24 hours of OC???

[Pain Freak]

What's the haps here? I'm dying to know how the guys did. Can we get a report or did everybody go home and go to sleep?

[dstepper]

A few pictures from yesterday.

Mike, I just got out of the shower and am gonna veg out for awhile. The Average Homeboys came in 4th in the 5-man team competition and Jon & Jose came in first in the 2-man team competition!

I'll post a longer ride/race report later on. Oh yeah, Craig has your shirt Mike and THANKS for coming out and volunteering and hanging with us!!!

Steppie, thanks for coming out too and posting those pix! Cathy and Dirtorpeedo, nice to meet you guys too!

Time for nap, probably a very long nap!!!

[singleSSpeedster]

Originally Posted by DINO

The Average Homeboys came in 4th in the 5-man team competition (keep in mind the 1st place team was a group of PRO riders)

Jon & Jose came in first in the 2-man team competition!

wow....great job guys!!!

how many laps did you all do? and the pro/1st place team?

how many laps for jon/jose???

again, great job, a nap that is well earned in my books!

cheers!

[mtnbikej]

Race Report:


[SIZE=6]HOT!!!!!!!

[SIZE=2]More about that shortly...We had a light turnout. Approx. 80 riders total. Majority of the riders were Solo riders......lunatics if you ask me. Anyway, we had 5 5-Person Teams, 2 2-Person Teams and 2 Corporate Teams. Everybody else was a solo.

Race started promptly at High Noon on Saturday. We decided not to do a LeMans start because of the 95 degree temps. It would get worse before it got better. We got everybody started and the race was on. Yes, the 5-person Sho-Air team rode circles around everybody out there. No problem, they are a very good Semi-Pro team, plus it was their race(title sponsor). I think every one was passed by one of thier riders at some point. For some of the slower soloist, they would be passed more than once on a lap.

By 2pm we were well above 100 degrees. There are several parts of the course where the air does not circulate. In these cases, riders dealt with their share of "now I know what a TV dinner feels like." You could just feel the heat from all around, and no matter what you did, it just sucked ass.

Fortunately it seemed as though just after these sections, there was always a downhill, so relief was always there. Unfortunately it was usually pretty short lived.

I was a member of the Switchback Cyclery corporate team. My turn came up 3rd in the rotation, so that meant I was heading out at about 2:20 to subject myself to the furnace. My first lap passed quite a few riders, but hey, I was fresh and they were 2hrs into a very long day. My turn to get passed happened on the Scorpion Trail where, you guessed it, Sho-Air passed me near the top. Fortunately for me, this would be the only time in my 3 laps this would occur. Lap time 56 mins. Decent for the conditions.

Many riders were smart and sat out parts fo the first couple of hours waiting for the cooler temps that would treat them when the sun began to drop. As the temps began to drop, it looked as though more and more riders were coming out. Lap times began to dorp considerably wiith the cooler temps.

2nd Lap: My turn in the rotation come up about 9:45pm. What a transformation from my 1st lap. THe temps had dropped about 25 degrees and it was really nice. at this point we were pretty much lap for lap against the other corporate team: Team Jenson USA Jeriatrics. We were only minutes apart. We were in second place. Again hammered out my lap, passing solo riders, offering encouragement. THis lap was mostly uneventful, that is until I went to pass OCRider in the wood chips coming down from the back loop. Heard a click click click. My strap had disclodged and the battery for my light was hanging there banging against my wheel. Other than that, great ride. Lap time: 47 mins.

3rd Lap: My turn in the rotation came up again at 3:30am. Temps were even cooler. I found myself putting arm warmers on. Low temps probably 45-50 degrees. The rider before me cut a good time and we now had the lead by a few minutes. It was my job to increase the lead or hold it, but not to lose any time. Beautiful night for a night ride. I was hoping to be the rider out on lap to see the sunrise. Oh well, maybe next time. Rode hard and felt like I was pushing a much slower pace. Lap time: 44 mins. Guess I felt better than I thought.

When I came into transition, we had a 20 min. lead on the other team.

I decided to try to get some sleep, so I crashed out. When I awoke at 6:30, we were 20 mins. behind. Apparently the rider after me busted a chain on the Lare-Dog Trail and lost a good amount of time we had made. That is racing.

This course is so much more fun to ride at night than during the day.

I should also note that the other Corp. team was running on 6 riders, we had 9.........BUT!!!!!! and a big BUT!!!!! We had a 12 year old and a 13 year old racing for our team(2 laps each, no night laps) as well as one of the timing girls who has not been riding a whole lot lately.

Basically it came down to hour 22, they stopped/quit/called it a day, and we sent a rider out and ended with 1 more lap them they did 23 vs. 22.





It was good to see a bunch of you out there. I am finally getting faces with names and such.

Thanks to all of you that came out, had fun and/or suffered for 24hrs. Everybody seemed to be having a good time. Other than our corporate team, the Warrior's Society had only a few riders actually racing the event. Without your support, we couldn't have these events.

This was a tough course for a 24hr event. But those that stuck with it and completed the race, I commend you for conquering a very challenging course. 5.6 miles and 1250 feet of elevation per lap.....you do the math.

Thanks again for hleping make this a successful event.

mtnbikej
[/SIZE][/SIZE]

Oh yeah, one other thing. The race ended at 12 noon on Sunday. We had lunch served, raffle prizes given away, award ceremony ,tear down of the course, tear down and load up my camp and I was one of the last volunteers to leave. I was at my doorstep by 2:30.

Damn I love these local races.



mtnbikej

[Pain Freak]

Good report. I followed you in on Saturday morning, but I never made it over to introduce myself. Next time for sure. Congrats on a well deserved victory.

[TURNERob]

It was definately a great event despite the absolutely scorching temps on Saturday. I was 2nd in the rotation for the Average Homeboys which put me out there at about 1pm ish. WOW, was it crazy hot on that first climb!!!! I somehow still managed a 49 min lap time. I wasn't feeling too hot after that lap and just had barely recovered by the time my next rotation came up. I think that was around 5ish and it was still just as hot as it was the 1st lap.....lap time was 52 minutes and I wasn't feeling good at all. I had tonsilitis during the week and had just gotten some antibiotics on Thursday and at that point I had doubts if I would be able to hang in there.

By the time my next rotation came up it was close to 8:30. Still fricking hot out there but definately on the 2nd half of the course things started cooling down. Lights were necessary so that slowed things a tad on the downhill but I still managed around a 50 min lap time and I was finally feeling pretty good after that lap. My wife was there and I told her I decided to stick it out and try and do a couple of night laps because I didn't think I could ride in the heat the next day. That would give me 5 laps total if I would be able to do 2 more laps that night which is about what we planned everyone would need to do (about 5 laps each).

We were in a pretty solid 4th place throghout the whole race and if it wasn't for those Sho-air guys who undoubedtly passed me everytime I was riding we would have easily gotten 3rd place. GeoLadders had a very solid team also and one other team (forget the name....Uphill ******) was basically out of reach for us being a few laps ahead at all times.

Next round for me was around 1am and I was feeling much stronger. A lot of our team was getting tired and basically everyone except for Dino and I had decided to sleep and skip their round. I wasn't about to let those very pleasant cool temps go to waste so Dino and I busted out 2 laps during the night and Craig also woke up around 3ish to get in a lap with us. I my 1am lap time was around 48 minutes so I was definately feeling good with the cooler temps. A short sleeve jersey was all that was needed out there even on my last lap which ended around 4:45ish or so. Nobody was there at the finish line after that lap so I went back to camp and placed the baton where we had told everyone it would be since Bret and I planned to crash out after our 2 laps.

I woke up around 6ish to find the baton gone and Dell's bike missing so he was out putting another lap under our belts. Since Bret and I had done our 5 laps already we were basically done and just gave support to the others who put in another couple laps to get their 5 total. We were still only a couple laps ahead of the 5th place team so we made Gonzo get out there and do his 5th lap around 10am just to make sure we locked in 4th place. We ended up with 25 laps ......not sure what all the other teams had but Sho-air had at least 10 more than that easily.

Overall we had ZERO mechanicals, no flats, no crashes and everything went pretty darn smoothly with our team. I think we had a lot of fun and this being my 1st ever race I certainly have a TON of respect for those solo riders who did this race. The heat was absolutely brutal, but the night riding certainly made this event a pleasant experience for me. Out there riding a 4am pretty much with nobody else around was actually pretty enjoyable for me. Thanks to Bret for hanging in there throghout the night and kept our team going along with me and Craig who put in a 3am lap.

Big thanks to Mike (Pain Freak) for coming out and volunteering for us and hanging out at camp for quite awhile (some of your stories had me rolling). Steppie you were entertaining as always. Steve thanks for camping out all night even though your dog puked and seemed to keep growling everytime I was just about to fall asleep Anyone else who I forgot to mention who came out sorry. I think Dirtorpeedo and his g/f were there but I was either sleeping or riding so never really had a chance to say hi. Nice meeting Jon, great job recovering from your heat stroke and congrats to you and Jose for EASILY taking 1st place in the 2 man team category. I won a raffle prize and scored a set of Shimano PD-M540 pedals (for sale BTW.....I'm a Time pedal guy myself) so that was cool, I never win anything.

Last but certainly not least thanks to the Warriors Society for putting on this event and all of the people who volunteered and made it happen. Things went really smooth in my opinion for this being the first 24hr event. I had a great time and will definately consider entering more of the WS races in the future. I thought the course overall was pretty fun......a lot of climbing for just 5.7 miles (which definately feels longer than that) but still a fun course.

I think STR represented themselves very respectfully and our camp was full of a great bunch of guys. I had a blast, let's do it again.....hopefully when it isn't 100 degrees!!!!

Rob

[ArrrKelly]

Cool Rob. Good job by all y'all.

Who won solo catagory? How many laps?

[ocrider]

Manny won expert solo it was round 20 laps I can't remember...

[TURNERob]

Originally Posted by ArrrKelly

Cool Rob. Good job by all y'all.

Who won solo catagory? How many laps?

There were a bunch of different solo categorys but I think the most laps any solo rider did was around 19ish or so??? (someone correct if I'm wrong). OCRider101 represented STR and did 15 or 16 laps solo, great job Matt! VonSkipp did 11 laps and took 2nd in his category, he was 1 lap behind the 1st place rider. They all have my respect, certainly not easy conditions out there with the heat. Let's just say the steady stream of bike lights kept going strong pretty much the whole night.

[ArrrKelly]

15 or 16 laps! OMG! 15 laps would be over 18000 feet of climbing. Thats rediculous. OC Rider what are you going to do next?

[LBmtb]

Nice write ups, Rob and Jason. I just woke up from a nap and the soreness is starting to kick in. Skin has that nice raw burnt feeling to it that I just love so much.

This was my first race ever just like Rob. Been training pretty hard last couple months and glad I did because I needed it for this race. Lots of pain and suffering but looking back at it, lots of fun too. I was to go 4th in the rotation and rode my first lap around 3pm. I felt the heat at the bottom and I heard all the riders saying how hot it was so I was aware of it but didn't actually appreciate the intensity that it would add to the ride until I was up there. Muscling up some of those steep trails with no breeze and no shade really kicks your ass. My 2nd lap was the last day lap of the day for us so I had it good - enough light out to see well but a lot cooler then midday. That 2nd lap was 49 minutes. Didn't check what my midday lap time was but I'm sure it was at least 5 minutes more then the 2nd lap.
Night settled in and Craig's tiki torches and firepit were awesome! Definitely kept bugs away and added a nice ambience to the Playaz Club (our campsite). Woke up Bret since he was next up after my lap. I guess he felt pretty groggy or really sleepy cause he was saying he might not be ready when I was done with my lap. I was getting into the 2 lap in a row mentality as I rode past our campsite when I heard Bret yell that he'd be good to go. My night lap felt good, although downhills were a bit sketchy. I guess a combination of thin lightweight tires that I'm not used to and less visibility can do that. After that lap everyone said that we were skipping a round to rest so I hopped in my car and slept.

Guess I overslept because I woke up after the sun had come up and Rob told me that him and Bret had put in two more laps at night. "Sh!t, that means I gotta do two today in the heat?" Did a lap with Jeffry (the dude that beat Skipp by a lap) and took it real easy knowing that I had one more coming in the heat. Handed off the baton to Craig and headed to camp to rest a bit. Dell put in a lap after Craig and then I geared up for another sizzle session. I think the team below us were down by two laps (or three?) and so my lap would seal our 4th place finish. It was nice knowing I had all of 2 hrs and 10 minutes to do it. Took this lap real easy and it was still tough, being my 5th lap + the heat.

Those ShoAir guys were simply relentless - super fast the whole time. Seemed like a nice group of guys too. Good job to Jose and John for taking first place. John was a warrior coming back from his heat exhaustion. Good meeting dirttorpedo and Cathy, thanks for comng out you guys. Thanks to Mike for coming out to volunteer on short notice, it was nice having you there. Thanks to Justin from JensonUSA for the free stuff. Looks like Craig's boy is getting a curious george jersey. Thanks to Steve for coming out to show some support even though he was understandably upset at not being able to pay his registration the day before. Thanks to Von-Diggity for making an appearance with the wifey and for letting me borrow the lightweight tires. I couldn't of asked for better teammates and friends to spend those 24 hours with. Good times.

I have some video from this weekend and should get an edited version uploaded within a week.

[pshloss]

Major props to all of you guys! Especially Matt- wow, you da man! I was thinking about you all as I was riding down by the beach this morning...Glad to hear there were no crashes or major heat stroke.

[Chaos]

Awesome job guys!!!
This weekend was a hot one for sure. You guys are real troopers riding in those conditions. Great to hear everyone made it out just fine and had a good time to boot.

[Pain Freak]

I don't think there are tougher conditions for any 24 hour event anywhere at this time.You guys kicked some butt!

[dubjay]

I actually went on 2 leisurely rides on Saturday (morning and evening) and the heat was killing me. I can't imagine trying to actually race.

Great job guys.

[jfromlv]

Great job to anybody who raced in that heat! I was on the team with John at the Temecula race, the guy's an animal!

[RIDE 2 LIVE]

GREAT DAY AT THE RACES! everybody did so well considering the extreme weather conditions! i have never raced in such HOT weather conditions! props to everyone for doin so well! it was great to meet rob,brett and george,you guys rock! the five man team kicked major ass. they raced aginst 2 PRO teams! i see a 2nd place if you take out the pro teams! THANK YOU craig for takin care of me when i got heat stroke! after i finished my 3rd lap, i poped a gasket. craig was there to douse me with cold water,and kept a eye on me for a few minutes! great people for sure! im lookin foward to the next race! mabey we should do a STR corporate team? thanxs to mike, chris and cathy to come out and support STR and the race. thnxs to dean also!

Originally Posted by jfromlv

Great job to anybody who raced in that heat! I was on the team with John at the Temecula race, the guy's an animal!

hey jason, kind words! wish you could of been there, had a blast! well get you hooked up for the next endurance race. see ya in the DIRT soon!

[CalEpic]

I feel like the living dead. I got home around 1:00 pm Sunday napped for a couple hours and then went out to dinner with my wife and friends for her birthday. Not exactly what I felt like doing but after a couple cups of coffee I toughed it out and went to bed around 11:30 pm. Now I'm really feeling it.

About the race - I had a great time. Many thanks to the volunteers that put on the race. I know they worked their butts off. Also - Thanks to Pain Freak for volunteering for our team. I have your shirt and volunteer award - Please pm me your address and I'll make sure you get them. Thanks to DStepper, Dukethe Nuke, Von Diggity, Dirt Torpedo and Cathy for coming out to support the teams. Cathy - sorry for blinding you with my light when I came into the transition area. I was totally out of it at that point and forgot to turn it off. Edit - I forgot to include Armando - Thanks for the ice bro!

I went third in the rotation. I think my first lap was maybe the hottest of the day. Since I pre-rode the course a couple times I felt confident I could hammer it out in the middle ring despite the heat. I was ok for the first 2/3 of the lap but then I seriously started feeling heat stroke kicking in - chills, lightheadedness, nauseousness, it sucked. I toughed it out and came in with I think a 46 minute lap. My second lap was about 7:00 pm and it cooled off enough that it was much easier. I still took it easy the first half before I decided that I could hammer the 2nd half and came in with about a 45 minute lap. My third lap at about 11:00 was a disaster. My stomach was killing me before the lap started and it just got worse through out the lap. It was a lap of survival at this point. I put it in the granny ring for most of the climbs and tried to keep my mind off the fact that my stomach wanted to leave it's contents on the trail. I finished off with around a 50 minute lap and tried to catch some sleep. I laid in bed but I think I only actually slept around 15 minutes. Still the rest did me good and I was starting to feel better. My 4th lap came around 3:00 am. I did this lap Ride to Live and it was good to have company on the lap. I still felt like I was going to barf most of the time but we did an easy pace and came with about a 48 minute lap. My last lap was about 7:00 am at this point my stomach felt better, I was able to eat and busted off a decent lap of around 46 minutes.

As hard as this race was, I still had a great time. It was a lot of fun hanging out at our camp. I'll be back next year again. Great job Ride to Live and Shinken on the 2 man team. These guys were Iron men. Jon busted off three blistering laps in blistering heat to start it off but looked like he was going to die when he came in. Luckily he got himself cooled off and continued on once it cooled down a little. Von Skippy, OC Rider - these guys were like the Energizer Bunnies. They just kept going. I felt like I was wiped out doing 5 laps. These guys did 2-3 times the laps I did. Wow! The Sho-Air and Geoladder 5 man teams were amazingly fast. They absolutely smoked everyone else on the course. My main goal was for our team to not come in last place and we accomplished that . I know everyone on our team had to dig deep at one point or another to continue on or even start their lap and deserve a lot of respect. Everyone did their fair share and sucked it up without complaint. As Rob mentioned no mechanicals or crashed to deal with so that was a big bonus.

Great job STR teams/riders/volunteers

Craig