12 Hours at the Summit

Rode in the 12 Hours at the Summit mountain bike race today in Big Bear. This was my very first mountain bike race, and I had a great time!

We all drove up to Big Bear last night, just so that we can get a decent nights sleep and try to get acclimated to the altitude. We hung out, drank and cooked some pasta before hitting the sak at a respectable time.

It was me, Rich Rentrop, Steve Wilder and Bob Green, and it was a relay race. Ian joined us as our one-armed mechanic, cook and moral supporter. He made sure that our bikes were clean and well lubed before every leg of the race. My bike never worked so smoothly. Steve's wife also joined us to give us massages between each race. Needless to say, that was awesome!

I think we all did extremely well. There were no mechanicals and no crashes. For me, there were several close calls, but I managed to stay on my bike the whole time. We each did 3 laps, except for Steve who did 2. We ran out of time for him to do his third. Each lap was 9.5 miles, with about a 1500 foot climb in elevation and took about an hour to get around the loop. Surprisingly, I think I had the best average for my team of about 59 minutes. Overall, it was painful and very stressful, but I can't wait until next year. We're thinking about doing 2-man teams and joining the "Steel" class.

They actually messed up the results and didn't record my last lap. So technically, we actually came in 6th place, not 7th.