With a little help from my Friends

This past weekend WE won the 4-Male Open category at the 10th Annual 24 Hours of Old Pueblo, detroning the Kona Racing team. Adrenaline Team was completed by Chris Sutter, Sam Schultz, Andy Schultz and myself. The Schultz bros were additions to the team for this event and they didn't let us down. It was really cool to race and hang out with two top pros who are easy going and friendly guys.
Norma, Koko and I drove there Friday morning. Darrin had arrived a day earlier and had our team area set up and ready to go. I was really cool to be right on the expo area and having the RV is always a bonus too.
However, there is always drama. This time Koko was the main character. We had just arrived at the location when he decided to attack the little cholla cactus seen in the picture above, just in front of the TLP sign. I was a few yards away and when I heard him crying I thought another dog had attacked him. Norma quickly grabbed him regarless that he was covered in jumping cholla which ensured that she got a lot of needles on herself too. Within seconds friends and complete strangers came to our rescue armed with plastic hair combs and twizers. It was amazing to see the quick and caring reaction. It took several minutes to get most of the needles off his nose, face,ears, paws, mouth and even on his tongue. Someone else brought some medication to give him and soon he was back to his old self

Here is Norma with Koko in front of the Old Pueblo Saguaro. By the end of the weekend this tree would be covered with tubes and tires claimed by the course.

This is what Old Pueblo looks like. More than 1000 RVs, plus as many or more tents and you have a big town in the middle of the desert.

The LeMans style start is a most for this race as it would be impossible to get all the starters onto the bike at the same time. I got to do the start since I am a veteran at this. Done it 3 times over as many years.

I had a good run and made it to the bikes within the top 20, unfortunately my transition to the bike wasn't the smoothest and I ended up crashing right in front of all the starters.Fortunately, I was able to make up for the crash at the start and finished the lap just a couple of minutes back. There was lead group of 15-20 riders that formed right after the start. I had to dig deep to get on it but by the time I got onto the back the attacks started, so I would get dropped and get back on a couple of times. After the third I couldn't connect anymore so I jumped on a chase group of 3 riders and stayed together form 3/4 of the lap picking up riders blown up by the intense pace set at the front by Tinker, Kimo and all those guys. Ryan Trebon had a huge gap on this lead group, however half way into the lap we passed him while he was getting attention from the course marshalls who were trying to remove copious amonts of jumping cholla covering his whole right side. Eventually they cut his jersey off and he finished the lap about 14 minutes behind me.

Sam was our second relay and he really set the course on fire with a 55 minutes lap. Andy did the third one turning a really fast lap considering all the traffic and finally Chris kept things under control with a lap just over 1 hour.The transition onto the night wasn't too bad but it wasn't perfect either. Sam had a leaky tire while I lost my handlebar light early on the lap then with a couple of miles to go my head light went dead. I rode home with a little LED light and the reflections from other rider's ligths.

By the morning our lead was just over 14 minutes, so we had to make sure to continue turning fast laps, so I decided to rock the pink for extra motivation. I wore Norma's jersey, helmet and socks. Here I am posing by the Saguaro before my last lap.

Sam had some tendonitis on his right wrist, so Andy volunteered to do the last lap. He set out knowing that we had an almost comfortable lead, so the plan was to ride hard but conservatively to avoid a crash or a mechanical and he did, which secured our spot on top of the podium.

After the race, Dean from Bicycle World TV came by to get the recap of the race from our perspective. He had stopped by half way into the race and talked to Sam, however our lead wasn't as comfortable at that time.

The rest of our Adrenaline Team riders did well too in there respective races. Adrenaline Masters came even close to cracking the podium with a 6th place.

Congrats to all of you racing this event and thanks to all of you that e-mail me to show your support.

Now it's time for some serius recovery in order to be ready for Estrella next weekend.