12 hours of Lodi Farms (aka 6 hours of Lodi mud)

Man.. Lodi was epic.

The rain held off until a little after 6pm. Then it poured.

I started. It was a bad start.. i choose a poor time to pee one last time and ended up at the very back of the field. With probably 200 people in front of me, it was stop and go for the first half hour. People couldn't ride the rooty, washout climbs that were just like my home turf at OHill. This turned out to be a big advantage and I constistently passed people on the first half lap, putting down the 10 mile lap in 1:14.

I think dave was going for fastest lap as he put in a 52? Which turned out to be close to fastest lap, but a few minutes off.

I wasn't ready for him to be quite that quick, so I didn't get to warm my legs back up, and that hilly start hurt bad. This turned out to be a theme, as that start hurt bad every time with cold legs that I couldn't figure out how to warm up even when I knew dave would be there in 55 minutes. My 2nd lap rolled significantly faster as I didn't have to deal with the lap traffic, and I was flowing nicely through turns, etc. 1:07. The bike was setup PERFECTLY and was eating roots like they were tic-tacs.

The third lap was much the same, except some climber type passed me right at the end of the hills. We had a brief convo and figured out that we both had the same number of laps and were in the same category. I was determined not to let him get away, so i threw it down on the back half of that lap and kept him in sight for at least 35 minutes, catching him in the twistiest turniest chunk set of chicanes ever. The switchbacks had switchbacks in them, if you know what I mean. The first time through here I was literally car sick from the turning. Third lap I had a goal and stayed with him. He eventually got away on some climbing to the finish, but I felt good to stay with him as long as I did. I think this was a 1:06 or so.

Dave put in another lap and I was up again. I rode for 15 minutes and then the rain let loose. Not a sprinkle first, but full-blown downpour that sustained itself as a constant rain all evening. About 30 seconds after the rain started I was still carving turns, waiting for things to start to actually feel slippery. I get to one of those rooty climbs, this one having a 12" step-up onto a root. I see two people hiking it, and see it as an opportunity to get in a good pass. I hop up on the root, and the first pedal stroke spun the tire. The bike went backwards and down the root. I'd tried this manuever the first 3 laps without issue, but it turned out to be my warning that things were getting slick. I went over backwards, and fell pretty far down the hill. Landed with the saddle in my back, a major bruise on my left knee, and chainring marks from my right knee to my ankle. Ugh. And, I still had an hour+ in this lap. After checking to make sure everything was intact, I got back on and my superior bike handling skills soon had me passing all kinds of people that couldn't even ride in these conditions. The trail was still pretty firm .. under the running water. But those roots could be killers. I cringed at the sound of my wheels rotating. The last mile of trail was brand new (and apparently built with a leaf blower in a flood plain that was 3/4" above the stream level. It turned into a mud pit by the time i got there. I was very happy to see the cars.

Oh, did I mention all the leafy branches that decided to drop from just-over head level, to handle bar level when the rain hit them? That sucked pushing wet leafy branches out of the way with one's helmet, or face, depending on how lucky you were.

I took a swim (quite literally) in the stream by the parking field. So did my bike.. a little water wasn't going to hurt it after what it'd just been through.

Dave and I had talked just before the start of that eventful lap. We decided he was going to try to do a double, as we could move from 5th to 3rd and get a podium spot if we could use his 50-something-minute laps instead of my 60-ish something. A bit over an hour later, Dave got back and I was dressed in fuzzy warm clothes. He asked how I felt about keeping going. I told him we were here to have fun, and it wasn't much fun riding in this crap anymore. I had bike clothes on under the warm fuzzy stuff, and said I'd go if he wanted me to. He agreed that it just wasn't fun, and we called it a night by 8:30ish.

Between his and my bike handling skills, his single lap still moved us up to 4th place of 24 teams. 3rd place was really only minutes ahead, and they called it quits too. Had we gone out, who knows what they would have done, but I think we could have had 3rd without much problem. Actually, 2nd place never went out again either. They were a lap up on us, but we had 4 hours to turn 2 laps and we could have beat them and gotten 2nd, but no one really cared. There was pizza, beer, a bbq with warm food and warm, dry, fuzzy clothes to be had.. and wet, muddy racers to watch suffer. :) Lap times suffered WAY more than the 5-10 minutes dave and I added to our wet laps. People went from 1:10 to 2:10 on their laps as they couldn't stay on the bike anywhere because of both fatigue and ever-worsening conditions..

I'm not sure about Dave's bike, but mine never so much as mis-shifted in the uber-harsh conditions. Props to good bike maintenance and prep. Props to both Dave and I for being super consistent, even in the less-than-ideal conditions, and calling it quits when it ceased being fun.

I know a lot of other teams did really well too. Chris C. and the N.O.L.A.N were there and we had an unofficial bet on who would win between dave and I and them. Dave and I are officilally ultimate champions of the universe now. Scott and Esther rocked a bunch of laps and seemed super consistent too. Michele, Shawn, and Jeremy did lap after lap until the race finished, go them! Needless to say, K29er and Danny O. put the hammer down early and kept it down until midnight, taking the overall fastest team award and winning a ton of VORS points. The old man took first in SS solo and was only minutes off the overall solo win. Those minutes cost him at the prize table: A $350 light set compared to something from the schwag table.. bummer! His young lady did well and finished 2nd. Denelle, in typically D style, quit way early and still won her category by a lap.

K29er was my ride out there.. and at 1:30 when the awards where finished and he collected his 1st place prize, we were gone. The 12 hour effort and being nearly 2am got the best of him and I drove us the rest of the way back. I got home a bit after 3, and I can't imagine k29er got home before 3:30. At least warm showers and comfy beds where in order.

Today, things aren't so pleasant (yesterday was a circus ride, right?!) I'm pretty bruised and beat up from my crash. I keep finding new spots where i'm bruised or scraped. Further, I had an inkling this might happen yesterday, but I've got some kind of cold/flu thing going. Cough, sneezing, blech. Oh well, it's time to rest and be ready for the next throwdown.

Disclaimer: results are as I remember them, official results aren't out yet.