Likin’ Bikin’ News

It’s finished – done – gone – finn’ito – wheww…

We arrived at the venue early Saturday morning, after a comfy night at the Wilcox house, and set-up the L’B’ home base.

This consisted of a tent for sleepin’, the car for power and heat, and the good ol’ Hoss tent for relaxin’, eating, decorating, accommodating trick-or-treaters,  and wrenchin’ on the bike (of which, by-the-way, the diSSent needed NONE – I’m convinced, it’s immortal)

3 hrs ’til race time, I attempted to inhale 6 pancakes. I managed 2/3 of them and felt “ready” for my planned 5 lap start…. which I actually did complete.

The start was “Wheel-Off-Le Mans” style. Go set your bike down with the front wheel removed. Foot-race it outta the gate to the bike, get that wheel on, and go! Costumes were encouraged, and about half of the racers Halloweened-up. Of course, Bri and I were pirates for the duration of the first lap. Yo-ho-yo-ho!

Now, 5 laps in and with the sun setting, it was time for the second set of nutrition-bombs… Cold pizza and this stuff?… a meal to which I give full credit for the stomach pain of laps 6, 7, and 8.

Thankfully, these were also the early evening laps, during which plenty of friends, visitors, trickortreaters, and general party’ers were there to greet, encourage, and just spread the spirit-liftin’-love!

After lap 9, it was time for more food, more layers, and more importantly, MORE rest. By this time, the temps were getting down to about 37degs. So I hopped in the car and ran the heater for a little while. Then, reluctantly crawled out, and shivered over to the timing tent from where laps 10 and 11 somehow developed.

After those, it was about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.. I think? And I was just gonna take a short break while NiteRider-Tom refreshed the charge on my lights. So those batteries went to him, and I went right back to that heated car.

I was in there for about 5mins, when the passenger door opened. Yes! I was happy to see my ever-amazing wife joining me. She must have heard the car start and left the snugness of her sleeping bag to come hang out… in the front seat of our car…in the middle of the night…with her husband who’d gotten her into this cold sleepless mess.

Well, we both nodded off for about 3 hrs. I woke up in a complete daze. It was still dark, and I had no idea what or where I was supposed to be. I jumped out of the car (extra freezing out there now), over to NiteRider, picked-up the batteries and just started pedaling.

It took about 2miles before I figured out what was going on. I stopped. Straightened the clothes I’d been sleeping in, fastened the all the straps and those little plastic buckles that had been dangling since battery pick-up, generally regrouped and rode on while watching the sunrise.

I knew I wanted to do 15 laps of this thing,  and that I was 4 laps from it. A mere 36 miles from my goal. (“mere”, ha!)

The rest is history.

After all was done, and in 25hrs, my trusty Misfit and I managed 15 laps (135 miles) of some lovely, pleasant, warm, pain-free, SS riding time. Ahhh… like a day at the spa.

Maybe not QUITE like that.

I do have to say, to all you’s out there solo racing these 24hr events, you’re sick. <– (period/full stop)

That said, whatta way to test yourself! I’d never been in the predicament of riding to the point of complete leg failure, and determining whether to rest for an hour (presumably to ride faster thereafter), or to keep slogging along at bare-balance speed for one more time around. It became a 25hr chronic mind-game of, “what should I be doing right now?” to gain what seemed to be the most important thing on the planet: MORE LAPS.

(Thanks SO much you Wilcox’, you all are the most thoughtful “race crew” a soslow SS rider could have!)

Photos!