OK, I should write up a RR (Race Report)- and here it is.

Well, as some of you may know, I took a bad tumble on New Year's Day,
so I really hadn't been riding much. Still, I had six weeks for my
broken hand (right hand) and sprained wrist (left wrist) to heal before
the 24 Hours of the Old Pueblo on Valentine's weekend. I thought I
should be fine.
So I'd lost a fair amount of fitness during those six weeks. A few
really easy road rides and a couple of sessions of spinning at my gym
failed to bring me up to race level, but I'm OK with that. My big
concern was actually my sprained wrist.
My wrist is taking its sweet, leisurely time to return to full
functionality. Now that it has been two months, it is still quite effed
up. Anyhow, to prepare for the race, I bought myself some 661 brand
Wrist Wraps. These are similar to the wrist protectors that skaters
wear, or maybe people who have carpal tunnel syndrome. The difference
is that these are designed for cyclists, so they offer a little bit of
movement, but not much. I hoped that with these, and sports tape, I
should be OK.
Bill P ( a last minute substitution on our team) met me at my house at
5:30 am friday morning. We loaded up my truck, and headed east into
the dawn. Erik The Red had driven out the night before, but made a stop
in Yuma to snooze for a few hours. Still, he got to the race site
first, so he scored us a nice camping spot.
Those that have not attended the 24HitOP before, please check their web
site at www.epicrides.com and look around for the course description and
photos. The map doesn't really convey very well how close to BFE the
course actually is. It is near Oracle, AZ, which is a town of maybe
5,000 people northwest of Tucson. To get to the race venue, though, you
turn off the two lane road and drive on dirt roads for ten miles through
the desert. Anyhow, it is remote.
Bill and I got there at around two in the afternoon. It was windy, but
warm enough in the Sun. We set up camp, and Erik, Bill and I went out
for a leisurely preride.
On another forum somebody had asked if they should run Slime tubes for
the race, and I'd pooh-poohed the idea. Sure, it's the desert, but as
long as you stay on the trail, you'll be OK, I'd said. Two days before
the race, though, I'd headed down to my LBS, the Mountain Bike
Whorehouse, and bought a pair of Slime tubes. Hey, I thought, why tempt
fate?
So, to get back to the story, the three of us stop to talk to some
acquaintances at the start/finish area. I go to jump on my bike, and
what happens? A rear flat. On my Slime tube. I attempt to spin the
nut off the valve, and the valve stem spins freely. It had come
completely adrift from the tube. POS tube. I knew I should've stuck
with my tried-and-true Vittoria tubes. Anyhow, I use my spare tube and
off we go. For a little while. A quarter mile later, I had another
rear flat. My spare tube had blown a seam where it had been folded up.
I so rarely get flats that the tube had simply gone bad in my water
pack. So I borrow Erik's spare tube, and off we go. We get past the
Seven Bitches (why does every race course have a section called the
Bitches? Can't anybody come up with something a little more clever?)
and I spring another rear flat. I bum Bill's spare tube, noticing that
I had torn yet another stem out of a tube, and this time resort to CO2.
I'm tired of pumping, and it is getting late and COLD.
Anyhow, we ride through the Cactus Garden, and I get another flat.
Unfortunately, Bill and Erik had gone ahead (and I'd used all our tubes,
anyway). Figuring that this is some kind of Karmic punishment, I start
walking. The course makes a sort of figure 8 shape, with the narrow
part near the start/finish area. As I walk back to camp (at least a
couple of miles) several groups of riders pass and offer tubes, but I'll
have none of it. I gotta pay my dues. Anyhow, happily enough my route
had me pass by the New Belgium Brewery team area, and they loaded a 1554
and a Trippel on my, so I arrived back at my camp with no real further
need for beer.
Turns out, the last tube was a torn valve stem, too. None of these
were cut, my rim strip was perfectly fine. They were simply defective
tubes. Four of them.
So on to the race. Historically, I've done the run and first lap on 24
hour races, but this time Erik took it for the team. He turned in quite
a good lap, and then Bill went out and worked the course pretty well.
Eric H (who had arrived that morning) went out next. He ran out of the
transition tent to start his lap, only to find he had a rear flat. He
quickly changed it, and still turned in a respectable lap. Checking his
tube later, he could find no leaks. Maybe we were sabotaged? Eric's
bike is SUPER recognizable, so I would not be too surprised to find that
a prank was played...
So it came around to my turn. I knew from the preride that every
little wash crossing was going to work my wrist over big time, so I had
to slow way down for the g-outs, then work hard to get lost speed back.
With the wrap setup I had on my left wrist, I could hardly move my
hand back and forth from the bar to the bar-end. Still, I did OK, but
the slab at the end of the lap hurt a little worse than I'd expected.
Erik, Eric and I each had issues to deal with during the night. My
second lap I bonked hard, cramped by the 1/3 point, and since I was a
little dazed, I was riding very poorly and hit all the bumps wrong. My
wrist (and at this point, my right hand, too) were so hammered by the
last downhill that I almost came off the bars on the last couple of fast
g-outs. I opted for the slab bypass, too. Discretion is the better
part of valor, after all. Going to bed, I wasn't sure I'd be able to do
another lap.
Erik bonked so hard on his third lap that he was seeing double, and his
light seemed to be strobing. His tall gearing came back to bite him,
too. He wound up doing his fourth lap on my bike. His comment? "Even
if that bike had had nine honking inches of travel that seat still
wouldn't have been comfortable." Hey, I love my Flites, though, and I
find it a happy place to sit.
Eric's difficulty came in his light conking out a quarter of the way
out into his lap. He'd brought along one of those LED Petzl headband
mounted lights. but discovered that it was pretty damned close to
useless. He wound up having to tailgate other riders when they came
along, until they'd drop him in a tricky spot. At one point he blew a
turn and plowed straight into a big fat barrel cactus, flatting his
front tire instantly. He made it back, though, and his misadventures
really only cost about 35 minutes or so. Remarkable, really.
Anyway, I did manage to talk myself into a third lap, and I made a
point of riding mellow and sucking down huge quantities of sports drink.
I felt better at the end of the lap than I had at the start. My
fourth lap was uneventful.
After I rolled in, Bill took off for his fifth lap. If he turned in a
stellar lap and finished before noon, we could send Eric out for our
team's 18th lap. Unfortunately, Bill came back in 43 seconds too late.
As it turns out, we couldn't have moved up a spot anyway, even if Eric
had managed another lap. Still, we finished fourth out of twelve teams.
I'd say that's damned good considering all the strikes we had against us.
It was time to pack up and head home. Our EZ Up had been destroyed by
the wind on friday night, so we put it back together as best we could,
piled our stuff in the truck, and beat feet back to California. Tired,
sore, and happy with how we did.

Miles

"miles todd" wrote in message
...

We get past the Seven Bitches (why does every race course have a section
called the Bitches? Can't anybody come up with something a little more
clever?)

Same reason most trails have a Hell Hill, Hurl Hill, The Wall, and/or
Powerline Climb. For the most part they're self explanatory sections.

None however are as unique as Mike's Rock!

Michael