race report - part 3
Goodness, we're only heading to the ride/trek at Circle S. Talk about long winded. And Erika, my sister in law, said that it doesn't sound like it was much fun. That's because the interesting parts aren't terribly fun. It would be even more boring to tell you about walking along just talking or joking or finding CPs one after the other with no nav mistakes, wouldn't it? In fact, even the bad weather was fun. The whole thing was fun. Ok, not true. This next part wasn't much fun.
We arrived on the bikes at Circle S ranch and entered the south parcel. It became obvious pretty quickly that the roads on the map did not match the roads on the ground. We took a bit of time to get oriented and then quickly started finding check points. There was one confusing section due to that problem of mis- or un-marked roads, but we didn't pretty well finding most of the CPs in the northern section of the ranch. The idea was that we could ride as close as we could to the CP and then walk to find it. Bikes could be used on existing roads and trails. We did carry our bikes through some areas to cut down the distances between CPs. Things were going well. We'd passed Nike, so we were in third and making good time. Until. the. flats. 9 (maybe. I lost count) flat tires, 1 torn side wall and a broken chain was the total of our injuries. Unfortunately, we only had 5 spare tubes, and the slime tubes that were leaking don't patch well. We calculated (from when Nike passed us to how much earlier they arrived at the next TA ahead of us) that we lost 2 hours to bike issues.
Finally we got rolling, and by this time the weather was turning bad again (surprise!) and we were out of water. We started the ride out to Crooked River Ranch, which would serve as TA for the rest of the race. We stopped at a house along the way to ask for water. Bad idea. Scary dogs, scary people. No water. They said all their water was bottled and they couldn't give us any. That was the first time any of us had been refused water. So, thirstily, we continued our ride to the ranch.
When we arrived, we found out that STAR and Tom's team were already out on the trek. Nike was in TA and getting ready to leave. We were determined to be right behind them, so quickly got ready to head out. As we were getting close to ready, Jim came by to tell us that there was a tornado warning in effect and that we would have to stay for at least 1/2 hour. Nike put down their packs and sat, while we keep getting ready so that we'd be set to go as soon as we were given the OK.
The OK didn't come for 5 hours. Hail, heavy rain and tornados made us stay in TA. We were well fed by STAR's support crew, got everything ready to roll and then went and slept in the lodge until the weather cleared. It's amazing that we managed to be in TA all three nights when the weather was bad.
(Part 4, the final installment. Last two trekking legs and the dramatic finish!)
We arrived on the bikes at Circle S ranch and entered the south parcel. It became obvious pretty quickly that the roads on the map did not match the roads on the ground. We took a bit of time to get oriented and then quickly started finding check points. There was one confusing section due to that problem of mis- or un-marked roads, but we didn't pretty well finding most of the CPs in the northern section of the ranch. The idea was that we could ride as close as we could to the CP and then walk to find it. Bikes could be used on existing roads and trails. We did carry our bikes through some areas to cut down the distances between CPs. Things were going well. We'd passed Nike, so we were in third and making good time. Until. the. flats. 9 (maybe. I lost count) flat tires, 1 torn side wall and a broken chain was the total of our injuries. Unfortunately, we only had 5 spare tubes, and the slime tubes that were leaking don't patch well. We calculated (from when Nike passed us to how much earlier they arrived at the next TA ahead of us) that we lost 2 hours to bike issues.
Finally we got rolling, and by this time the weather was turning bad again (surprise!) and we were out of water. We started the ride out to Crooked River Ranch, which would serve as TA for the rest of the race. We stopped at a house along the way to ask for water. Bad idea. Scary dogs, scary people. No water. They said all their water was bottled and they couldn't give us any. That was the first time any of us had been refused water. So, thirstily, we continued our ride to the ranch.
When we arrived, we found out that STAR and Tom's team were already out on the trek. Nike was in TA and getting ready to leave. We were determined to be right behind them, so quickly got ready to head out. As we were getting close to ready, Jim came by to tell us that there was a tornado warning in effect and that we would have to stay for at least 1/2 hour. Nike put down their packs and sat, while we keep getting ready so that we'd be set to go as soon as we were given the OK.
The OK didn't come for 5 hours. Hail, heavy rain and tornados made us stay in TA. We were well fed by STAR's support crew, got everything ready to roll and then went and slept in the lodge until the weather cleared. It's amazing that we managed to be in TA all three nights when the weather was bad.
(Part 4, the final installment. Last two trekking legs and the dramatic finish!)
posted by little b @ 2:22 p.m.
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