Chico Racing - Summer 8hr Recap

When you think you can't have more fun on a bike, you drive to Mansfield Outdoor Center for the first 8 hour bike race of the season hosted by Chico Racing.  Luckily for me, instead of being a solo rider, I was on a 4 person team with 3 other awesome riders, Heather, Chris and Johnny.  Our goal was to do good and have fun!  I think we achieved both!

I first want to extend a huge thank you to Adam and the Chico Racing family for hosting the event, but also creating a fun atmosphere and an amazing course!!!   If you have ever done an event hosted by Chico racing you know the professionalism, and the organization they have, and the Spring 8hr was no exception. 

Now really the main reason I come back to these events is the course itself.  Starting at the Outdoor center, you know you will have to do the Epic double track climb to the top of the hill.  Every time you are in the start corral you know you are going to be hurting very very soon with the climb.  But what goes up, must come down eventually.  After the double track climb, you have some flowy recovery double track, then dive into a lot of fun single track.  The first 1/2 of the lap went by so fast, and I didn't want it to stop.  But then, the solo pit area comes up and you know you have the final climb before the finish.  As you ride by the solo pits, you start to wonder, why are they doing that to themselves, but then you remember, I'll be doing that soon enough again.  A huge appreciation goes out to the folks that support the solo riders, without them the number of solo riders I would assume would be drastically less. The Kijiji kilometer comes up on you fast and then a few punch climbs that really make whatever energy you had left in your legs disappear very quickly.  You know you are almost done so you struggle through to the final drop Exit Wound, which is a great way to finish a lap.  Some nice tight switchbacks, all on a descent.  All in all the course was amazing and I would have no problem recommending the race to anyone based on that course. 

With the laps measuring 9.5km, they ticked by pretty quickly, with our team running an average of 30 min lap times.  Doing 30 min laps, it makes life very easy to determine when the rider in theory should be coming in etc.  On our team, Chris started, with Heather, Johnny and I following in that order.  We all kept our laps pretty consistent, which made for a lot of fun throughout the 8 hours!  Our goal was to have fun, and we were!  After every lap, between hacking up a lung from the dust, everyone had a big smile on their face. 

One of the nicest things with these races is that you see many friends along the way, whether they are solo riding, or on a team.  Team Colin, who was doing an awesome job as a solo rider!  Every time I saw him, I had a great chat, and he was upbeat!!! To be that awesome lap after lap, just tells you the determination and the joy on a bike.  

With our team running the 30min laps, and the race running the span of 8 hours, the math works out that each rider on our team would get 4 laps in.  And well that's what we all did.  It is really nice to be able to keep our whole team running in the order we started in, and with no major issues over 8 hours of hard riding.  Chris did clip a tree and break his brake lever but other than that there was nothing major!

As the final minutes ticked by we were in a battle for the lead all the way until the last few laps, where we slipped to second and ended up staying a few minutes behind first.  Our main goal was to have fun, which we did, and we did well on top of it.  Second place is above and beyond our expectations, and I couldn't be more happy about it!

Again, huge thanks to Chico Racing, Mansfield Outdoor Center, and all the volunteers who helped put the race on!!  

Cheers