SSUSA 2011 in Boulder was pretty awesome. 100 of the finest single speeders around. TR and I from the Kokopelli team made our way over to Boulder on Friday morning. The event organizers did a great job putting this together with some fun hosting competition festivities for hosting the 2012 SSUSA. Vermont won. East coast next year for this one. Friday night kicked off with a mandatory cruiser ride to a couple of drinking establishments. First stop was Shooters where we drank PBR's, registered for the event and rode a mechanical bull. The bull was intimidating but I gave it a go and was put to the ground fairly quickly. Next stop was to a bar in a basement called Downers or some thing close to that. Things got a bit out of control for sure. Getting to bed early for the 9am race start was the goal but 3am comes quick when hanging out with the Niner crew; Fuzzy, DJ to name a few. Wow, I was wrecked trying to get up Saturday morning after a passed out drunken stupor with 3 hours of sleep. If you want to call it sleep. Anyways TR and I drive over to the Nederland High School where the start of the race was to begin. There was some heavy hitters for this one; Fuzzy, DJ, Nick Gould, Cameron Chambers, Robin G, Chad Cheeney etc, etc. etc.....The neutral roll out was about 5 miles up the paved road and over to Rollinsville where we took a right turn on a dirt road and another right where to our surprise was the Dale's Pale Ale motor home blowing his horn. Awesome. No beer for me but Christina Begy was soon chugging one down before the start. For those of you that recognize that name she is a bad ass single speeder. So, Jake gives us a talk about the course and we do a short Le Mans style start and up, up, up we go. The first fire road climb was steep than we turn onto a short steep singletrack section where it is rocky and than over a short snow field. Game on. I had shaken off the drunken cob webs and realized it's racing time. Let's go people. Race time!! With the uphill fire road section at the beginning the field had fractured apart. There was a handful of us blazing the first few miles with Eszther, DJ, Todd Sadow (Epic Rides Guru) and some others. Soon it was just a few of us. We saw Chad and some others at a later intersection looking for the flagging and they chose a direction that wasn't correct and Eszther found our way with our small group. Back on track and going again. The singletrack was awesome with some creek crossings, tight swooping climbs that were leg busters with the 32x20 gearing. The short punchy stuff was a fuel zapper but I just kept on the gas with a few of us hanging together. We soon made it to the halfway point where I kept on going and Todd stopped for some water and later missed a turn where a lot of others missed as well. I later passed up on the next feed stop where apparently there was margaritas and such but I motored through and a guy was handing out Slim Jim beef jerky so I threw that down for some fuel and kept on motoring. I was soon by myself and caught up with Will Inverso and DJ. Will was fading and DJ punched it and took off. He apparently soon missed a turn. I was up and over the final climbing sections where we were going backwards on where we had descended earlier. A lollipop route. I was to the final switchback and some dude passed me which to my surprise I rolled in at 4th place. That dude took my third! LOL!! I was stoked to get 4th. I was amazed so many had missed turns. I really should have been closer to 8th or 10th place. Nick, Fuzzy, DJ, Cameron, Chad, etc all missed turns (some multiple turns) on the route. TR as well missed a turn and rode a couple more miles. I was diligent to watch the flagging as I have learned in previous experiences it will pay off. Just don't put the head down and hammer. Nick probably would have won as he was off the front at the beginning but FAIL. Eszther finished right behind me and took the women's overall. She is tough! People were trickling in for the next hour or more and we drank some Dale's fine beer and pedaled our way back to the high school in Nederland in which involved more climbing on the pavement. The after party was held at 6pm at the 303 Distillery in Boulder. Great schwag give aways and good times talking to old friends and meeting new friends. What a weekend!!!
Stats:
Miles. 26.66 including warm up
Elevation gain: 3800 feet
Calories burnt: 2000
Beers consummed: A fucking boatload.
Hours of sleep in two nights: 9 hours (3 on Friday night and 6 on Saturday)
2 comments:
What an adventure! I wish I made the trip - but it was a not an option as 24 Hours in the Canyon was on the schedule. I hanged out with those Boulder Hooligans in New Zealand. Man. Great Times. I missed a hell of an event! 4th place! Unreal! You are a super freak!
Oh. I like the word 'hanged'. I know it's 'hung'. But come one, English is a tough language for us single speeders.
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