6 hours of power. 6hop.

So I couldnt sleep cause I could not get comfortable cause my body hurts. Apparently people are awake and all walk dogs at 6:30 am. What a world.

Six hours of power: Ride around an 8 mile mountain bike loop as many times as you can in six hours. If you get in before 6:00, you go out again.

We prerode Friday. We took it easy on the first (and longest) climb. This made the rest of the course seem REALLY easy. However, when racing up the first climb, the rest of the course is hard.

I went solo. I was just hoping for no mechanicals and I figured I had a chance. Ernie from Ohio was there. I had read his blog last week and he hinted at an upcoming enduro. He is good at the long stuff and I figured it would be between us, unless some ringer showed up.

I dont know who invented the "le mans" style start, but it is horrible. This is in mountain bike racing all the racers run for a bit before getting to their bikes. I seriously think that I am super sore from the run and not the racing.

Lap 1: World cup start up the climb. Like crazy fast. There are solo's and team racers all mixed in together. By mid lap I was on my own, with Ernie a few seconds down.

Lap 2: Suffer fest to build a gap. I was out of sight. I was trying to kill the climbs and rail the the parts where I thought he would put time on me on his fancy soft tail bike.

Lap 3: Felt like quitting

Lap 4: Told myself that if I did not quit I would not have to do the 101 in two weeks.

Lap 5: Realized I would have to do 8 laps.

Lap 6: Finally got an accurate time split and had a good gap. Every other time, it was "5 or 6 minutes."

Lap 7: cruise control. Dont flat, dont crash.

Lap 8: I was not sure if Ernie made the cut off (if you do 7 laps in 6 hours you go out for an 8th), so I still had to race. Cramps. Pain. Etc.


This was my first enduro that was not a 100 mile race. The 100 milers generally have a lot more dirt roads. This was probably 90% singletrack.
This was the first mountain bike race that I won since like 2007, which was on Gary's bike. Garmin file.

Thanks to Bret and Nicol for handing me bottles every lap, despite the fact that they were also racing their duo category. Thanks to Bret and Probikes for sealing up my tires tubeless with Stans. They are sick.