Just like Cascade Chainbreaker, this year is the first time I’ve done this race. And it won’t be the last!  Weather couldn’t have been more perfect, cool and sunny in the morning with high temp expected in the mid 60’s with some light winds. The rain (and SNOW) earlier in the week made for some perfect trail conditions, not much dust for a change.

Who was there? Well, darned near EVERYONE! Looks like the numbers were in the mid 500’s for a turnout rivaling Echo Red-to-Red.  All the Cat 3’s were staged and started together at 10:30 with a cowboy leadout. I believe the early start was in an attempt to have all the Cat 3’s done before the fastest riders were coming through.  Interesting concept and it looks like it worked.

But it also meant that I was in the last group of starters, all the Cat 2 Women.  It was the biggest group I’d ever seen, pretty close to 50 riders.  They compacted the starts and we were on our way about 5 minutes sooner than expected, chasing the Clydesdales hard through the field and out onto the dirt roads for a few miles before the singletrack started. Kind of strange to have so much wide and flat course to get started, and the group stayed fairly close together as everyone sized up the competition and settled into place. Read more »

If you’ve checked out my schedule for 2012 you will notice a re-visit to the NUE series. Back in 2008 I did quite well racing these ultra events and I wanted to check out some of the venues I hadn’t visited this year. While most of the NUE series consists of 100 mile events the Syllamo’s Revenge race in Arkansas is “only” 125k. This is likely because most of the course is singletrack trail and fairly technical in a rough, slow sort of way. With the shorter distance and  slower average speed I chose to rock the one-speed at this event as it seemed like the logical choice.

I arrived in Little Rock in time to check out Orbea USA and conveniently assemble my Ibis Tranny using proper shop tools. As has always been my experience visiting the “South”, these folks were super cool and generous and full of southern hospitality! Their sponsorship honch Frank had offered to give me a lift up to the venue Friday afternoon so we shoved off with his fiancee for the 2 hour trip north. We arrived Mountain View in time to pick-up our packets and preride the start which seemed to be the only selective part of the course. East-coast singlespeed guru, Gerry Pflug had kindly shared his suggestion for gearing which proved spot on. Read more »

It’s weird, but in four years of mountain bike riding and racing, I don’t think I’ve EVER flatted. A couple cyclocross flats and my share on the road, but never on a mountain bike. So warming up on the road, I rode through a parking area and picked up a chunk of glass in my rear tire. There was a half-inch slash in the tire, it wasn’t resealing and start was in less than 20 minutes and over half a mile away, so I didn’t have time to wait around, so I took it apart and put in the tube I was carrying. That’s a really messy job on a dirt road with new tubeless tires!! Fortunately a guy with his car nearby let me use his floor pump. I made it to the start with about 5 minutes to spare. I didn’t want to overfill since the tire was slashed, I put in about 25 psi, I can usually get by with that even on tubes and I figured if it wasn’t going to hold, I’d know during the 3.5 mile start loop and I wouldn’t have too far to get back. Read more »