Race morning, I unzip the tent and survey the landscape; it’s white and cactus spines as far as 
the eye can see. This is the By late morning the rain had stopped and the snow had melted, but the desert was still very wet. All racers line up at the start, roughly a ¼ mile uphill from our bikes, I took my spot and the nerves kicked in; training had not gone the way I wanted it to the last few months with my work travel schedule, but I was here 
and had to make the best of it. At noon the gun goes off and all of us fools are running downhill in the mud, in our bike shoes. The running start helped spread out everyone at the start so that it was only mildly chaotic at the bike racks. I don’t see my bike where I left when I first get there, but then I see a spectator holding it along the sidelines, not sure why, but I snatched it, he said “Good luck” and I started out on my first lap. Two minutes after the gun the sun came out, finally.
The plan had been to pre-ride the course on Friday so I could be better prepared on Saturday, but the weather made me reverse that thnking so this first lap everything was new to me. It was a wide open doubletrack in the beginning that made the going fast and easy. Being patient and humble is a necessity for solo racers, it takes a lot not to go flying off the front with a bunch of riders on 4-person or corporate teams. Quickly the course turns onto “The Bitches”, from the name and the descriptions I thought I was going to hate them. It turns out that “The Bitches” aren’t so bad, I credit that to 
all of the climbing that is necessary for biking on Colorado’s Front Range; it would be strange to ride my mountain bike and not have to do some sort of climbing. So I offer up a more accurate description of ”The Bitches”.
The Bitches
A series of 50 foot climbs on the 24 Hours in the Old
I pace myself through the Bitches, being particularly careful to watch out for the one that could supposedly throw you and break your collar bone (it has happened many times in the history of the race), but I never found them to be too difficult or dangerous, this is still the first lap though.
My lap continues and the evidence of the recent moisture is everywhere, mud, puddles, ruts, etc are all obstacles for me. Each lap is 15.2 miles long, and with the new trail additions this year is probably ~70% singletrack. The course is crowded and often we are jammed up on the singletrack because there are so many riders, at times I felt like I was on a Critical Mass ride in middle of the desert. Not wanting to overexert myself on the first lap I took the opportunity to tuck in behind every slow rider I caught. I would stick with them so that I didn’t go too fast. I thought this was a brilliant move until I started to realize why these riders were going so slow. I thought that they were like me, solo riders that were trying to make sure they didn’t get caught up in the excitement, not always the case. I quickly learned to identify the people that were slow to conserve energy and the people that were slow because of poor bike handling skills, I would bail on the poor bike handlers because there was no way I wanted my momentum killed by someone else’s mistake. Keeping momentum became pretty important to me throughout the race.
Just before finishing my first lap I reached my camp and Andie was waiting. I had told her to expect me in 1:30 but it took me closer to 1:42, the new singletrack was slower than I had expected. I did a quick bottle change and headed out for another lap.
On this lap I tried to count how many Bitches there were, but I found that I lost track easily “5, wait is that I’m on number five, or I’ve completed five, dammit!” I didn’t get an accurate count until my 6th lap, there are 7 Bitches on the course.
The course was faster as it was starting to dry out. My pacing continued on track and I finished in similar time to my previous lap.
Lap 3 meant the course was considerably faster, and now I’ve found the Bitch that breaks collar bones. Off the descent of the 6th Bitch you get up to 30+ mph and as you’re shooting up the 7th Bitch there’s a berm that really can launch you, my advice, pull up on your bars if you don’t want to kiss the dirt.
When I get back to Andie I now put on my lights as it will be getting dark during my next lap. My lights were a bit of a concern, I had some halogen back-ups, but my primary was a high-powered LED light that I had yet to test; I had literally finished building it that morning and the JB weld didn’t get the full cure time on the mount.
During lap 4 I enjoyed the sunset and made sure to not dawdle as I wanted to get as far into the lap before I needed to use my lights. A little past halfway, I turn on the LED light, I didn’t bring a back-up this lap, that sounds stupid now that I write it out. Cue the sun! Wow that light has got some brightness to it! I’m loving my light and cruising along at a good clip, though the battery connector is not wanting to stay connected too easily.
All of a sudden everything is dark, except under my bike. I quickly stop before I careen off into the cactus and assess. The JB weld on my mount failed, it was fine until the light warmed it up and made it soft, crap. Now my only choice is to hold the light in my hand, while also trying to hold the connector together as the new position puts more strain on the connector and it more easily disconnects. The rest of the lap seems to take forever, my light keeps coming disconnected, I’m steering with one hand, but only have braking with one. When the trail gets bumpy, I'm constantly hitting the On/Off button. Finally after 2 hours I roll into camp.
I show Andie the light and she starts to move to get me out again with other llghts. I explain to Andie that I have an idea and that I’m hungry so I stop and start to fix things up. After 45 minutes I have some soup in me and my LED light is now my helmet light, courtesy of a lot of duct tape. I also have to duct tape the battery to my back as the cord isn’t long enough for a helmet mount, I’m glad I brought that tape.
My ghetto light gets me through another few laps in the dark. It keeps getting colder and Andie has my illness full-blown back at camp, staying up all night in the cold is not good to speed up recovery. At around 2:15 a.m. I roll through the "Golf" checkpoint, my favorite checkpoint by far. The Golf volunteers always welcome you with a resounding yell of welcome, the most memorable night exchange went something like this.
“HELLO AND WELCOME TO CHECKPOINT GOLF!”
“Nice to see you guys you’re always so enthusiastic” I said
“Well feel free to stop and chat if you like.’
“Nope, you don’t even have a fire I’ll freeze” I said
“Oh we have a fire over there, and heaters, and hot chocolate.”
“Damn you! Quit trying to make me stop!” I said
“I KNOW, I’M AN ASSHOLE!”
It was 28 degrees at checkpoint golf at that point, I had four layers on my torso, two on my head, three on my legs and a pair of thick socks and my winter boots on my feet, I still wished I had one more layer on my torso.
Shortly after the Golf checkpoint I rounded a bend and was startled to see a 6 foot tall alien giving me the peace sign. 50 feet later a cowboy was just off the trail ready to draw his gun. These cardboard stand-ups somebody had placed really made me chuckle. Later that lap a team rider went past me and said ‘I’m not embarrassed to say that that alien back that scared the crap out of me.”
I finished my 7th lap at 3 a.m., it was a good lap, my second fastest yet, but a pattern had formed. Throughout the night I kept having a great lap, then a bad lap, so next up would be a bad lap. To break the cycle and to let Andie get some rest (nice excuse eh?) I ate some soup and took a nap until morning.
In the morning I woke up, ate, drank and got back on the bike. The feeling had returned to my previously numb butt and it didn’t like my saddle anymore. I wasn’t racing anymore, I was just there to learn, my first 24 hour mountain bike race, I wanted it to be a good time.
I was planning at least 2 more laps in the morning, but the Bitches saw it differently, somewhere through them my water bottle cage broke and I lost my only source of hydration and nutrition 15 minutes into my lap, I had taken exactly 2 sips from it. Well, this means I would spend a little 
more time back at camp getting caught back up before my next lap. This lap was fun as I talked to some other racers and was astounded to come across some team racers that were out for there 2nd or even 1st lap while I was on my 8th.
Camp was comfortable and I quickly decided that I had enough riding, I would just hang out until noon and then turn in my baton. I didn’t want to make bringing the singlespeed a total waste so I would ride that to the finish. I helped pack up camp and changed to jeans and then I rolled into the timing tent at noon to finish my race. It was a lot of fun and I think I will do more of these races, but I’m not going to let myself get consumed with going in circles for hours and hours. In total I rode 121.6 miles. I’ll finish this post with some pictures of the end of the race and of the drive home.
