True Grit Epic 100- Sunny and DIRT!!

View towards the start
Site of bike set up and first 
dirt tracks of the year

So the True Grit Epic 100 Bike Race would be the first true mountain bike race of the year for me.  This year is looking to be a little different for me as I focus on races across the nation in pursuit of having fun and racing hard with my many new friends I have made over the years now. This opening race was held in warm and sunny St. George,Utah which meant that I would be embarking on a first in my many years of racing, flying to a race.  A week earlier I had sent my bike down to St. George and was scheduled to join it on Thursday before the race.  I flew in to Las Vegas on Thursday evening and stayed there for the night as they have cheap rooms that charge ridiculous hotel fees after you check out!!! 

Zen Loop- Crazy Line
(My Photo featured inSonya Looney MTBR Report)

After sleeping off the flight in Vegas, I was northbound for the sunny desert.  I planned on getting to St. George and taking the bike out on a spin for a little pre-ride.  Got to Red Rock Bicycles who held my bike until I got there (Thanks Guys!!)  and found the bike in perfect condition. Immediately like a kid on Christmas morning I headed out to the start venue where I planned to assemble the bike and head on the pre-ride.  I was so excited to finally be standing in the warm sun with temps over 40 degrees.  Long WINTER!!  I assembled my bike on what would be the start line the next day out of the back of my rental.  Fun.  I couldn’t contain my excitement as I finally got everything together, kited up, and was off on the dirt instead of the snow.

Great View on on Zen
(My Photo featured inSonya Looney MTBR Report)

I decided that I would check out the Zen loop as many locals and fellow racers said this was the most technical of loops and warrented a look. I proceeded up the opening climb for the race which was up a nice and rugged dirt road.  Getting to the top I started to run into all the great folks I like to call friends from the past year.  Getting to stop and chat as I was out for pre-ride was great as it had been a long 6 months since the last time I saw many of these folks.  I proceeded to hit the Zen and was amazed at what I found.  This loop was no more than 1 hr. on race day but it was going to be a tough hour.  The loop was full of slick rock, boulders, and cliffs all over.  The drops were big and terrain technical beyond anything found in Iowa! During my pre-ride I stopped many times to take photos and enjoy the view that I knew the next day would just be a blur.  Also I was stopping because of the technical nature of the trail. I scouted a few lines and found out that many times I needed to trust my bike and skills and just take stuff at speed in order to get down the lines. Well got through the pre-ride and didn’t kill myself so +1 for the first true mountain bike ride of the season!  YES!!!!!!

Zen looking down on
Bear Claw Poppy and Stucki Springs

After the pre-ride, I again chatted with some folks from the great shop 92FIFTY (Elevated Legs Supplier) and proceeded to race check in and hotel lounging.  My night was filled with the normal pre-race jitters as I laid out everything for the next morning.

Race Morning

Woke up after a fairly good night’s rest and was ready to tackle the day ahead.  The temps in the morning was a balmy 60 degrees and I not ready for the high temps, hot racing, and full sun that the day was going to bring.  

Sunny and high’s in the upper 70’s were on tap for the race but the racing was going to be much hotter.  The SingleSpeed class for the 2014 NUE Series looks to be a fun one with all the top finishers from 2013 returning to take up the challenge again and I am sure some new top contenders will also be joining us for the fun this year.  

Race Time

Check out the other photos of the race at
Crawling Spider Photography
http://crawlingspider.com/true-grit-epic-2014/

After a little rolling around for my warm up and getting all the final checks done I headed to the starting line. As I prepared to toe the line the top 4 SS finishers from 2013 were all together once again.  Around me was Gerry, A.J. and Ernesto and I knew that this was going to be hard but fun day with friends. Right from the gun it was on.  Gerry took the early lead up the opening climb obviously wanting to open an early lead to make the rest of us chase him.  That we did as A.J. and myself took a chase position up the road climb working together to rotate and stay out of the wind.  The story of the day was no doubt the wind!!  For most of the day if you weren’t getting a boost from the tailwind you were getting stopped dead in your track with a massive head wind or blown over with even stronger cross winds.  

Check out the other photos of the race at
Crawling Spider Photography
http://crawlingspider.com/true-grit-epic-2014/

After the opening road climb, things came together as Gerry, AJ, Myself, and another SS were right together to enter the Barrel Ride section of trail.  It was here that mishap #1 for me on the day hit.  Unfortunately this being my first time on the SS race bike in 4 months not everything was set up and ready to go. My bars tipped on a nasty rock drop and I had to make the hard decision to watch the 3 other guys ride away as I fixed the bars.  The bad thing was I needed to stop again later to move the brake levers as I mistakenly placed the bars just off.

After fixing the bars I could see Hammer Nutrition SS in front of me so I made a push and worked my way up and past him to take hold of 3rd entering Zen.  During the pre-ride of this section, Zen was very challenging but surprisingly at race pace I was able to make all the drops and climbs with ease and push through very fast.  Feeling good about this I went on in hopes of pulling Gerry and A.J. back.  The next section of Bear Claw Poppy trail was rocking fast.  This section had multiple line selections and was ripping fast but bumpy. I could see why Gerry choose to ride a Full Suspension SS for True Grit due to this fast but rough section of trail that was all downhill. I was able to rock this out very fast and then it was to the nightmare section of Stucki Springs. 

Check out the other photos of the race at
Crawling Spider Photography
http://crawlingspider.com/true-grit-epic-2014/

Stucki Springs would have been an awesome trail with a pretty nice uphill grade for a SS to keep power to the pedals without spinning out but not today as it was into a stiff, possibly 20-30 mph headwind.  This sucked as it was about 1 hr. of riding straight into the wind but grit your teeth and get through it is all I thought. I did swear at the wind a few times as I despise wind in general! Getting through this with a geared local’s help I hit the Rim Runner trail with strength and feeling good.  Barrel Roll Aid station was next where I pulled away from my geared friend and was on my own to get nearly blown off the trail and over a cliff by unbelievable cross winds!!!  This was nasty as many times you would be on slick rock and feel your bike slide sideways because of the wind.  A little unnerving but again in True Grit style, Grit and bear it!!  Got through here fine and back to the aid and heading to what was suppose to be my second lap.

Here the biggest mistake of my day happened.  Unfortunately on this section of trail, a running race had been run the weekend before and had used white arrows to mark the route.  This section of the trail the arrows appeared and seemed to run right with the trail markings for the race which were hard for me to see due to never racing in the dessert, the wind and little orange pieces of tape that were getting blown away by the wind.  So as I crested a hill I saw the white lines so headed on with the fire road type trail not seeing off to the left the hidden sign where we were to enter a washout and head to lap 2.  I rode on, off trail for about 30-35 minutes, literally all uphill and wound up back at Barrel Roll Aid.  Knowing I had missed a turn I did the only logical thing and headed back on trail to find where I missed the turn.  By the time I found the missed turn I had been bumped back and lost about 40 minutes to now 3rd place SS Ernesto.  GAME OVER!!

Finish Line- Not a bad view for a school!

I pushed on with hope of pulling Ernie back in but knew it was not in the cards as I had used alot of effort on the off course riding and now was into the wind and uphill sections of trail that worked me over pretty good.  I did my best to limit my loses on the day.  The second lap was pretty much myself riding with myself.  Rode shortly with Curt Wilhelm of 92 Fifty but I had an adrenaline rush knowing I was finally nearly done so I burst off and towards the finish.  Ended up finish 4th in the SS class and 21st Overall in just over 8 hours. I really do feel that if I hadn’t taken the wrong turn I would have been in under 7:30 but I guess I will have to try my luck next year to see this come to fruition. Congrats to the other three on a strong ride though as they were riding strong for such an early season race. Not quite the start I imagined but what was interesting, the SS class now sits with the top 4 from last year in the exact same positions we ended 2013 in.  Weird but only fitting to lead to one heck of the year.  Next up for myself and many of the top dogs is Cohutta 100 in Tennessee at the end of April. See ya there!!

Garmin File and Other Race Reports
True Grit Bike Epic Garmin File
MTBRaceNews.com Race Report
Pfun with Pfulg Report
A.J. Linnell Write Up
Sonya Looney MTBR Report