Leadville, Mayhem, Rocks and Flats

Earlier this week I received the dreaded email:
Dear Leadville Race Series Family,
We regret to inform you that we are unable to accept your application for the
2011 Leadville Trail 100 MTB race. In order to offer the nation’s highest quality athletic
experience with the utmost degree of safety, medical care, and racer support, we are
unable to accommodate every interested rider. We do not offer a waiting list, and are
unable to accept entries for 2012.

Blah blah...whatever. I wasn't too bothered about it as I've said before just entering Leadville was the catalyst for spawning so much more.

Training this week went really well and I felt ready to tackle the race that was the "Mountains of Mayhem". I was really curious for this pre-season game to test out just how far I'd come and where I was.

Race Day:

On to the day of the event. Myself, Mark Orton and Jeff Sikes all headed down to Ft Sill nice and early and it was freeeeeezing. I'd loaded my bag the night before and put my warm weather gear in just in case. We were 1 of the first there and went and registered, took care of some nature business, then got back in the truck where it was warm.

Me stripping off my warm weather gear (Thanks Tommy!!)

Eventually we decided it would be a good idea to start getting our crap together for the warm up etc. So bikes were unloaded, gear put on, and off we rode to warm up. I decided to tackle the 1st hill as part of my warm up.....holy crap!!! It was steep, loose, rocks the size of some small Japanese cars!!! I was a little nervous at first, but this crap was not stuff I was used to riding on nevermind racing on.

The Race:

At about 10:45am we lined up to start this Mayhem (now I see why its called that), and I moved towards the front of the pack as I didn't want to get stuck behind people who would be walking their bikes up the hill. Come 11am (or so) they shot off the huge cannon and the race was underway. I pushed hard to hit the hill as part of the 1st 1/3 of people and starting climbing......this hill was nasty, gnarly, steep, and loose rocks everywhere. One thing I discovered quickly is that I now have a climbing ability.....holy crap I can climb!!! A 60lbs weight loss will give you a new ability to be faster (who woulda thought that).

I cruised up the hills pretty comfortably, and headed into the meat of the course. One thing I don't do well is descend on loose rocks....so for this race I made it a point to fly up the climbs, bomb the flats and be very careful on the descents.

The Flats:

No I'm not talking about the fast parts of the course. Prior to heading down to this race I had been warned to bring 2 spare tubes and 3-4 Co2 cartridges, which I did but never thought I would use them. About 2/3 of the way through the race I ran over a pretty big cactus....and of course air starts pouring out. Luckily I got the wheel spinning enough that the Stans sealed the hole (yeah for tubless and Stans). After that I started speeding up on the descents a little, and of course I hit the sharp edge of one of those Japanese cars. This cause about a 2 inch gash along the side of my front tire (booooo for tubeless and Stans). So off I got to fix that one by putting in one of my 2 tubes and burning a Co2 to inflate. 10 mins later back on my merry way. Crested the last major hill and riiiiiiiip....another rock rips open my front tire again in a different place and pops the tube.......seriously. Another 10 mins later and telling one of the course marshalls that "no I wasn't going to quit because I flatted", I was on my way again.

I pushed really hard for the last 1/3 of the race to make up time and ended up coming in middle of the pack overall with a time of 2:14:00. If I take away 25 mins for the flats my time would have been right at 1:50:00 which is impressive to me.

Post race conversation regarding flats

Overall I was really happy with the race despite the flats and it was a fun race to do as there are not any others quite like the Mountains of Mayhem.

Next week is the start of the TDD series with a race at T-Bird......with a bit of luck, I'm shooting for a top 5 spot in my category.

Below is the race video I took with my helmet cam. Its not great due to the helmet mount I had setup but you get the general idea.