Biking race 9:07:00 [3] 50.0 mi (5.5 mph)
spiked:3/3c slept:7.0 shoes: Jamis Dragon Sport 29er
If we had any doubts about this not being our standard type adventure race...CP1 was ~30 km from the start.
Navigation was interesting - for most of the trail junctions, I never saw the other part of the junction. So you'd go around a bend, but not see the third thing that should be there. Plus the Scalex can underestimate a bit (at least with this operator), and with no topography on the map, keeping track of position was a challenge.
We stopped to worry about overshooting the turn off, and it doing so, were inadvertantly exactly at the correct trail junction, which most of the field had overshot. At some point, my teammates tell us Tecnu flew by from an earlier trail choice issue, blazing the way into the grassy trailhead. So if the race was 90 miles shorter...look out! That trail point was slightly shorter tall grass leading to a rocky rooty rocky bumpy mess. It was a mad house as faster teams all tried to get by to compensate for their nav error. Some very pretty sections, like the crossover between some ponds.
Eventually we got to the powerlines, where would spend a lot of time. It was very exposed, and I got warm, so I dropped down to just the race bib. It was also relentless - bouncing and bumping. I went to take a drink from a bottle and then saw trouble ahead, tried to put the bottle away, and ended up hitting something and going over the bars. I was very, very fortunate not to hit the rock, and instead only get my thighs scraped up on gravel.
Meanwhile, Mark was getting flats all over the place. He started tubeless but that punctured, so we put in a tube. Then that popped. We tried cleaning tire and rim, but couldn't find a cause.
Especially after my fall, I got really gun shy about not getting unclipped, so I kept walking hills, which had to be annoying. Also, my chain was skipping teeth, so I could only use the big ring, which didn't make for easy climbing.
I'm not sure if it was faster, but we shortcutted the big loop of trail at the train tracks by going straight and walking over a dry swamp and back up to the powerline elevation.
We were very glad to see Barbara at CP2. Paramedic Jackie called me out for looking a little flush. We left there, Mark towed me a bit (the terrain was finally started to get conducive to me being comfortable being towed without such rigorous obstacle work) and then Mark flatted again, so he just rode on the rim but luckily it was just sandy to TA1.
Lessons learned:
* I should bike more
* I should bike harder terrain more
* Get my drivetrain sorted
* Carry more patches and duct tape
* Really watch distance, and maybe practice with the Scalex to see if I can get more accurate