It has been a busy two weekends on the bike. Last weekend I took part in the EX2 Cranky Monkey race at Fountain Head and this weekend Spiller, Manning and I went and pre-rode part of the REV3 Epic Adventure Race scheduled for April 2011.

The Cranky Monkey was a blast. I have never raced at Fountain Head but ride there all the time. I consider it my home course. Because this is such a technical and probably most challenging course out of the three race series (other locations were Shaffer Farms and Wakefield) the field was smallish. There were 23 racers in my category and I figured I’d try and get in the top ten. After a few rain scares the race went off as planned. There was a prolog on the road to split up the field somewhat before hitting the single track and I got into the single track relatively close to the front so I didn’t have to worry about passing only being passed. I rode fairly well. I didn’t feel like I was crushing it but making good time. I had a few mechanicals along the way with my chain and I lost my saddle pack and had to stop and get it. I also had a couple of minor wrecks. Clipped a tree once and took a slow tumble of the bars at another point. I figure I lost about 4 minutes along the way. On the final lap I had two other riders who I kept passing and then losing because of chain issues and eventually finished about 40 seconds behind them. I still managed to take fifth which was very welcome.

The pre ride of the REV3 Epic Adventure race was indeed epic. I met up with Spiller and Manning at Down River Canoe in Bentonville. We were pre riding the first 12 hours of the race planned for April 2011. We started with a 2 mile prolog and then rode about 70 miles with just under 6000 feet of climbing. The ride had some of the longest hills both up and down. The scenery was fantastic. Towards the end of the ride I wasn’t feeling too good. I had not done a good job with nutrition and the heat was getting to me which was strange because I never usually have a problem with that.

The only mechanical we had was a blow out of Spiller’s rear tire. He had just reverted back to tubeless and the tire blew off the rim. The bang was so load we thought he had been shot by one of the locals. The tire completely blew off the rim. Luckily it happened while riding up hill. Very scary seeing as we had been doing near forty miles an hour down some hills earlier in the day. If the blow out had happen at that point, it would not have been pretty. Gives me the chills thinking about it.

At the river Spiller and Manning continued on in a canoe and I bailed. I headed out to reenergize with a burger and good night’s rest. Spiller and Manning continued on to do a 20 mile night trek finishing up at midnight putting in an impressive 100 miles in for the day.

Hopefully I’ll get the nutrition right in two weeks when I head to Wales to do the Brecon Beast, a 100k ride through the Brecon Beacon.

Categories: Adventure Racing, Training