We loaded up the truck stopped at Mc Donald's and hit the highway for the hour drive to the ride. The coffee helped wake me up but the legs were a different story. We got to the race I got ready as fast as I could knowing I needed to get a good warmup in to wake the legs. My plan was the usual I have for this type of race go hard at the horn try to stay with the lead group as long as possible then kick back and find a group to pace the rest of the race with.
The horn sounded and we were off. I was fourth out of the gate and stayed up there for awhile. As we got about 12 miles in I was in the middle of the lead group and started to see people were starting to get a little out of control so I sat up and dropped back. Then at the next corner there was a crash in the part of the pack I was in. Feeling lucky I rode up to make sure everyone was ok and pedaled on to hook up with a group from half acre beer until the first check point. Once there, I filled a bottle, grabbed a cookie and hit the road solo. I continued this way until the last 10 miles when I was getting the feeling like I wanted to chop my legs off. At that time I looked back and the half acre guys were there the bring it in as a group. I was thankful to see them. It went form 11 mph solo to 20 working as a great team. We stayed together to the end picking of a couple solo riders on the way in.
So after a late night and sore legs at the start I ended up having a great ride. There were a couple of guys that were riding that I wanted to come in ahead of. This wasn't a race but when you get 100 plus guys together it ends up that way. I did finish ahead of Rob Neff which I have never been able to do on a mountain bike and was my motivation for the ride.
After the race they had pulled pork sandwiches and home brewed beer. The guys at IVCA ran a great ride and had great beer and food. Thanks for all the hard work.
