Bonebender

Holy crap that course kicked my a**!!!

Today was a humbling experience. Where to start...

I had so much fun at last years Bone Bender that i made this years edition a priority. I had never ridden Clinton so i came up yesterday to check it out, quickly realizing that it was waaay harder than im used to. Rocks everywhere.

Last year i had a horrible start and spent the first 25 minutes in a single track traffic jam. This year i made sure that didn't happen. Only this time my start was too good and i think i over extended myself. I'm guessing there were about 150 people there and when we dropped into the singletrack i was sitting about 30th. 30th! Photographic evidence below, the one where were on the road.

30th didn't last too long and i soon started to fade. This would continue for pretty much the entire 3 hours. It's very demoralizing to keep getting passed. But at least for once i didn't race from the back. I let it all hang out and am glad i did.

Did i mention that the trails were hard? Oh buddy. You ever get that feeling after being at an amusement park all day and when you come home your body feels like its still riding the roller coaster? Well, my body feels like it's still bouncing over big rocks. They seemed to be everywhere. I'm not used to a trail like that or the extra energy it requires to negotiate. By the time i started my third and final lap most of my body was cramping. The hands and hamstrings were particularly bad. That last lap was just about finishing, not hurting myself, and trying to keep the cramps at bay so that i didn't end up in a crying heap on the side of the trail. I walked just about every technical on that last lap. It was ugly.

I assume i cramped up so bad because i'm not used to, what was for me, a very demanding course. Plus i'm just a wuss.

So im disappointed with how it went, but only moderately disappointed.

The results made me feel a little better. On a whim i entered the pro/1/2 category instead of the 2/3 category. 4 people finished behind me. My time would have put me 10th in the 2/3 race, out of about 55. but that seems like creative accounting and doesn't change the fact that after about 2 hours i was reduced to a shell of my usual bad a** self.

props to all the folks who were killing it today, and there were a lot, y'all are good.

So despite my moderately disappointing performance tt was still a really fun day and theres no place i would of rather been. The people were great, the weather was great, the bike was great, my body is still in one piece... life is good.

Now here's way to many pictures of the awesomeness that is Bone Bender.