Whiskey 50

I didn't win, but we all did. This picture is winning in a nutshell. 3.5-6.5h ride for our group, then a concert, beer garden, in sunshine in a city center park.

Shawn came closest to actual winning with a 4th overall (awesome!). John was next, place unknown (maybe like 100?), but about 5 mins ahead of me (about 4:25 for him). We traded back and forth 3 times at the end, John had cramping, and I had to CO2 my tire a few times. Brian and Thian came in about 10 mins more each. Darren was just under 6.5h.

Climbed out of town, moved up lots of spots on pavement (we started behind 200 priority spots). Got to the singletrack comfortable and in a place where we all rode well together. Really flowy trails, kind of blue square difficulty all day, nothing really hard, but just smile inducing fun. Great course. Smooth and flowy. I had a great first 2h, then it "warmed up". Into aid 2, the climb had no wind, and I could feel BakkeBaking. In all honesty it's not that hot, maybe 25C is the reported day high, but I haven't been riding in anything other than icebreaker and gore tex for months, and I've learned I'm not much of hot weather person.

Got some water and descended the long road. Saw Shawn in 3rd on the climb. As I u turned and climbed, I just kept slowing down. Sun on the back and a 25k climb just sapped me, granny geared it, kept drinking. Legs felt fine, energy just wasn't flowing (or it was going in a proportionally high amount to cooling).

Guy at the aid 3 asked me if I wanted drinks "cause you look hot man". I said sure. I asked if this was hot or cool; he said this was a cool year. Ugh. Climbed 3 more miles then the big singletrack descent. Really fun, but I got a weird hole in my tire - pinhole like just a millimeter above the rim on the sidewall, like almost by the bead. Hard to shake sealant there. It was fine, just needed a few CO2 stops. John and I started exchanging spots (I though he would get me on the climb how I was feeling). Had to do last CO2 like 500m from finish as it was too mushy to make it. That probably took 4 mins overall, where climbing like a wimp for 25k was probably 3-4x as much.

Festival here is great. Music, fat tire ale, burgers and fries, frisbee being played on green grass by kids and golden labs. That's the serious winning part. Just so awesome.