Part II: Commitment - Lost in the Rocks and Trees

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Part I: Getting There
Part II: Commitment
Part III: The Race
Part IV: The Finish

Decision Time
We woke up at 6:00 am the next morning and it had rained pretty much the whole night. Everything was soaking wet (tent, bikes, camping equipment…). I looked over and my gear was still dripping from yesterday’s pre-ride. With two days of continuous rain, we knew the trails were going to be a mess, our bikes were going to be a mess, and we were going to be a mess. Every mud hole was going to be a biker’s deathtrap.

It was right about this time when we started having serious reservations about the race. We started saying things like “Maybe they’ll cut the course down to just one lap?” “Maybe it will be cancelled with all of the rain?” “I wonder how many people aren’t going to show up?” “Maybe we should just pack up and go home?”

With no final decision made, we crawled out of our warm sleeping bags, dumped the water off of the bike tent, and hung up a few things to dry. We heated up some water for coffee and to make some oatmeal. I looked down at my bike and there was a light coat of rust on the chain and pedals. My SoCal bike wasn’t too happy in its new environment.

After mussing around a little more in complete silence, I think deep down we all knew we had to do this race. I had come too far. Ron needed this to kick-start his summer training block. And the Frenchman was dying to test his fitness and his new race bike. Erik was the proud father of an almost new Intense Spider XTR. This was one of my teammate’s race bikes from last year.

Pre-race
Running a little late, we finally got packed up and made it to sign up. Nick (the promoter of the event) was there to greet all the riders.

After checking in, they gave us a t-shirt, wipe cloth and a cool fold up chair. The chair was actually really cool. It was super compact with a little carrying case underneath. Nice touch!
When we got back to the car, we unloaded all of our stuff and sent the Frenchman off to Checkpoint #2 to drop off our extra bottles. The idea here was to leave a few bottles on the course so we could travel as light as possible. My personal plan was to only stop twice the whole race.

After that, Ron and I just suited up, lubed the bike chain and made a few last minute adjustments. One modification I did make was installing a front mud deflector. I honestly had no idea if it was going to work or not, but it was worth a try.