DSG 2009

Dirt, Sweat and Gears 2009...
The dumbest thing I've ever done next to my bike.

We should have called the race and started naked wrestling and making MUD Angels, since we weren't actually bike racing. But since that didn't happen, I just continued forward in the sloshing, silly mud, listening to 90% of the racers and their support crew getting progressively drunker.

Danielle Musto's mid-race interview does the most justice to the insanity of the day.
Many photos and other videos make it seem like you could actually ride/push/carry your bike through the mud, but let me assure you, it was not the case. Lap 1 was rainy, and therefore rideable. Starting halfway through Lap 2 the trail started drying out and the nightmare began..... turning 1+ hour laps into 3 hours of hiking, dragging and sloshing your bike through 3-6 inches of peanut butter mud. 22 pound bikes turned into 98 pound bikes.....


This was Lap 3 when I took out my One Nine with the goal of carrying it the entire time. I rode about 2% of that lap

And still managed to collect 30 pounds of mud


This was my Air Nine before the race. Fortunately, I didn't completely kill my bikes. Maybe it was because of last year's mini mud fest....it gave me the foresight to pick up my bike the second it started getting tacky and run with it.
I wish I had a pic of my bike on the last (4th) lap I didn't have to do. Dejay put a skinny tire on the back wheel and fashioned a carrying harness from his cable lock and a towel duct taped to the middle of it. I crammed a spatula into my chamois leg and went at it. It went like this-Ride til I can't because of the mud. Stop. Scrap bike with spatula. Pick up bike and hike/run with it. Get tired/sore and try riding again.
This 12 hour bike race left my shoulders hurting more than my legs....and left me hungrier than at any 24 hour solo effort I've done. Maybe it's because I couldn't eat and carry/push my bike at the same time, or because I ran out of food when laps tripled in time.

Memories:
-Two different bikes on two different scales weighed in at 100 pounds after doing a lap. That made me feel tough.
-On my 2nd lap, I watched a racer dude ditch his bike and play slip 'n slide down one of
the hills on his belly
-Dicky mud fight
-Finishing the race with 38 or so miles
-Quitting my last lap 1.5-2 miles before the finish

Cycling Dirt has hours worth of entertaining coverage of the event, including photos galore and interviews of racers. Check it out.