I suppose that this is a story that starts a while ago. Alicia Travison wanted to try mountain biking. Jen Harvey and Don Massone let her borrow this old Turner. It was a relic. A relic with a really nice chris king headset, but still a 5 inch travel, dual suspension 26inch wheeled, Canadian sticker clad relic. She did her first 24 hour race with me on that turner, and while it wasn’t the most efficient machine in the world, it did one thing REALLY well. It got her hooked on the dirt.
We’ve upgraded her ride since then, she is on a Cannondale Hard-tail which I cant get her off of. One night after a ride, sitting round the counter at the clubhouse (all good stories start out that way really…) Andrew decides to do a 6 hour race, and alicia says “I want to do that!” She looks at me. I knew there was going to be no turning this boat around, so there was only one thing to do.
“Do it babe, Ill support you.”
Fast forward to this weekend. We pack up and drove down on Friday night, had a stop at the busiest Applebees I have ever seen, and went to bed nice and early. When we woke up it was hovering around 20 degrees. I took a Gasoline bath in the morning, because well, we just didn’t have enough excitement yet, and I really wanted to go to Walmart at 7am. After a quick stop to get some non-gasoline-soaked clothes, we rolled into the venue to see an open field with cars lining the perimeter. Riders everywhere were bundled up with blankets, ski gloves, and propane heaters. The one upside to the temps being so low, is that I didnt need to put the Chatham Brewing IPA’s we brought for afterwards on ice. After setting up the tent, and getting Alicia’s bike ready I settled in for the long haul of sitting around all day. Kim Corwin came over with a list of very specific instructions for her feeding schedule which included some figs newtons, cookies, fudge, and a handful of Gu Gel packs. I didn’t dare deviate. The gun went off with the site of hundreds of riders clamoring for the posibility of a $100 prize for being first to the woods. Andrew was the first HRRT member to come in, followed by Jonathan Crowell, Kim Corwin, Alicia Travison, and finally Stacey Maziejka, who i just learned is headed to the hospital for evaluation after a crash in the first lap of the race yesterday. I rode about half a lap with Alicia, who has grown leaps and bounds since the beginning of her season. She paced herself very well, utilizing her brand spanking new Sigma PC10.11 heat rate monitor to ensure she wasnt pushing herself too much. She finished 4 laps on her Canondale SL2 (which equates to about 40 miles), and an age group win. I rode with Jonathan on his final lap, he was suffering from a sore back and spent legs, but went out anyways, and crossed the line with a second place finish in his age group. I’m looking forward to seeing his results for the 2015 NICA season. Kim Corwin walked away with an age group cat 3 win (her time BTW, put her only minutes off the pace of the winners in both cat 2 and cat 1…maybe its time to cat up Kim!). Stacy, even with a bad crash and possible concussion pushed herself to finish a 4th lap for a 2nd place podium spot. Thanks to both Stan’s Notubes, and ProGold Lubricants we had zero mechanical issues for the entire race.
For the full race results you can go here
Congrats to all you HRRT racers.
Till net time, enjoy some photos of the event.
Jason the Wrench 