Another awesome Zuni 100 finish for me. 9 hours and 9 minutes and 1st place overall. I shaved 33 minutes off of last years time. Four of us started the 100 miler at 7.10am on Saturday morning. 2 single speeders and 2 geared. Me and Billy on the singles and Cameron and Danny on the geared machines. I wasn't sure how my legs were going to do as I had a lot of miles on them from the previous weekends adventure out to Vegas. As expected Cameron took off pretty fast as we hit the singletrack. I wasn't about to chase that rabbit and Danny and I rode a few miles together until he stopped to shed some layers. I kept on going at a steady tempo and at about mile 35 or so Cameron comes up behind me. He had taken a wrong turn again just like last year. Deja vu. He seemed frustrated and motored on. I came into the pits and Cameron said he was calling it a day. He already wasn't feeling well he said from his Moab 24 hour race the previous weekend and decided a longer effort wouldn't do him any good. I was fine with that as now I had the chance for an overall 1st place finish. I refueled and was heading back out for the 2nd loop as Danny came in off of his first lap. He looked relaxed and fresh still. I said hello to him and motored out thinking to myself he would catch me with his geared full suspension set up. As I wound my way through the 2nd lap I kept thinking he would catch me but I kept steadily giving it more gas to try to distance myself from him. It was a nice 2nd lap as I rode by myself enjoying the quietness of the forest. Just me, my bike and the singletrack. I also saw Billy coming in about 15 minutes behind me and knew he would be coming back out to chase as well. As it turned out I had a big gap at the end as Danny had a mechanical; lost a caliper bolt on the rear and had to ride some techy downhill without a rear brake. Kudos to him for not bailing and having the determination to finish. He came in at 10 hours 25 minutes and Billy pushed through to finish just under 12 hours looking pretty worked over. Not pretty. LOL!! Good effort by all. The 50 milers were scattered all about on my way out for my 2nd lap. Apparently not a mass start. Sign in and go.
I need to mention a few other items I have been slacking on and that is mentioning our sponsors in my write-ups. Three big ones I like to mention are Hammer Nutrition, Ergon Grips/Packs and White Brothers. For the past few years I have been using the Hammer Nutrition products; Endurolytes, Heed and Perpetuem. My Ergon grips combined with my On One Mary bars are ideal ergonomics for the long distance riding. Comfortable all day and night. My front suspension on the Ti Airborne 29er (my racing bike) is a WB Magic 80 mm fork. A superior product in my opinion over any other front fork. My Vassago has a WB carbon rigid fork.
I'm looking forward to the next Zuni race already.
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