24 Hours of Big Bear

I got back from the 17th annual 24 Hours of Big Bear last night around 7:00. I was there for two reasons the first and most inportant in my opinion was to help my friend and very talented bike wrench Jim Ressler do free mechanical support for any racer who needed it. We started working on bikes around 8:00 on Saturday morning. I had to leave for my first lap around 2 that afternoon. Jim was working on bikes until around 9 that night. At that time one of the IC3 teams needed a rider so he did 1 lap for IC3 Five Alive.

The second reason I was there was to race for the Loco Polaco team. It rained very hard Last Tuesday and Wendesday in West Virgina so the course was very wet and muddy. Everyones lap times were slower then years past but my 2 team mates Chris and Bill that went out before me put in great lap times. Around 3:30 it was my time to go hit the course. I was doing great for the first 6 miles of the 12.2 mile course. At that time there is a very long technical downhill. About 3/4 of the way down I slip in so mud and go down thankfully on my left side so I don’t hurt my right arm. No prob I get back up covered in mud and continue. At the bottom of that downhill there is a pretty good climb which I attach hard. But after that climb my right triceps start to cramp. The only reasons I can think of is my right arm hasn’t got all the strength back since I broke it back in November. Once it started cramping my right elbow pretty much locked up which really slowed me down. Once I got to the finish line for my lap my arm was useless. My teammates wouldn’t let me race for the rest of the day. Thankfully around 3:00 in the morning I felt like I could do another Lap. So they let me go out around 4:30 in the morning. That way if my arm really messed up I would not have to worry about my light battery dying on me since the sun came up around 5:30.  That lap went pretty good but my arm hurt like crazy but it did not lock up on me and My team told me that I shaved 10 minutes off my lap time. So it was a pretty good weekend. My team came in 14thout of 30 teams in sport class so I am happy with that result.