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6 am start line — fun enough — been meaning to do this race for some time now after hearing about it for the first time after it was already 15 year running. back then I struggled to imagine what 50 miles of New England track would feel like as I only imagined the west to have such expansive terrain — not to mention the notoriously rooty & chunky terrain indicative of the northeast making 50 miles sound like a real full body rattle that you might not come back from.

nicely enough my body has become a lot more durable to the longer endeavors on the bike in the last 20 years since I quit body building — and my gear set ups, have gotten more and more dialed. I love that part the most, and think it’s made the biggest difference. will have to slap on another 20lbs of muscle and see how it works.

so back to 6 a.m. : immediately upon lining up I was getting the “nice bike” comments that generally light me up and make Champaign poor out of my ears — but these nice bike comments were to indicate that they thought my bike was from the 1930s. after the 10th time of muttering “its only a year old”, I just began to go along with it. a reminder that outside of our niche within a niche, we are just vintage cosplayers on 90 year old bikes.

you can see from the photos above that the 800 or so riders signed up for this event are all mountain bikers on modern mountain bikes. the route consists of roughly 10 miles of dirt road, but the other 40 was twisty and rooty 1 track or class 4 chunk. this was a real glimpse into another social scene all together for me, and I was fascinated! bikes are so nuanced. and well, they have 30 years experience on this course, and these are the bikes folks think are best — and judging by my 242nd place, I suppose they are right.

but dang did I have fun on my bike! felt all day like I had the perfect set up. just my basic Alumalith with upright bars and cushcore lined MARS 27.5 x 2.25 tires with a 20×34 low gear. I looked and felt great. looking great is priority #1. feeling great comes along for the ride generally.

Joe and Sam were in the single speed category. I caught up to Joe about 15 miles in and we pedaled together for a while before a chaga spotting had me off route and in the woods looking for more. whoops! I was supposed to be racing!

I was stopping to take photos too, but mostly only on the smooth dirt road sections as I was too focused on holding on to my handlebars and decoding rock gardens the rest of the time. some nice early foliage up there though!

it was so nice to just pedal through and amongst the sea of MTBers. this scene is really where I came from, suppose I just hung out there longer (the MTB 90s). I am still hanging out there. but really, it was fun to imagine in my mind when it all changed with these types of outfits and bikes. really with only a little bit of judgement — I promise!

there were a lot of aid stations around so I didn’t need to pack all the food that I packed, but when were you ever like “I have too much food for this 7 hour ride”? there were folks running the course too, so that would explain the aid stations every 5 miles or so. not complaining about that! I ate 6 bananas in 7 hours. they had other sugary treats too, but my waist line….. very guarded.

above photos of Sam and Arya finishing. we all had our own versions of fun out there. already looking forward to this being an annual thing for us.

nearly forgot to mention the serendipity of my bib number! here is my bike post “race”. it races, it cruises the beach — it looks 90 years old.

here is Joe, sam, and Arya exchanging race stories. hope everyone had a nice weekend also!

XO Ronnie