Epic Rides Whiskey Off-Road

Whiskey was a pretty awesome race for me. I had been looking forward to it all week before the race on Saturday. Friday night was nice because I had gotten to bed early and got to sleep until I just woke up on Saturday morning which just happened to be around 6:00 AM. I woke up feeling good and ready to go. My parents and I got to the venue about an hour early so I would be able to get a warmup in and get my legs going before the race. However, I underestimated just how many people were racing in the 25 mile race. A turn out of just over 700 people made for a not so pleasant surprise to see the people were already lining up when we got there so I did a slightly shorter warmup than I had planned but made it enough to get my legs fired up. I was still fortunate enough to get a good starting position because my buddy Ian Wilkey and I found a few spots right up front where we waited for about 20 minutes before the start. After waiting, we finally got to the point where there was about 1 minute left. I got ready to go. I still felt good and strong mentally and physically; a good sign of a good race. The announcer called out 15 seconds to start and I could feel myself getting more and more pumped for the race to start. Then the gun fired off a few times and we were gone. I was holding on with the lead pack which was about nine or ten of us off the front. I felt good holding on. I never felt the need to back down and I didn't feel like I was anywhere near red-lining. In fact, I felt so good that I considered making a break away but when I looked over at some of the other guys, I noticed that while I was slightly panting and pushing a little bit some of the other guys in that same pack weren't even breathing up the hill. That was enough to hold back my want to break away so I just stuck with the group and waited for something to happen which eventually, something did. I saw some guys take off almost instantly when we hit the dirt while some other guys fell off the back of our group. Eventually, it was just me and my two friends and teammates, Ian Wilkey Dilyn Sheber. We started to form a bit of a paceline, working together but that broke off once we hit some technical sections. It just became too hard for the three of us to maintain. I was the first to break off, my chain had slipped off the cranks and I would have just pedaled it back on but my gearing for the climb we were on was less than convenient and I was better off getting off the bike and just putting it back on by hand so that's what I did and I lost some time but being at the beginning of the race but after the critical part of the beginning, I was fine with having to make it up. After a solid amount of singletrack climbing, I found myself just behind Dilyn. I tried to catch him before we started descending because I knew that technical descents were his thing and that if he beat me there I wouldn't see him again until at least the very bottom. He just beat me to the top of the climb with me following close behind. I started descending with him and watched as he started making ground on me. He got the lead on me and I didn't see him again until we hit the bottom. I saw him again once we hit the next climb but he was way ahead. It looked to me like I would be able to catch him but when I started pushing a harder pace, it seemed like it wasn't making any difference. Once we got about halfway up the climb, I see Ian come up behind me. We started battling up the hill. We were passing people like they were stopped going up the section called "Cramp Hill" where most people were just barely making it up, the combination of my Trek Superfly and Stan's ZTR 29er Race Gold wheels, I felt almost like a shuttle going up it. Once Ian and I hit some gradual descents followed by some mild climbs, I decided that this was where I would put down what I had. I hit the gradual descents super hard which made it easier to get up the following hill. I did this a couple times which seemed to be a good strategy for me because I wasn't feeling worn at all and I was making time on everyone behind me. After all the dirt road sections were done, I knew that I was coming in on the final push of the race which was just some singletrack followed by a 2 mile pavement section. It wasn't long after I hit the singletrack that tragedy struck; I flatted on small lift with some sharp rocks in it. Lucklily, my saving grace was in my back pocket, my Genuine Innovations tubeless repair plugs. I quickly found the hole and stuck a plug in and it immediately stopped losing what little air it had left. Tragedy then struck again, I couldn't get my CO2 pump to puncture the cartridge and after fiddling with it for a few minutes, it blew up in my hand and almost froze it completely. Luckily, though, the photographers near by had found a small CO2 cartridge which did me just fine. I pumped it in and it worked perfectly but of course, bad things come in threes, I was still losing air from the sidewalls of the tire for some reason but I was able to spread the Stan's sealant that was spewing out onto the leak and it sealed up instantly. I was finally ready to go... sort of. With the lost air from the sidewalls, I was left with what I estimated to be about 5-10 psi in my rear tire, probably closer to five. I had no choice but to deal with slop handling coming from the rear. This made it much harder to corner and just ride my bike in general but I made it work. I kept going and made it through the singletrack. I was just trying to not completely destroy my rims by riding really gently but still trying to go hard. I reluctantly let some people pass me here because I knew that once we hit the last two miles of the race which were just pavement back to Whiskey Row, I would be able to push super hard and make up several positions which was exactly what I did. I found myself pushing 30+ mph and catching positions like crazy. I tried to catch a guy on the turn back into the final stretch before turning back on to Whiskey Row when I started to slip off and almost completely lost my rear tire off my rim but my  Stan's 29er Race Golds pulled through for me again and kept the tire on where any other wheel would have pulled it right off. I managed to save myself and keep the rubber side down and made the pass on the guy. I then found myself coming into Whiskey Row and having the challenge of beating someone for position on a sprint finish to the line. I sprinted with him for a bit until he started to stand up and actually sprint and I realized that I should stay down due to the low tire pressure in the rear because I wouldn't want to run the risk of falling at a high speed on pavement just before the finish so I settled with 26th out of the 700 people that came out. All in all, I had an awesome time out there and would like to give a big shout out to epicrides.com for putting on an awesome event!