Timr
LIFETIME SPONSOR
- Jul 26, 1999
- 1,972
- 6
Loggy Bottom Enduro
Gulfport Mississippi
May 5th, 2002
I pulled into the campground about 5:00 on Friday afternoon. The drive in on the dirt road from the main highway confirmed my hunch that this area of southern Mississippi had had no rain the weeks prior to the event. It was definitely going to be dusty. I quickly located the Porter camp where my bike was waiting for me, and threw my bag into Bill’s motor home, my place to sleep for the night.
Bill and Wesley had already been through the sign up and penciled me in on their row. I cruised over to the sign up and came away with my renewed AMA receipt, a roll chart, and the row number 42C. I completed the programming of both of my computers, cleaned and oiled my air filter and did basic bike prep before we sat down to a steak dinner that Bill cooked up on the grill.
Shawn Sharp came by for a few minutes, and it was nice to put another face with a name that I knew from the Internet. Neely and John P. also stopped by so Neely could get signed up for the race. She decided to leave here XR parked between the Porter motor homes instead of taking it to the hotel. Neely was signed up on row 49, but said that she would move to our row if Ed didn’t show up to claim the last spot on our row.
We were all asleep by 10:15, and I slept great in air-conditioned comfort of Bill’s motor home. The rider’s meeting was uneventful, and they announced that we would be riding a few miles of paved road in the middle of the race. They ranted about the usual stuff, no unlicensed bikes on the USFS dirt roads.
When we rolled up to the starting area, we found that Neely had in fact been moved over to our row. We pulled up to the line, they flipped the cards, and off we went. The entire first loop of the race was a time keeping trail ride. The first few sections alternated between 17, 18 and 12-mph speed averages. At 17 MPH, the possibles are 1.7 miles apart, so we rode hot and stopped…repeat as necessary. Neely was never too far behind. It seems that we would stop on the side of the trail to let 45-55 seconds burn off, and just was we would fire up our bikes to be on our way, Neely would roll up and off we’d go.
At the gas stop, we all had zeros. I actually had a 0/17 since I entered the tie breaker check at 42:13. We gassed up and took into the section that had the paved road. The paved road section was 20mph average. We were a little leery that they might put a check on the road (like Wiggins back in ’95, lots of people burnt that check in the middle of a 7-mile road section). We rode up to where the trail took a hard right into the woods. We then guessed that a check would be at the next possible, and we were right.
Here’s where I made a timekeeping blunder. As we went down the paved road, I rolled my roll chart ahead to see what was coming up. I noticed that after the 20-MPH section, the speed average dropped back down to 12 MPH. So, I assumed that if we hit a check in the 20-MPH section, that it would just be there to catch people who got really hot on the road. I didn’t expect it to be a check in check. I thought that most of the 20-MPH section would be used up with the paved road.
So, we road up the check and zeroed it. Bill and Wesley took off with Wesley in the lead. I held back trying to conserve energy thinking that we were about to bump down the 12 MPH and I would get back on time then. I didn’t realize that we had right at about 3 miles until the speed dropped back down. I was already 1:45 minutes late when I realized my mistake. I then rode like a banshee, but could cut more that about 30 seconds off of my time. Sure enough, there was a check out at the first possible after the drop down to 12 mph. I dropped two there. Should have dropped one or maybe none if I had been on my toes. Oh well.
We rode the transfer to the next section where a restart awaited us. By now, it was starting to get really hot outside. I’d been drinking water and gator ade at every stop, but it didn’t seem to be working. (I also drank about a gallon of water on both Friday and Saturday.)
Wesley, Bill and I blast out of the restart in that order. For the first quarter of a mile, I was right on Bill’s back fender and was considering giving Bill a woo woo if he didn’t pick up the pace. Turn’s out I didn’t have to holler at him since I hit the wall. All of sudden, I had no energy. I kept moving at a pretty good pace, but I couldn’t push it. Then, I started to get the chills. OK, so I’m right on the edge of heat exhaustion. I backed it down another notch.
Fortunately, that section was only about 5 miles long. At the reset after that test, I found Bill and Wesley sitting under a tree. I staggered over and asked where our cooler with the water was. Turns out that our pit guy (Mike Reynolds, Taylor’s dad) had already left. So, I walked up to the closest truck and asked if they had some water I could dump over my head. They gave me a cold wash cloth out of there cooler and a power ade. After that I felt a little better.
We rode to the next reset where the short course people cut off. We drank more gator ade. I was feeling better and was trying to get myself hyped up for the last test section. We started at the final restart, and I of course let Bill and Wesley go first. I was keeping Bill in sight for quite a while until we came to a sharp left turn, the kind of turn where you would need a hinge in the middle of your bike to get around it. I jammed on the front brake and went down in a heap of dust and curse words. I could hear bikes approaching and since this was a very tight trail, I quickly struggled to get out of the trail. In my haste, I got a cramp in my left thigh. Ouucchh!! I got my bike started ad rolled out of the way just as two guys from row 45 showed up. I pulled over, let them by, tried to catch my breath, and drank about half of my Camel bak.
From there, I did not ride very fast to the end. I got a little bit of a second wind about 3/4ths of a mile before the final check, but it was too little too late. That last section was one curvy son of a beach. There wasn’t a straight longer than 10 feet. I was nothing but turn left, turn left, turn left some more, now turn right, turn more right, quick turn left, turn back right and so on and so on.
Oh well, it was hot, it was dusty, and it was fun. I’ll be back next year.
Gulfport Mississippi
May 5th, 2002
I pulled into the campground about 5:00 on Friday afternoon. The drive in on the dirt road from the main highway confirmed my hunch that this area of southern Mississippi had had no rain the weeks prior to the event. It was definitely going to be dusty. I quickly located the Porter camp where my bike was waiting for me, and threw my bag into Bill’s motor home, my place to sleep for the night.
Bill and Wesley had already been through the sign up and penciled me in on their row. I cruised over to the sign up and came away with my renewed AMA receipt, a roll chart, and the row number 42C. I completed the programming of both of my computers, cleaned and oiled my air filter and did basic bike prep before we sat down to a steak dinner that Bill cooked up on the grill.
Shawn Sharp came by for a few minutes, and it was nice to put another face with a name that I knew from the Internet. Neely and John P. also stopped by so Neely could get signed up for the race. She decided to leave here XR parked between the Porter motor homes instead of taking it to the hotel. Neely was signed up on row 49, but said that she would move to our row if Ed didn’t show up to claim the last spot on our row.
We were all asleep by 10:15, and I slept great in air-conditioned comfort of Bill’s motor home. The rider’s meeting was uneventful, and they announced that we would be riding a few miles of paved road in the middle of the race. They ranted about the usual stuff, no unlicensed bikes on the USFS dirt roads.
When we rolled up to the starting area, we found that Neely had in fact been moved over to our row. We pulled up to the line, they flipped the cards, and off we went. The entire first loop of the race was a time keeping trail ride. The first few sections alternated between 17, 18 and 12-mph speed averages. At 17 MPH, the possibles are 1.7 miles apart, so we rode hot and stopped…repeat as necessary. Neely was never too far behind. It seems that we would stop on the side of the trail to let 45-55 seconds burn off, and just was we would fire up our bikes to be on our way, Neely would roll up and off we’d go.
At the gas stop, we all had zeros. I actually had a 0/17 since I entered the tie breaker check at 42:13. We gassed up and took into the section that had the paved road. The paved road section was 20mph average. We were a little leery that they might put a check on the road (like Wiggins back in ’95, lots of people burnt that check in the middle of a 7-mile road section). We rode up to where the trail took a hard right into the woods. We then guessed that a check would be at the next possible, and we were right.
Here’s where I made a timekeeping blunder. As we went down the paved road, I rolled my roll chart ahead to see what was coming up. I noticed that after the 20-MPH section, the speed average dropped back down to 12 MPH. So, I assumed that if we hit a check in the 20-MPH section, that it would just be there to catch people who got really hot on the road. I didn’t expect it to be a check in check. I thought that most of the 20-MPH section would be used up with the paved road.
So, we road up the check and zeroed it. Bill and Wesley took off with Wesley in the lead. I held back trying to conserve energy thinking that we were about to bump down the 12 MPH and I would get back on time then. I didn’t realize that we had right at about 3 miles until the speed dropped back down. I was already 1:45 minutes late when I realized my mistake. I then rode like a banshee, but could cut more that about 30 seconds off of my time. Sure enough, there was a check out at the first possible after the drop down to 12 mph. I dropped two there. Should have dropped one or maybe none if I had been on my toes. Oh well.
We rode the transfer to the next section where a restart awaited us. By now, it was starting to get really hot outside. I’d been drinking water and gator ade at every stop, but it didn’t seem to be working. (I also drank about a gallon of water on both Friday and Saturday.)
Wesley, Bill and I blast out of the restart in that order. For the first quarter of a mile, I was right on Bill’s back fender and was considering giving Bill a woo woo if he didn’t pick up the pace. Turn’s out I didn’t have to holler at him since I hit the wall. All of sudden, I had no energy. I kept moving at a pretty good pace, but I couldn’t push it. Then, I started to get the chills. OK, so I’m right on the edge of heat exhaustion. I backed it down another notch.
Fortunately, that section was only about 5 miles long. At the reset after that test, I found Bill and Wesley sitting under a tree. I staggered over and asked where our cooler with the water was. Turns out that our pit guy (Mike Reynolds, Taylor’s dad) had already left. So, I walked up to the closest truck and asked if they had some water I could dump over my head. They gave me a cold wash cloth out of there cooler and a power ade. After that I felt a little better.
We rode to the next reset where the short course people cut off. We drank more gator ade. I was feeling better and was trying to get myself hyped up for the last test section. We started at the final restart, and I of course let Bill and Wesley go first. I was keeping Bill in sight for quite a while until we came to a sharp left turn, the kind of turn where you would need a hinge in the middle of your bike to get around it. I jammed on the front brake and went down in a heap of dust and curse words. I could hear bikes approaching and since this was a very tight trail, I quickly struggled to get out of the trail. In my haste, I got a cramp in my left thigh. Ouucchh!! I got my bike started ad rolled out of the way just as two guys from row 45 showed up. I pulled over, let them by, tried to catch my breath, and drank about half of my Camel bak.
From there, I did not ride very fast to the end. I got a little bit of a second wind about 3/4ths of a mile before the final check, but it was too little too late. That last section was one curvy son of a beach. There wasn’t a straight longer than 10 feet. I was nothing but turn left, turn left, turn left some more, now turn right, turn more right, quick turn left, turn back right and so on and so on.
Oh well, it was hot, it was dusty, and it was fun. I’ll be back next year.
