As Soon As The Mud Clears!

Next years campaign will be in defense of the Title!

Using my handy dandy home weather station to monitor rainfall over the 24 hour race, I am confident in saying that it rain, in fact it rained a lot, in fact, during the 24 hours that racers were swimming around the Olmstead loop it rained 2.83 inches. By the time the first few riders tore around the course it was a sloppy mess. There was a brief moment during the wee hours of Sunday morning that things dried up a bit and got worse, that's right, it was so wet that we really needed it to stay wet throughout to avoid mud with consistency of quick drying concrete. Regardless of weather or a diminishing "Fun Factor" (for a full algorithmic explanation see Rock God) FT3 showed up with the typical "hard as hell" attitude ready for a Throwdown. Armed with a variety of "Chopper" style handlebar facial hair, we came to race, and race we did.

The race started at noon on Saturday, and true to form, Cap'n toed the line to set the tone. The course had some new changes for this year and the initial mile caused some massive backups slowing progress, but our fearless leader fought his way through and delivered an awesome first lap. The returning rides actually gave us a little hope that the situation out on the course was not that bad, the bikes were looking OK and the faces were not that muddy. How fast things change! NoHandle went out for lap two and continued to deliver on the throwdown. Rounding out a fast lap, even as the conditions quickly went from wet to a muddy soup! I charged out for lap three and soon found myself working on the swim portion of the upcoming Ironman. What a mess, mud and gunk everywhere. The derailleur shifted when it wanted and brakes were novelties saved for dry days. I battled the best I could and got Bambi out to cleanup our first set of laps. The fire was burning for Bambi over the weekend and the full cable housing was the set up to have. Bambi laid down the first of four consistent and fast laps, spot on mate.

The second set of laps were more of the same muddy mess. Cap'n broke a chain, starting a chain of events that left him a bit down on the event for a few hours. The rest of us continued to fight through the conditions. A snorkel and windshield wipers would have been helpful.

Lap three SUCKED! It stopped raining for a bit and the mud turned to sticky gloppy glue. Anything with a slight incline became very difficult to ride. The bog by the pond on the second half of the loop was destroyed and walking was the preferred mode. Cap'n rolled out on a single and had some good cross training. We continued with constant bike maintenance, brake pad, replacement, and general gear triage to maintain a reasonable rolling speed. Teams and individuals were dropping left and right, not us!

Lap four saw the return of the pounding rain and actually improved conditions, just ride in the stream bed! Cap'n remounted the geared stead and had a drastically improved outlook upon returning to camp. NoHandle and Bambi again displayed total consistency and kept putting down solid times and big efforts! Those two get the workhorse awards in my book! I had some mechanical issues as the Chick Bike was pushed to its absolute limits. Pushed on but turned a slower lap than I wanted.

Last Lap: Due to the race being called a bit early, we only had time to fire off one more single lap. Cap'n took the task to hand and destroyed the course for one final lap. Clocking a 1:12:00 (one of the faster laps for the entire event) and secured our spot atop the podium!

Timing was a joke and no one will ever really know what the times were. The official count had us at 19, guess it was not very official at all seeing how we only did 17 laps. The mechanic for the second place team was there to clear up that they also didn't turn 19 laps, but 15. The third place team, also given 19 laps, were believed to have complete 7 and then quit and went home.

Camp FT3: Ghostrider, his wife, and family made this event possible for us. Despite having the massive shade tent blow away on Friday night, Ghostrider showed off his work habits and unreal ability to stay up and keep bikes clean and rolling. Twice, he went out searching for brake pads for my bike. He swapped Jerry's set-up back and forth from gears to single and then back. Supplied food, beverages, music, and general awesomeness for the entire event. Without team wrench superstar Ghostrider, I am sure I would have been at home cursing the event. There will be an ample moving party ready to help you complete your move on Friday. Thank you for keeping the camp, bikes, and spirit rolling. SPOT ON MATE! Additional thanks to Rock God, Spencer, and B for making the trip out and helping keep the gears rolling. B actually fired off a couple laps just to make sure the fun was shared around. Spencer and Rock God's help tearing camp down was totally appreciated and well to be honest totally necessary or we might have still been down there. I think both Spencer and Rock God will be on teams next year! Rock God, next time you visit, don't tempt us with the motorcycle, that thing would have been awesome.

Ride #51
S2FT3...why not...lets roll...I will be off the back...but the tacos will be good!

Mosquito at 5:45

Until we ride again,
LOtB