justalonewolf007
Member
- Apr 30, 2007
- 657
- 0
This won't be a full race report until later, but I thought I'd give a brief rundown of my first harescramble.
At first, I had no idea what a harescramble was, so I asked around a little when someone had stuck a flyer under the windshield wiper of my borrowed car.
"It's a longer race and you ride on trails."
Well that didn't help too much because I had no idea what the definition of "trail" was.
Through the rest of the DMC series I held it in the back of mind, and was invited several times to participate in it, so when the time came, I decided to try it out.
Of course I decided to make up my mind the night before, and on a whim invited my dad to ride with me. He hasn't done any real riding for about 7 years, but he's a pretty tough guy and is a pretty talented rider when it comes down to it.
He said he'd call back with an answer after he thought about it, and gave me the positive answer at about 2am.
We were short some required gear, so we called up the neighbors and asked to borrow a chest protector that would fit me....and the dad wore mine.
We got a pretty late start, but did arrive just in time to register. Then he got nervous as we prepped the bikes because everyone else was wearing some pretty heavy gear and jerseys, while he was just in jeans, workboots, and a beta-seed jacket (For those of you who don't understand that. It basically means that my dad looked every bit the stereotypical farmer minus the plaid shirt and redneck accent.).
The start was pretty funny because I forgot to have my kickstart lever out, and he didn't understand to put his hands on his head. Once the picture got across, we took off behind the rest of the C class bikes.
The course was 14.3 miles, and I was nervous about the little CR running out of gas, but I stopped each lap and was assisted by some random people in filling my tank.
I thought that the dad was right behind me, but I was quite wrong...it ends up he was about 15 minutes behind me during the first lap. There was another 85 rider, and we traded crashes and places back and fourth as we navigated the cow pastures, TIGHT AND TWISTY woods trails, and rough praire sections that had a horrendus amount of evil willow bushes. For some reason we were sent straight through the middle of each and every one of them. Those things sting like you wouldn't believe!!!
I felt like a little rabbit scrambling away from a pack of foxes when the quads came by. Apparantly this is where they got the "harescramble" thing from.
In total, I crashed roughly 5 times, during my three laps, have a huge blister (one inch across baby and proud of it!!!!) on the palm of my hand, a new respect for my dad because he never crashed during his two laps, and a good bit of respect for regulars of this sport.
Last but not least, I have a huge grin on my face because I finished the entire thing when a fair number of the other riders thought I wouldn't. I made 2:46:15 total time without stopping for a break :)
It was a pretty sweet little adventure.
At first, I had no idea what a harescramble was, so I asked around a little when someone had stuck a flyer under the windshield wiper of my borrowed car.
"It's a longer race and you ride on trails."
Well that didn't help too much because I had no idea what the definition of "trail" was.
Through the rest of the DMC series I held it in the back of mind, and was invited several times to participate in it, so when the time came, I decided to try it out.
Of course I decided to make up my mind the night before, and on a whim invited my dad to ride with me. He hasn't done any real riding for about 7 years, but he's a pretty tough guy and is a pretty talented rider when it comes down to it.
He said he'd call back with an answer after he thought about it, and gave me the positive answer at about 2am.
We were short some required gear, so we called up the neighbors and asked to borrow a chest protector that would fit me....and the dad wore mine.
We got a pretty late start, but did arrive just in time to register. Then he got nervous as we prepped the bikes because everyone else was wearing some pretty heavy gear and jerseys, while he was just in jeans, workboots, and a beta-seed jacket (For those of you who don't understand that. It basically means that my dad looked every bit the stereotypical farmer minus the plaid shirt and redneck accent.).
The start was pretty funny because I forgot to have my kickstart lever out, and he didn't understand to put his hands on his head. Once the picture got across, we took off behind the rest of the C class bikes.
The course was 14.3 miles, and I was nervous about the little CR running out of gas, but I stopped each lap and was assisted by some random people in filling my tank.
I thought that the dad was right behind me, but I was quite wrong...it ends up he was about 15 minutes behind me during the first lap. There was another 85 rider, and we traded crashes and places back and fourth as we navigated the cow pastures, TIGHT AND TWISTY woods trails, and rough praire sections that had a horrendus amount of evil willow bushes. For some reason we were sent straight through the middle of each and every one of them. Those things sting like you wouldn't believe!!!
I felt like a little rabbit scrambling away from a pack of foxes when the quads came by. Apparantly this is where they got the "harescramble" thing from.
In total, I crashed roughly 5 times, during my three laps, have a huge blister (one inch across baby and proud of it!!!!) on the palm of my hand, a new respect for my dad because he never crashed during his two laps, and a good bit of respect for regulars of this sport.
Last but not least, I have a huge grin on my face because I finished the entire thing when a fair number of the other riders thought I wouldn't. I made 2:46:15 total time without stopping for a break :)
It was a pretty sweet little adventure.
