12 Hours of Cranky Monkey

Yesterday was 12 hours of racing at Quantico on the Marine Base. There was a large contingent of City Bikes riders intent on riding and having fun.

Marc, Steve and Chris were going for it in Masters. Scardaville, Tom and Wheaton were racing Expert as were MattyD, Kent and Darren (slow down) Biggs. Tris rocked solo and Ilana and I entered Duo Open.

Jonathan from Family Bikes gave me a ride to the venue with his team and we departed scenic Crofton, MD, at 5am. Yup, 5am. Uneventful ride down, which is to say we told stories and had no traffic.

On-site, we hooked up with all of the City Bikes kids and Posner, his wife and Ken Bell (Team Gripped Films, Open 3person) set up next to us.

I started with the run which was a bad idea. That and the fact that I hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in a week made for a tired first two laps. I figured that doubling-up would be good as I've never ridden the course. It was fun and I managed two sub-hour laps. Ilana went out for her first lap telling me that she had 'a mechanical' and could only do one lap. Ok, no prob. I went back to the City Bikes staging area and tried to eat, drink and rest in the hour that I had to chill. She came back and I went out for two more laps. Ilana pulled the next two laps, I did another double and then Ilana did the last double to finish up a lap ahead of fourth but on the 2nd place lap. The winners only beat us by one lap. That's pretty rad. We only decided to race duo on Wednesday so it worked out well. Podium in our first Duo attempt. We were both tired and stoked. Next time, we both agreed that we should actually try to strategize to improve our position but laughed it off as we both had a good time.

The Master's race was the best story from the race. Viers went out first and turned in a solid lap. Chris went out without a chain tool and, guess what? Broke a chain. He was running and Scardaville caught up to him and gave him a tool. He lost about 15 minutes on that lap. He was bummed. Marc went out next and DOUBLE FLATTED *AND* couldn't get his CO2 to work then borrowed a bad pump. Damn. He was less than happy. They were 35 minutes down. Through the race, they pulled back into first. Chris passed the first place rider, broke a chain, got passed, fixed his chain THEN pulled back into first! STUD! Talk about redemption. These guys pulled from 4th to first and had the race won without sending a rider out before 7pm.

Kent, Darren and MattyD were RIPPING and won Expert 3. Scardaville and his guys came in 3rd Expert as well. Posner's team got first place Open 3 and Siebold and the Family Bikes guys came in first Singlespeed 3. Our whole campsite was on podium. It was huge.

I pulled 6 laps, all under 1hr which was my own personal victory. I rode 3 doubles and had a really good time. It was a SUPER slippery course as it was amazingly dry and loose. There were jumps and great turns and high-speed stuff and tight stuff with some REALLY steep climbs. I managed to ride everything on every lap with the exception of this one section that no one could ride. Steep, loose, big roots, big rocks... I almost cleaned it twice.

I was in full race mode and passed a few people a bit aggressively. I didn't put anybody into the woods or anything, but there were a few times I passed people on inside lines on sketchy downhills. They were clean passes, but I think I may have scared somebody here or there.

There was a set of doubles on the backside of the course and I hit them after seeing them on my frist lap. It was a solid one-foot-high jump with a solid three-foot gap. Huge, eh? I got behind a guy in a MORE jersey a few minutes on my fourth lap but couldn't really get the power up to pass him. When we got in sight of the little jump, I was going to go right if he jumped or jump if he wen't right. He went right so I kicked it up a bit and came by him just when I hit the jump and came past him on the landing. It was pretty cool. He gave me a little 'whoa' and at the bottom of the descent at the sharp right, he said 'you could have given me a little heads up' and I apologized saying 'I was trying to find the coolest way to pass you and that's what I came up with. Sorry.' He said, 'All I heard was a WHUMF and I saw you in the air next to me.' I managed to ride away from him but I want to find out who he was just so he knows I'm not a complete assclown. I said COMPLETE...

Great event, good fun, good outcomes for all. I didn't take one friggen picture but I'll try to snag some from the rest of the team.

Big thanks to my main sponsors, Susan, Emma and Jeremy. I really missed them at this event...