9 Hours of Mountainview

August 15th arrived before I was ready for it, for some reason this race seemed like a good idea, although I’m not sure how I could have rationalized riding around in a rock infested 8km circle up a ski hill for 9 hours, but alas I did. I was probably the Dutch in me doing math…$40 / 9 hours = almost free (at least in the race world) and it came with a T-shirt! Conditions were near ideal, course was dry, skies were clear, sun was out, what more could you ask for?…perhaps an iceblock and a fan strapped to the handlebars! It was going to crest 38 degrees and although a nice portion was in the trees under cover it was going to be a tough one. The goal of this race was for me and Dave to ride together in prep for Crank the Shield but alas, his arch nemesis from O-cups past was there and well once the megaphone sounded he was long gone. I was content to ride far slower than race pace, it had only been 2 weeks since the last dislocation of my shoulder and I wasn’t quite up to giv’n’r on trails that I knew nothing of. The course was great! I fell 3 times on the first lap, once on the second and finally rode clean on the third. It had some steeeeep climbs, fast and/or sketchy downhills and some really nice rock features. The flow was found and it was a well laid out course. There were time bonuses to be had through contest participation, pie eating, waterbottle slingshot, bike limbo etc. Long and short of it was Dave blew his knee out and I got extremely dehydrated and began cramping in my legs and my right lat due to overly babying my left shoulder. Called it quits and went home before the pieeating began. Props go to Thomas Wood and the Mountainview crew for putting on a great event, though small in size was huge in heart!