Riding, on the otherhand, has been hard to do during this week. I finally got more than 5 hours of sleep last night and I finally feel hydrated. I hydrated just fine at 24/9, with only my left hand suffering any cramps. Picture Dr Strangelove's possessed hand and you know how I feel. At work we've been slamming the hours trying to get the chillers at sites up and running "under control" which is technically a falsehood. If the electrician has provided power to the chiller, we just turn the freakin' thing to "On" and it blows at 100%. But with 144 dampers (vents for you laypersons) to turn to the open position it takes time otherwise ductwork can "explode", or so I've been told.
Where'd I leave off on 24/9? oh yeah, the first lap. Everything was fine running the 34x19 and I managed only one mishap. A superman over/into the bars wehn I failed to lift the front wheel over a fairly good-sized rock. I still have the scrapes and bruises on both thighs from that.
Here's the breakdown...
Rank: 8
Team Name: Extreme Rejects
Laps Completed: 18
Bib # Name Laps
3141 Stuart Shelton 5
3142 Tim Bates 5
3143 Rick Schnell 4
3144 Dave Dahlman 4
Team #:
Lap: 1 Bib: 3142 1:14:47 Lap: 2 Bib: 3141 1:12:55 Lap: 3 Bib: 3143 1:21:17 Lap: 4 Bib: 3144 1:19:35
Lap: 5 Bib: 3142 1:15:30 Lap: 6 Bib: 3141 1:12:11 Lap: 7 Bib: 3143 1:34:57 Lap: 8 Bib: 3144 1:19:26
Lap: 9 Bib: 3142 1:30:04 Lap: 10 Bib: 3141 1:20:53 Lap: 11 Bib: 3143 1:28:07 Lap: 12 Bib: 3144 1:34:11
Lap: 13 Bib: 3142 1:37:09 Lap: 14 Bib: 3141 1:20:00 Lap: 15 Bib: 3143 1:26:25 Lap: 16 Bib: 3142 1:25:12
Lap: 17 Bib: 3142 1:25:32 Lap: 18 Bib: 3141 1:11:30
Miles Completed: 257.1
Elapased time 24:49:42
We stuck to the running order from the night before and everyone seemed to fairly problem free during the event. Everyone had a good time on the 1st and 2nd laps and we settled into roughly 7th place in the 35+ category. By nightfall I had my Demo Sigma light ready and I had changed the fork from the Bontrager Carbon to the Reba from the Rig. Shortly before sunset I took off on my 3rd lap expecting it to be between 5 and 10 minutes longer. 15 minutes into the lap I really needed the Sigma to see but I was doing fine. Fine until the Sigma died. 30 minutes was all I got and I was on back-up via the AAA cell powered Planet Bike light on my helmet. I couldn't see shit if I tried to go fast. After poking around for maybe 15 minutes I was caught by Nick Pettis (#4494). He offered me the battery from his back-up light, plugged me in and took off. He never did come get the beer I owe him. A few miles later that battery died and I was back to riding by Braille. Eventually a Solo Single Speed caught me and offered to light the trail for me from behind. That worked better than I thought and I tried to call the corners and obstacles "rally car style" so he could direct his helmet light more effectively.
The guys at Sigma were apologetic. Although, Jeff from Revolution Cycles claimed the woman working their booth told him "only the deserving riders get lamps this year" when he inquired about the lighting situation. I wish she'd have said 'the riders deserve effective lights' because on my second night lap the battery died just short of an hour into the lap. This time I was lucky enough to be sandwiched between a guy on a multispeed Ferrous and Women's Solo rider Danielle Musto on her Slingshot. She is such a great person. She asked if I wanted to get around, which I did, but as soon as I pulled along next to her and the guy on the Ferrous came past I realized my battery was toast again. I declined and tucked in behind her because I didn't want to slow her down, plus her lighting was enough for me to see well enough. She kept a steady pace on the single track and I could keep up for the most part. We had a nice conversation while I was nailing rocks and roots but I was going faster than without a light. At one point I washed out my front tire and hit the ground. Danielle stopped and waited for me to pick my sorry ass up and catch up to her. Once on the wider trail before the lap I thanked her and took off into the darkness to give Stuart a lap in the dark. Im really glad Danielle finished on the podium in 3rd, she was running in 5th when she helped me.
I took a nap for a couple of hours and awoke for my final lap. I left the 22t on the back that I'd installed for my second night lap because i had absolutely no snap left in my legs. While on the second lap a guy from western Illinois, also 42 yrs old, was complementing me on my ability to outclimb him and ride away from him on the open trails. But then he'd be back on my ass in the single track telling me how the Dr had told him to stop drinking, smoking and chasing women. So he started eating right, riding a bike and letting the women chase him for a change. I hope he did well too.
While Dave was out on his 4th and final lap Stuart, Rick and I discussed the final lap or laps of the day. If I could come in with more than 15 minutes left in the day, Stuart would do one more lap. If there was less than 15 minutes, they'd wave me down and I'd have a seat on the ground just before the finish and walk across at 24hrs. This was assuming we wanted to finish in 9th place. But once I took off on my last lap Stuart, Rick and Dave started crunching the numbers. During the night I had posted such slow times I'd let "Team Family Ties" get a 12 minute lead on us and "Team 24" aka "Nick the battery loaning nice guy's team" had gained on us and was within seconds of us. Nick should have let me grope around the dark trail longer. To add to the confusion and drama, I forgot to put on my timing chip so I started without one, but I got maybe a half-mile down the trail when I realized I needed one, so I did a U-turn and rode back against the trail. The guys were all huddled around the computers when I got back and yelled that I'd forgotten my chip. I knew they'd figure out how to get one to me before the finish so I took off again.
I felt pretty good. I was able to climb with the 22t, and I doubt I would have made it with anything much taller. Just when I was feeling good toward the end I was passing a few people on some single track when I hear a familiar voice. It was Jesse. He either said "BKB" or "hey Tim" or "get off the trail fat ass" but it didn't matter because he was gone so fast I don't think I slowed him one iota. that boy is off the chart fast
I finished hard and strong, only I didn't know it but I wasn't that far behind Nick when Stuart took off on the last lap with roughly 20 minutes left in the day. Stuart rode his full-squish multispeed faster than his single speed can go and by the end of the lap he managed to keep us in 8th place.
Lots of others had great days.
Mark, Ray, Jerrod, and Trevor of Muddy Cup 1 won the 30+ championship.
Jesse (Creepy Friendly), Mark (the Darkness), Brian "Wisconsin Waterfall" Matter and Doug Swanson smoked everyone in the overall Men's Team championship.
Ron-Sta and Jerry Daanen pulled off the win in the Male Duo with Ron on his singlespeed.
John-dog Fang and Justin Davis won the 24 Duo Open.
When US Cycling officially notices singlespeed as a category, Benjamin "whippoorwhil" Griggs, "Super" Dave Schoenherr, Roger Lundsten and Sam Wellskopf will get National Champion jerseys for their domination of the Single Speed team category.
Bringing home the bacon, after eating most of it, were champion Clydesdales Jeff Riedel, Joe Villalobos, Russell Jobs and Keith Wolf of Success XXX Video.
And for the future of the sport there was the group of 4 young ladies putting in a solid effort on the way to the Junior Women's win. Murphykate Montee, Megan Wolf, Samantha Schneider and Sarah Lukas of team "Teenage Girls Doing It All Night" kept the right attitude despite not being challenged in their category. They would have placed 4th in the "grown" woman's category by mere minutes. Megan was good company in the transition tent. We were running about the same times most of the night.
And Dave after his 24hrs
No comments:
Post a Comment