12 hours of Santos- brief

Overall, it was a good early season race. We forgot some key things like a light for the pit tent, a changing towel and toilet paper, but remembered most of the other essentials. It's been awhile since I've been to an endurance lap race! It's also been a really long time since I've ridden at night...yikes.

Long story short, we had a consistent race with no major mishaps other than my crank arm coming loose on my first lap. Luckily I didn't crash as it happened right in the middle of the steepest climb and it could have been ugly. Thanks to Darren from AJ's for torquing it down properly afterwards. Other than me missing one of our transitions (sorry, Eddie!), forgetting how to set up my lights so I can actually see at night, and having the stupid lingering cold and cough, I had a good race. I'm so ready to be 100% healthy again! Luckily it's only February.

I don't know how we did, in fact, for the first time ever, I never even looked at the number of teams, lap times, or results standings. We were racing against the 2-person male teams, many of them were local. I am pretty sure Jeremy and Wild Bill from the Terrapin Niner team took home the win. They were flying! Eddie seems to think if I didn't have that first lap mechanical that we would have been in podium contention. Maybe so, I don't know. I was in my own little world yesterday and it was kind of nice for once. We'll have to wait for results to be posted online...

EDIT: Looks like we got 5th in the 2-person open, it doesn't look like there were any other co-ed duo teams. Not bad..my loose crank arm mechanical really put us out. Other than that, my lap times were not far off most of our male competitors. I need to spend some time honing in my light setup, though. Man I lost a lot of time running off the trail at night!!

I owe several thanks. Thank you to Art North from the UBC shop, Darren from AJ's bikes & boards, David Chorozak for sharing his pit space, and Monte, Grant, Dean, etc. from the OMBA crew for cheering. And, thanks to Eddie for riding fast and for not being mad at me for missing my transition! :P

Oh, and one last thing. I could not pick a better bike than the Rotwild R.R2 carbon full suspension bike with 26" WHEELS for this course! Having only ridden a 29er on the Santos trails in the past, I noticed a HUGE difference in my ability to negotiate the tight, twisty, technical terrain. And, I don't think it's that my skills have improved..I mean, I have barely been even riding outside for the last 2 months. The bike is definitely deserving of the praise!

There were a bunch of photographers on the course so I'll post some up when I find some...