Good to see a lot of DRN'ers at the Piglet, I tried to explain the group as a "virtual motorcycle club" to others.
The ride...
First loop was a lazy Saturday ride with a little mud thrown in for fun and a couple of whoops to warm up your arms. My son and I were a minute early at the first check... oops and a minute late at the second. The "1/2" way point was at 18.9 miles. An uneeded 30 minute rest period ensued with more bench racing than resting.
The club said the second loop would be more difficult. It was about 40 miles long and had some fantastic single track in it. Lots of great hills and some fire roads to cool down on. The single track included a couple of 5-6 mile sections of tight manzanita tunnels that were great. However, for those who haven't riden in manzanita, it has the forgiveness of concrete rebar! I got whacked in the helmet by a 2" limb and saw serious stars for 5 minutes.
The first section of singletrack took some wind out of my son's sails and we had to slow the pace down. The interesting thing for me was that the slower pace through the whooped out sections started to wear me out as well. The whoops were those 2-3 footers that you can kind of skim across the top at the right speed... but slower speeds cause major arm pump.
Anyways, we entered the 4th check about 14 minutes late and made up 6 minutes by the end of the race. The last 10 miles were basic fire roads and double track, the real challenge was not running into tired riders or losing focus.
My son cut 50 minutes off of last year's time.
As an interesting side story. My wife and daughter were going to ride the first loop. Once through that they decided these enduros were easy and started off on the second loop (without leaving us a note). They were on line 40. Well we finished on line 8 and noticed they weren't in camp... assumed they decided to ride the rest. Well we went back to the finish line for 30 minutes until the 40's came in. Checked back when the 60's were coming in, then went back for the last lines thinking we would start the search ...
They posted the scores while we were waiting... no girls, the last riders not houring out came down the hill... no girls. 10 minutes later, 90 minutes late they came down the hill. It was my son and I, the 2 ladies handing out pins, Big Bird and his daughter as they crossed the finish line. We were whooping and hollering as they made the finish of their first enduro, exhausted, but grinning... we've all been there once! My daughter only said 2 things, "I decided a week ago that I was going to finish this sucker!" and then as her eyes got watery... "We did it dad, we did it".
Great race, great track and great memories!
The ride...
First loop was a lazy Saturday ride with a little mud thrown in for fun and a couple of whoops to warm up your arms. My son and I were a minute early at the first check... oops and a minute late at the second. The "1/2" way point was at 18.9 miles. An uneeded 30 minute rest period ensued with more bench racing than resting.
The club said the second loop would be more difficult. It was about 40 miles long and had some fantastic single track in it. Lots of great hills and some fire roads to cool down on. The single track included a couple of 5-6 mile sections of tight manzanita tunnels that were great. However, for those who haven't riden in manzanita, it has the forgiveness of concrete rebar! I got whacked in the helmet by a 2" limb and saw serious stars for 5 minutes.
The first section of singletrack took some wind out of my son's sails and we had to slow the pace down. The interesting thing for me was that the slower pace through the whooped out sections started to wear me out as well. The whoops were those 2-3 footers that you can kind of skim across the top at the right speed... but slower speeds cause major arm pump.
Anyways, we entered the 4th check about 14 minutes late and made up 6 minutes by the end of the race. The last 10 miles were basic fire roads and double track, the real challenge was not running into tired riders or losing focus.
My son cut 50 minutes off of last year's time.
As an interesting side story. My wife and daughter were going to ride the first loop. Once through that they decided these enduros were easy and started off on the second loop (without leaving us a note). They were on line 40. Well we finished on line 8 and noticed they weren't in camp... assumed they decided to ride the rest. Well we went back to the finish line for 30 minutes until the 40's came in. Checked back when the 60's were coming in, then went back for the last lines thinking we would start the search ...
They posted the scores while we were waiting... no girls, the last riders not houring out came down the hill... no girls. 10 minutes later, 90 minutes late they came down the hill. It was my son and I, the 2 ladies handing out pins, Big Bird and his daughter as they crossed the finish line. We were whooping and hollering as they made the finish of their first enduro, exhausted, but grinning... we've all been there once! My daughter only said 2 things, "I decided a week ago that I was going to finish this sucker!" and then as her eyes got watery... "We did it dad, we did it".
Great race, great track and great memories!
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