Well after a year off I decided to give the 6 Hours of Power another shot, having secured the fastest female in NY as my partner 
This is a really cool and fun race, although really hard. They don't have beginner/sport/expert/pro, just solo, male-male team, female-female team, and coed teams, split by under 30 and over 30.
The race started LeMans style with a run to the bikes. I have no idea how far the run was, but since I'm not a runner, it seemed damn far. I managed to get on my bike somewhere in the middle of the pack, and took off up the first fire road climb.
I was determined to pass as many people as possible on the climb, even at the price of going too hard, because I didn't want to get bottled up once the singletrack started. It turned out to be a good strategy, because I got to the singletrack tired as hell, but I was with a pretty fast group. I was held up a little, but not nearly as much as the people farther back.
I spent most of my first lap in a train with some cool dudes from Park Tool, we all pushed each other hard and since they were either solo or male-male team riders, we weren't racing each other so it was all about going as fast as we could. I came in and Gee Spot took off like a mad woman, as expected
To my surprise, Tweek got ahead of me on the run, and stayed ahead for the whole lap. Nice job! Tweek and Instigator also had a very impressive 6 laps in the male-male team category.
Our support people said I was the 3rd co-ed to come in, as it turned out we were in 2nd because one of the teams ahead was under 30. Woohoo! I knew Gee Spot would turn in blistering laps, so all I had to do was be consistent. Our gap to the team behind (Mtbkngrl and our Jackalope friend Matt) was about 2 minutes after the 1st lap, and Gee Spot stretched it to about 5 minutes.
By my second lap, the field was stretched out enough that I didn't need to burn the first climb. I pushed it hard enough to pass a couple people, and had a nice incident free lap, except for some cramps on the last climb. But I managed to pedal through and stretched our lead to about 6 minutes. The 1st place team was hauling ass, no chance to catch them.
Gee Spot put in another hot lap, and got our lead up to about 10 minutes. She's a machine, no doubt about it
Going out for my 3rd and final lap, I knew I just needed to go strong and keep the cramps under control. So I brought the pace down a notch on the climbs and worked on being fast and smooth in the singletrack. The cramps started creeping in again, to the point where I had to go to granny gear on the nasty switchback climb about halfway through. By the last downhill section I knew if I got off the pedals I was gonna be on the ground in a knot, so I just concentrated on cleaning everything, and got home with our 10 minute lead still intact.
One last lap from my awesome partner, and it was all over! Initally we thought we were 3rd, but the results were screwed up, so we had to give our 3rd place trophies to Mtbkngrl and her partner and take 2nd place ones instead
Now off I go to the Fitness and Nutrition forum to see what I can do about those damn cramps next time :angry: I'll post some pics when I get home from work
And a huge thanks to our support crew from Trailblazers for keeping the bikes in top shape, and Squid and Shyrmp for helping out too! These races are damn near impossible without awesome people like that
This is a really cool and fun race, although really hard. They don't have beginner/sport/expert/pro, just solo, male-male team, female-female team, and coed teams, split by under 30 and over 30.
The race started LeMans style with a run to the bikes. I have no idea how far the run was, but since I'm not a runner, it seemed damn far. I managed to get on my bike somewhere in the middle of the pack, and took off up the first fire road climb.
I was determined to pass as many people as possible on the climb, even at the price of going too hard, because I didn't want to get bottled up once the singletrack started. It turned out to be a good strategy, because I got to the singletrack tired as hell, but I was with a pretty fast group. I was held up a little, but not nearly as much as the people farther back.
I spent most of my first lap in a train with some cool dudes from Park Tool, we all pushed each other hard and since they were either solo or male-male team riders, we weren't racing each other so it was all about going as fast as we could. I came in and Gee Spot took off like a mad woman, as expected
To my surprise, Tweek got ahead of me on the run, and stayed ahead for the whole lap. Nice job! Tweek and Instigator also had a very impressive 6 laps in the male-male team category.
Our support people said I was the 3rd co-ed to come in, as it turned out we were in 2nd because one of the teams ahead was under 30. Woohoo! I knew Gee Spot would turn in blistering laps, so all I had to do was be consistent. Our gap to the team behind (Mtbkngrl and our Jackalope friend Matt) was about 2 minutes after the 1st lap, and Gee Spot stretched it to about 5 minutes.
By my second lap, the field was stretched out enough that I didn't need to burn the first climb. I pushed it hard enough to pass a couple people, and had a nice incident free lap, except for some cramps on the last climb. But I managed to pedal through and stretched our lead to about 6 minutes. The 1st place team was hauling ass, no chance to catch them.
Gee Spot put in another hot lap, and got our lead up to about 10 minutes. She's a machine, no doubt about it
Going out for my 3rd and final lap, I knew I just needed to go strong and keep the cramps under control. So I brought the pace down a notch on the climbs and worked on being fast and smooth in the singletrack. The cramps started creeping in again, to the point where I had to go to granny gear on the nasty switchback climb about halfway through. By the last downhill section I knew if I got off the pedals I was gonna be on the ground in a knot, so I just concentrated on cleaning everything, and got home with our 10 minute lead still intact.
One last lap from my awesome partner, and it was all over! Initally we thought we were 3rd, but the results were screwed up, so we had to give our 3rd place trophies to Mtbkngrl and her partner and take 2nd place ones instead
Now off I go to the Fitness and Nutrition forum to see what I can do about those damn cramps next time :angry: I'll post some pics when I get home from work
And a huge thanks to our support crew from Trailblazers for keeping the bikes in top shape, and Squid and Shyrmp for helping out too! These races are damn near impossible without awesome people like that
I don't hide my pain too well now do I?