Four months ago I didn't own a mountain bike. I have been wanting to get back into it for about four years, so for my birthday I bought myself a Cannondale Rush 6. I have been riding a shitload since then and really enjoying it.
Due to some incredible encouragement and help from some great friends and some Maggots, this weekend I competed in the 24 Hours of Great Glen race.
Our team was sponsored by the local RSN channel and as a race sponsor, they made it very clear that we were supposed to do it just for fun and not take it very serious. Be crazy, make people laugh promote that the race is not only serious, but has a fun side. Absolutely no pressure to even think about winning. Captain Krissy was tasked with putting together a group of riders who would take this mission seriously. She found the right group.
Friday night after registering, setting up camp then heading down to Jackson village for carbo loading (beer drinking) we returned to the camp site for additional "training".
Captain Krissy
Team mate Hans
This training lasted until 2:00am. That was a really good idea.
Morning dawned beautifully, if not a little too early, in Pinkham Notch.
View of the camp site. There is some nasty singletrack named "Outback" in the woods behind the signs ending in the "Chute" the steepest longest downhill portion of the 8.5 mile course.
If we could not come up with fun crazy things to do to entertain the crowd, we were told that the folks at RSN would tell us what to do. We decided to take matters into our own hands.
I would like to thank Trackhead for the following inspiration.
At first I figured that I would ride the first lap in the Sumo suit, but the course was just to tight, and that thing was damn hot. So the next best thing would be to go first and run the Le Mans start in it. The goal was to pass as many of the serious riders as possible. While I was the only competitor in an inflatable sumo suit, there was another guy in an inflatable shark suit representing the Littleton Landsharks. We chatted before the start and he said to me, "Dude, you might be fatter but you are going to kick my ass. I just have these short little fins to run on."
Saturday noon, the cannon sounds. We are off!
You're my bitch shark boy!
After sweating my ass off on the 1/4 mile run, it was time to take this thing serious. We'll sort of.
First climb of the first lap. Can you say traffic jamb?
Almost 8 miles in comes the drop out of the moutain and out of the woods named the Chute. Fun piece of track.
Lets meet the rest of our team.
Captain Krissy is, as our blogger put it, "A wicked good blonde." She is communication manger for Attitash and a way fun person to hang out with. She is the one responsible for this whole experience.
I also like how she is not afraid to ride the Chute with the branch from the tree she just ran over still in the front forks!
Please meet Marty.
Marty is a local writer and journalist. He has written 6 books about biking.
Find them here. Marty was also our blogger. His stuff, which was pretty funny can be found here:
24 Hours of Great Glen Blog Marty was an integral part of the team. Some of us may have been a little too competitive for our assignment. Marty continued to remind us of what are mission was. Have fun. Don't die. You only have to do two laps each to qualify.
Here is marty going all out. Hanging out of his pocket is the vest that he applied once on course. It said in big letters "Please Pass My Ass"
Al was the only one of us who had run this race before, doing it twice in the past. Al rides a lot but was in to the have fun do your best we don't have to kill ourself attitude. Al also was always up to grab another lap. He wants to have fun, but wanted to perform respectfully also. Way to get it Al. A stand up guy for sure. Al also played bass with a travelling version of Blood Sweat and Tears in his youger days. He is the host of Hoot night. Go up and say hi. If you know MWV, you can find it.
Hans is an ultra runner. Two weeks ago he ran 129 miles in a 24 hour long race. He hadn't biked in about 20 years. Friday afternoon at 3:30 before the race he did not have a bike. We were not worried as we figured he could just grab mine throw it over his shoulder and run the 8.5 miles just as fast anyway. He ended up borrowing Krissy's spare bike as they were closest in size. No clips, no baskets, just flat pedals, a leaky front tire and a self inflating whoppie cushion applied to the seat. Hans had never seen the course, stayed up with us to 2:00am drinking beer, slept in a beach chair without a sleeping bag the night before and then went to work from noon to 5:00pm and then came to the race to run his first 8.5 mile lap.
After all that Hans threw down our fastest lap time of 50 minutes.
Six hours into the race the first ranking were listed. We were in second place in our division by 10 minutes. We expected this to worsen through the night laps.
The night laps were something else. Everyone, except Marty, endoed on there lap, me twice. My second one was on the chute which was a mud track at that point. I have no idea what happened but over the bars I went. I have no idea how, but I landed on my feet and ran out of it with not a scratch. Sure disaster was adverted. A lone voice of a guy sitting in the woods in the pitch black just very calmly said "Dude that was the best wipe out and the best save I have seen all night." I walked down the rest of the way. Night riding was cool. Very focused on the beam of light. Surprisingly enough, all of our times were very consistent with our daytime laps, all within 5 minutes or so of the day laps.
12 hours into the race the second posting of rankings. Second place, but now only by 4 minutes. Hmmmm.
5:30 in the morning rising to get my next lap I was awoken to the sound of bag pipes blowing on the mountain. A bag piper walked a lot of the course and blew the pipes for about an hour if I had to guess. That was really cool to wake up to. Onto the course again, each of us still riding very consistently with our previous times.
18 hours in the third rankings are released. Second place but only by 60 seconds.
This is where the team became a little divided between the competitive side and the not so competitive side. Half of us were planning lap strategy while some were saying I rode three, I'm all set. Remember this is just about having fun. What is more fun that winning? was the obvious response. It was decided to just finish the race as best we could and not try and kill ourselves to grab the extra lap after the cannon fires by having someone on the course already by noon time. But then again, we all went out and rode hard, turning in some of our fastest lap times of the entire race. More crashes, but still good times. It is really hard to forget that you are in a race even if you want to treat it as a ride.
Krissy finishing her last lap in the sumo suit.
Hans, who had missed an early rotation due to his work requirement ended up pulling two of the last three laps. He is a machine, even when riding as Zorro the Crusty Sea Captain. Crossing the line, beer in hand at the noon time cannon.
What a fun event and sport. I am very hooked and will be there again next year. This was the perfect group of people to do this race with. A great mix of characters with the right attitudes and mix of fun and competitiveness.
The Champions of Great Glen in the 5 person Cruiser Class Division Team RSN, Rather Ski Now.
Pretty cool. To go out and have as much fun as we did, but still work hard enough to win the thing felt really good. When it was all said and done, we rode for 24 hours, never not having someone on course, did 19 laps and won the division by 1 minute and 45 seconds.
I would highly recommend this race to all Maggots for next year. There were 167 teams comprising of 59 solo riders, about 14 of which were single speed, and there were a total of 476 riders. The atmosphere was great and it was a wonderful community to hang out with for the weekend. I think that I am hooked on this sport and you may see me hanging around Sproket Rockets now.
Until next year, you can all kiss my fat tire ass
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