we ended up with plenty of room for our group. our team:
as for the race, it starts at 12 noon on saturday. dave had the lineup on his iPad, and we stuck to it for the most part. we decided that my lap would take place on sunday morning, which made for a stressful day and evening for me. ana - the other girl on our team - had very little mountain biking experience. i knew i had the technical skills to get through the course, but the 16 miles were holding me up. i didn't think i had that level of endurance in me yet. my longest mtn bike ride to date was 8-9 miles. she made it through her lap relatively unscathed - did come back with some bloodied legs due to a run-in with a rock and an asshole. her hubby came back with less skin too. mike (guy in the middle) did something to his thumb during his lap - didn't want to go out at all on sunday. dave and i were the only ones who never went down. dave went out about 1am and got in 2 back-to-back laps. he said they were nothing short of amazing.
i'd set my alarm for 5am so i could get up and ready to get out. i knew my lap would take over 2.5 hrs, so i wanted to get it in early so my teammates could go again if they wanted. ana got out by 5am for a night lap - she got intimate with a cactus during that lap and now is known affectionately as cactus ass. the morning was a bit chilly, and it was all i could do to stand still. i'd heard everyone else come back and tell me all about the course. dave was standing next to me waiting to go out and he was trying to throw everything at me that he could remember about the course. i finally just told him that was enough. i'd be fine, i'd just go at my own pace.
so the bitches: well, they're about the width of a dirt road so plenty of room across. but they go over gas lines, and over and over and over. the ups are super steep and the downs are super down. on the 5th or 6th one at the bottom is a bit of a wash with a lip, so if you catch it wrong you'll be airborne into the next up, resulting in taco'd wheels, broken collar bones, and broken wrists. in fact glen's first skin deposit came when the guy in front of him when down at this exact spot. you come up to this section and there's a sign that says "the bitches" and points left, and another that says "skip the bitches" and points right. i knew about the bypass and planned to take it. the bypass was awesome. it went around the hills, down and then up the next hill. it was lovely single track and i had a good time. the bypass throws you back in for the last bitch, and it wasn't bad at all.
the rest of the ride was glorious. i never stopped to walk the bike up, always made it up every climb. some of the bigger ones i'd stop at the top and drink or eat. fell into a massive underground cave when i went off trail to pee. luckily i didn't get stung or bitten by anything.
in the last 4 miles, there's about 2 miles of climb followed by the most fun downhill i've experienced yet. dave and i pre-rode this part on friday, so i knew it was coming. getting up there was a bit tough - for sure tougher than it was on friday. it's not the easiest of downhills, it gets pretty technical right at the beginning when you have just enough speed already going to really get VERY hurt. after that the biggest obstacle are these 2 3-4ft rocks that straddle the trail - you have literally a tire width and a half to get through, and there's no "or else". you just have to make it through those. not hard going slow, but it's on a downhill so it was a bit unnerving to remember those were coming but not knowing exactly when. after i hit that and nailed it (in a good way) i just let it fly. i was already tearing up with another mile to go. dave got this shot of me right before the transition tent:
cried big tears at the end of that one. i felt like it was a huge accomplishment. hell, it was a huge accomplishment. rolling time was 2:07, clock time was 2:31. and the bitches bypass adds 0.2 to the ride, so i think i had a total distance of 16.4.
would TOTALLY DO THIS AGAIN!!!! except next time i'll come to play. i'll be ready to do more than 2 laps. yep. i'm writing that here for accountability. done.
