Bone chilling morning temps, a light drizzle and muddy terrain shrouded in fog set the stage deep in the Michaux State Forest Sunday for this ultra early endurance mountain bike race, the first of the season for the team of Sicklers racers who braved the elements to dominate the field of more than a hundred seasoned riders.
Rock gardens, gnarly wet logs, narrow twisty singletrack, and lung busting, seemingly endless climbs faced the team as we rode 27 miles in this notorious mountain bike wilderness to place three team members in the top five champion spots.
Dan Ellis is an animal.
He actually rode 45 miles in the 4 hour nine mile lap race to take first in the Masters Class and set himself among one of the top riders overall, close on the wheels of some of the fastest pros in endurance mountain bike racing in the country.
But no prizes or money for the winners. That's mountain bike racing, and that's Michaux.
Its all about the glory here. For his efforts Captain Ellis was caped and masked.
Same for Hammerlinda who needed 6 phone calls to awaken her at 4:15 AM to insure she'd make a 5:15 AM departure from Sicklers' Exeter shop.
Big Mark was not waiting for anyone.
And once Linda got her tires rolling off the start line, neither was she. Linda, who said she'd ride with me and not try to be competitive took off like a gazelle from the start line, never to be seen by me until the end when I rolled in a few minutes after her. We both got on the podium, with Linda taking 3rd out of more than 20 women who started and me two spots behind.
Pretty impressive for the Sick Chicks first race.
Unfortunately for me, I followed a bunch of Masters (BM and some other "master navigators" trying to chase BM down) on the first lap into a wrong turn that turned out to be a 5 minute downhill that deadended and required a 10 minute climb to get back on course. I lost 15 minutes and had to pass a pile of people throughout the next three and a half hours to put me in 5th place.
But my 5th place finish was huge for me since I was unable to race or even ride my mountain bike all last summer and have only been on it a handful of times in the last year. Going into it I had no idea I'd even be able to ride one nine-mile lap of the rocky, grinding and legendary Michaux trails let alone bust through four hours and 27 miles of it.
And talk about inspiration - Sick Chicks Corrinne Farrrell and Cindy Seaman raged, both completing 27 miles as well, the longest expert distance imaginable for these two young racers. And to think this was Corrinne's first race ever. These girls are tough and Hammerlinda and I are stoked to have them complete our Sick Chicks team this summer. We're really looking forward to our next race in a couple weeks at Marysville.
And so are the guys who also tore it up at Michaux and peppered the course with red, hammering 27 miles along with us chicks to make an excellent showing. Great job Shafe, Larry and Darren.
And a special thanks to our leader Big Mark for pushing us all to our limits and showing us new ways to wear our socks.
To view the results, click here: http://ffrp.googlegroups.com/web/Michaux_Mash_Results.xls?gsc=GSZbjQsAAADjM5hTbdi8QD-tRfM6o6rO
It's gonna be a great season!!!!!!!
