Today is Monday October 13 2025 and yesterday i raced the 50k Little Sugar Mountain Bike race in Bentonville, AR.
It was pretty great.
Race day...
I was up bright and early to prep the bike and eat and whatnot and by 6:30 am i was out the door to warm up for the 7:30 am race start. i did a very slow and casual warmup which included a ride to the top of the rideable building in downtown Bentonville. Anytime your pre race warmup includes riding up a building you know its going to be a good day.
Its important that i set the stage for my race day mentality. In a nutshell, i decided that my main race had already taken place and therefore the theme of the Little Sugar mountain bike race was "casual". i still wanted to go fast and do well, but in a casual way. The main race i'm referring to was the family vacation portion of the trip that had concluded the night before. i didn't hold back for any of that. We got into town on Thursday night so we had all day Friday and Saturday to have fun in Bentonville and that's what we did. We rode bikes, we played in creeks, we stayed up late watching Scooby Doo, we rocked out to Taylor Swift, we rode bikes some more, we played in more creeks.
That was the most important race of the weekend and we definitely won it because we had a great time.
So... while getting ready early Sunday morning i was reckoning with the fact that i'm a 45 year old man at 5:30am on a Sunday morning after two full days of vacation and i'm tired. But i was mentally energized by the fact that i had my priorities strait and had spend the last two days saying yes to life instead of sitting around with my feet up. That was a good feeling and was good fuel.
Superior attitude, superior state of mind.
It is a cop out to spend months on this blog building up this race and then in the moment of truth just casually say... meh. But that's what happened. i make the rules around here. Plus we had sweet weather all weekend so we had to get out and take advantage!
And "meh" isn't entirely indicative of my pre race mindset. Like i said, i still wanted to go fast and do well but i couldn't deny the reality that physically speaking i had appropriately devoted my efforts elsewhere so whatever was left for today would have to be enough.
So i warmed up casually. Probably too casually because at 7:25 am i lined up behind probably 300 racers. Not ideal but i felt so Zen that nothing could phase me. The first 5-10 minutes were pavement and i had a blast moving up thru the crowd. When the single-track started we hit stop and go traffic and that didn't let up for probably 45 minutes.
Around mile 13 i lost my front wheel then clipped a tree then bounced into a second tree which caught my fall and i came to a complete stop, fully upright without a scratch and pointed in the right direction. So i rode on. About mile 18 i lost my front wheel again and this time i did crash but it wasn't bad. My knee was a little bloodied and my elbow kind of hurt but i was pedaling again in less than a minute. Tons of the course was small loose rocks and that's how i lost my front wheel but it also lessened the impact of the fall because instead of bouncing off hard pack single-track i slid on a thousand small pebbles. I can still hear the sound of my bike and body sliding thru a pile of tiny rocks.
i lost my Garmin on that crash and was flying blind for the rest of the race.
Shortly after that i came up to a kid fiddling with his chain, it was stuck so i pushed the derailleur forward to give him some slack and then said "get angry" as he pulled at the chain. It came lose and i said something about teamwork getting the job done and rode on. He passed me a few minutes later and i asked him how far we'd gone (since i no longer had my Garmin) and the way he said "i have no idea" in such a cheerfully matter of fact way put a smile on my face.
Shortly after that i got held up behind a guy who somersaulted down a hill. He was pissed and banged up but after he gathered himself and after we cleared his bike from the path i asked if he was ok and if he could breath and he said "yes". i rode on.
Shortly after that i passed a guy walking back and holding his arm. It sure looked like a broken collarbone. i asked if he needed help and he said 'no, i'll be at the road soon'. And he was right, we had just passed a road crossing with cops and pedestrians. i rode on.
Shortly after that at a road crossing i passed a small group of spectators one of whom was holding a sign that read "What does 6, 7 mean". i laughed out loud and so did the little man when i told him about it post race.
These long mountain bike races really are odysseys. You see the craziest things.
At the final aid station i stopped for pickle juice, half a banana, and some "grape fruit juice water". That's how the high school kids working the water jug described it.
Then shortly after that i made a wrong turn and got very lost.
That's why i put an asterisk (*) in the title of this post. i got so lost that my final result is null and void. In the moment i was sure that my wrong turn had added time but looking at the results i "passed" a lot of people in the last 10 miles that i don't recall actually passing.
So i think i cheated.
Sorry everybody!
At one point i was so far off course i was pulling up google maps on my phone to find my way back.
Going off course was a bummer and i do feel bad about potentially cutting in front of other racers but i finished 112th so with placings that deep i doubt anyone really cares.
I crossed the line in 3:11:27. Last year i did 3:12:52. I kind of think that the stop and go traffic at the beginning of the race and the apparent short cut at the end cancel each other out and my finishing time is pretty indicative of my fitness and ability. But we'll never know and i kind of like it that way. Zen.
Anyway... upon crossing the finish line i laid down in the town square for maybe 5 minutes but then it turns out i hadn't yet crossed the vacation dad finish line so i headed back to the air bnb to pack up and drive home. We were on the road about 35 minutes after i crossed the finish line and back home in KC by 2:45 pm.
Wham bam thank you mam!
So... after months of prep and build up the big question is, did the race go as i wanted?
My head says no but my heart says yes!
