Bakers Dozen and Frustration!

I love rocks

Well, it was time yet again for another 13 hour race; Bakers Dozen. I was asked by my friend Auggie to do a duo this time around. To be honest, at first, I was not real excited about this one. It was cold, very muddy and damp.

It's fun to play in the mud, isnt it?

They added another mile of technical portions to the lap this year which brought the laps to 9 miles. The course is is riddled with large rocks and very claustrophobic rock pillars; good time to put those 750mm bars on! Anyway, I was SSing all the way again. 


Auggie went geared. I was feeling really good all day-with the exception of the $5 tuna that was finger food at best for a child. That lap I was getting some cramping, but went away about 7 miles in. My times were consistent and pretty quick. I got faster as the day went on, which was a great sign…for me anyway. 


My laps where a 50:21, 49:08, 48:47, 48:38, 46:52 and 47:58. There was a timing chip discrepancy early on which saw us go from 8th to 15th. It was fixed, but after that our individual times where way off-they just pick some random times to equal the time discrepancy. It is a team effort, but on paper, it is good to compare times against the teams you are going up against to see how much time you either lost or gained on a particular rider. Good thing for Mr. Garmin. I rode the Ferrous and Superfly this year with 32/18 gearing. The Superfly was the bike to have in the mud. It was quick and stuck every line.

Racing on the Velcro

Things were looking pretty good. We moved up from 13th to 8th. I turned in a double lap to help Auggie get some rest. We were 3 minutes from 7th and 11 minutes from 6th. The top 3 teams were a mix of elite riders and top experts, so our placement was a bit skewed. I came in from my 6th lap and I was greeted with Auggie slumped in the chair. “Come on man, get up and ride!”. He said he couldnt turn the pedals anymore. AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH, so freikin’ close! I badgered him for a good 10 minutes to go out, but no go. So we had to call it quits at 7:30. I was pretty bummed. We could have moved into 6th with some output and you never know in these races what could happen. We did end up in 15th out of 40 teams, with 10:27:31 of riding. 

So personally, I did really well. My training has been a success and hopefully will continue as such. None of that matter, thoughs if the team overall isnt. Next race is 12 hours of Lodi Farms in may.