Where to start this story…
Well how about I spent literally 4 hours on my bike Friday afternoon while frantically trying to pack to leave by 3:30pm for the mountains. What I thought was going to be a routine fork swap, tire mount, chain replacement, and seat post/saddle change turned out to be a full-time job. Let me start from the beginning…. I got some sweet new DT Swiss 1440 wheels and mounted Stans Crow 2.0 tires front and rear without an issue. I also needed a new fork since my other one was a few years old and I think needs to be serviced so I called up Magura for a new Durin Race 100mm fork with remote lockout. Removing my other fork would seem to be no problem for my mallet however the aluminum spacers for the stem were literally seized onto the forks steerer tube. Holy hell this was not easy to remove.
It was nearly 90 degrees outside and I was sweating my butt off trying to hammer that fork out… finally getting it down to the spacers and figuring out how to loosen the spacers enough to remove the fork! I put on the new fork, hooked up the remote lockout and quickly got myself some CARBON spacers… not sure if this make a difference. 1.5 hours into this I had to put on 2 new chains which take literally no less than 5 minutes with matching the length and such… well for some reason the supplied SRAM power links did NOT connect with each other. I tried different combination links from both chains and still a no go. I finally went back to the links off the old chain and voila!! 2 hours into this project comes the fun part. I wish I had pictures to share but didn’t think of it. All I wanted to do is put on a new seat post and seat and be done with it all.
The old seat post was a bit tough to slide out due to some friction so I wiped out the frame after removal and started to slide the new carbon post in. I’m not sure if the Titec carbon posts are a little ticker than most posts because of the high gloss or what but the post got stuck with a LONG way to go until it reached my height. I was twisting the seat trying to slide that post down further and used a little too much effort…. oops the seat clamp is now loosened from the post itself and would you look at that? The darn thing came right off the post! Now I have a carbon post stuck in my primary bike that I am determined to ride so I took to a metal object and started pounding the crap out of the post to get it seated into the frame. This baby is NEVER coming out now and even though I splintered the carbon a bit, I got it low enough to match my height however had to epoxy the seat clamp back into the post hoping it would withstand 24 hours of riding. Clint didn’t think it would hold one lap… but it held the entire race!
Okay enough talk about the bike repair. I got it fixed and we were headed up to the mountains to get there before dark so I can ride these tires that literally have no tread but are grippy as rock climbing shoes to see if they hold air. We got up there and my rear tire was flat but that’s because I didn’t ride them yet and they weren’t sealed.. Riding 20 minutes fixed this.
It’s now race morning with the usual race prep and nerves. There were a few names I know racing with me and know I would have a battle ahead based off last few years winning lap times. I ate breakfast and then some lasagna around 11am to hold me over for quite a few hours into the race and then lived off my special concoction of race fuel including many many Hammer Endurolytes & Anti Fatigue caps (miracle pills right there!), powedered drink mix, Ensure Plus Choc Shakes, 1 liter of coke + 2 cans in for the last 3 laps, 2 bite sized snickers bars for the last 2 laps, 4 red bulls, oat meal, watermelon, eggs, bacon, chicken soup, chicken meatballs… and that may be it.
This may be the first 24 hour race where I felt amazing the entire race minus the 2am lap. Greg in second place was chasing me down since the moment I passed him on the first lap and never let go of me, holding within 10 min of me for pretty much the entire race. I put a 25 min gap on him late at night but then I stopped for 15 min a few times to eat and use the potty. From there the race was back on and literally was racing at speeds close to a short-distance xc race towards the last 4 laps of this race. I was doing the math in my head while riding and had a feeling it would come down to 26 laps, but not 27. My last 3 laps got progressively faster as my gf kept telling me Greg was doing 49-50 min laps and trying to catch me. Does this guy know that I am not going to lose the lead now after having it for 23 hours?? I busted my butt around that course one last time running on pure adrenaline and made it in 49 minutes. I surely must have looked like a psycho going around the course the last few laps but crossing the finish line first was well worth it.
Perhaps me having a number 27 plate was ironic or foretelling my 27 lap future.. or maybe it had to do something with my birthday.
Here is a pic of me passing out on the ground after I came through… notice the accumulation of dirt on my legs from the past 24 hours.
Thanks to everyone who helped me out during the race including the racers I passed and the ones who passed me shouting out encouragement. My support crew was great even though I caught them sleeping around 3am but everything worked out as planned.
Results:
http://www.grannygear.com/realtime/public/gg_class.php?display_standings_flag=1&class=MZ
