24 HITEF

Laura and her teammates rocked the 24 Hours in the Enchanted Forest this past weekend. 14 laps total. I was the pit bitch and wrenched bikes for the girls. Team members were Laura Kyriakakis, Julie Carpenter, Tonya Wynes and Katie Kappenhafer. It seems like girls have more problems than guys do when it comes to bikes. LOL. For example: Katie came into the pits during the night and her White Brothers Loop left wiper seal had blown out. I've never seen that before but I was able to repair it and it lasted the duration of the ride. Weird. Also brakes were a common issue. "Jeff, my brakes are rubbing" Really!

The weather was fairly hot and real dusty dry conditions. The fire danger is through the roof everywhere it seems like. Here in Rico it hasn't rained it quite some time.

I was happy the girls had a great race and rode well through the entire night. Congrats!!!

Wrenching non stop.

The camp site. Ground zero.

Julie on the teams first lap.



Julie looking a bit dusty after her first lap.

Laura crushing her first lap out.

I even got some saddle time on the Zuni course.

Top of the podium for the girls.

Laura and I won some sweet White Industries hubs in the raffle.

Salida Big Friggin Loop

The start at Cafe Dawn.

With 20 some miles left TR and I found our chips (rock) for a 45 minute time bonus.




The Salida Big Friggin Loop was a true grass roots epic route.  Tom Purvis did his homework to put together a real beating of a ride. This was the first year of the SBFL which is part of the Colorado Endurance Series. The first year of this ride was a hit. Congrats to Tom and all of his hard work.

TR and I rode the route together and without a GPS track the second half would have been tough to complete. It was all new territory for me except the start which is the same as the Vapor Trail 125. The course was about 40% single track with the remainder fun dirt roads. Lots of climbing with a total of 13,400 feet of climbing in 108 miles. Took us 13.5 hours to complete. I love new terrain and this route was exactly what I was looking for.  At one point I expected to see Little Joe and Hoss out on the Ponderosa Ranch. LOL.

Here is the email from Tom Purvis the host of the 2012 SBFL........

Hey folks, great day. Great group of people!

I've posted the results here.

Basic stats: 58 starts, 20 Long Loop finishers (14 with Futurity
Chips; one may be still up there!), 26 Base Loop finishers, 12 DNFs.

http://schizoidepics.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/sbfl-results/

Please check my accuracy. Let me know if you have an amendment.

Some great stories coming out. My favorite concerns the epic adventure
Becky Sears and Tim Miller enjoyed. Becky was having trouble and was
preparing for a scary night out there. Tim, perhaps the nicest person
I've ever met, stayed with her until they both made it safely back to
Cafe Dawn. There were bears, there was vomiting, there was travel off
course.

Tim deserves lots of congratulations and admiration. He was one of
those good samaritan heroes that turned imminent disaster into a rich
experience for both of them.

Thank you Tim.
-- 
Tom Purvis, Salida, CO