Epic 8 hour

Yesterday Ben and I did the Epic 8 hour mountain bike race at Albion hills. My goal was to do 4 laps and I did 4! 4 really good laps without falls and riding everything except 2 steep hills that most others were also walking. Ben did 7 laps for a total of 11. We came right in the middle of the pack of 20, 12th. If I wasn't so slow we could have done better, but just finishing the race was a major accomplishment for me.

The only downer of the day was on my last lap about 300 meters from the finishline. A guy came up to pass me on the left and clipped my handlebar with his and took me out. I landed on him and his bike and had the wind knocked out of me. In his excitement over his fastest lap of the day, he forgot to call out which side he was passing on and as it's a long gravel straight it's hard to tell how far back the crunching gravel sound is, so although I knew he was there, I couldn't tell where. In mountain biking it's the responsibility of the faster passing rider to call out which side they're going to pass on if it's double-track and it's more of a negotiation on single-track where the faster rider tells the slower rider they're there, then the slower rider finds a place to slow up and pull over a little and tells the faster rider which side to pass on. 99% of the people yesterday were excellent passers. About 1% were complete assholes, which amounts to about 3 people who passed without saying anything or at inappropriate times and shoved me off the trail. That's a pretty good record for this race and really does the mountainbiking community here credit.

Anyway, so I have a really bruised up left leg and a somewhat bruised up right leg and I thank god I was wearing pads. I still had fun :)