Prescott Sixer

It's that time of year where all the races that are mostly just for fun are marked on the calendar. This one however, was a mixture of both fun and brutally difficult.

The Prescott Sixer is a 6 hour mountain bike race on a course that is 9.1 miles over mostly singletrack including four major climbs to total 744 ft. of climbing. My goal was to put in 8 laps but I would have been fine with 7.
Here's a look at the course:
http://app.strava.com/segments/832002

I was only a little late to line up so I couldn't quite get a spot right up front but I got about 4th row which I was alright with. The race started at 9:00 and it started a lot harder than I thought any 6 hour race should start. Once the field quickly spread out, I got with a group of me and 2 other guys and I was leading the group at the moment. I was just about ready to break away because I was pushing a slightly harder pace than they were comfortable with and I could see the lead group with my coach, Brad Wilhelm and my two teammates, Ian Wilkey and Ryan Geiger. After I made my breakaway, there were several times where I had found myself just about to hook on to the back of the lead group. It seemed like I was less than a tenth of a mile away from them and I was sure I would hook on shortly thereafter so I pushed the limits a little and as a result I crashed right into one of the corners where not only the lead group got away from me, but the 2 guys I had dropped earlier had passed me. I worked to catch back up only to find that the lead group had completely dissipated but I found one guy to hold on to heading into the second lap. I almost went down again a couple times hanging on to this guy but I eventually honed my technical skills and made it through just fine. Since this guy had pulled me around for a while, I saw a rocky climb on a decent grade where drafting would be of use and an opportunity to return the favor but I unknowingly had pulled away from him. Going on to lap 3 I caught up with another group of about 5 other guys. Shortly after I hooked on though, one of the guys broke away and I took off on his wheel. He tried to drop me but I wouldn't let it happen and after a while, he just let me hang on. Once we hit that rocky climb again, I decided I would try to return the favor for this guy and maybe he could hang on. I made the same effort I did last time, he couldn't hang on, I dropped him, and I was on my own for the rest of the lap. This was where I realized that I could probably drop anybody that was on my wheel on this climb and it became an integral part of my strategy. Once I came around for lap 4 I was about 10 minutes away from the 3 hour mark and I kept thinking to myself, "Just do that one more time". Lap 4 I caught up with and ended up spending a good amount of the rest of the race with Jeff Frost. Jeff and I kept battling for 4th place until I dropped him on that same climb I was dropping everybody on. The rest of lap 4 went the same way the rest of them did, I just cruised into the next one. Lap 5 a singlespeeder named Hunter Keating caught up with me. He told me about how he had crashed out so I helped pull him around for a bit since I was just trying to cruise through the rest of the race until someone had caught us and passed us both. I wasn't going to let this happen and unfortunately had to leave Hunter in the dust. I decided to hang on this guy's wheel until we hit the climb again where I planned on dropping him and that was exactly what happened. I felt like I was going to be able to cruise through like I had for the rest of my laps until I heard the sound of a freehub behind me. I started to just make efforts to attempt to drop him but it didn't work. Then I realized my rear end was getting a little bouncy and I was loosing air in my rear tire, slowly. Toward the end of the lap I knew I wasn't going to lose him so as we were coming through, I asked him how my rear tire looked and he said it was low. I made a very quick stop by the AZ Devo tent where our team manager, Marty Coplea gave me a gel flask full of Hammer Nutrition's Perpetuem among some other food while my dad pumped up the tire. Just before I got going again I caught none other than Jeff Frost going on his 6th lap taking 4th place. I wasn't going to let it go without a battle. I got extremely aggressive on the trail to catch back up. I caught him and he did not want to give up the spot. I found an opening on a wide part of the trail in the middle of a turn however and took back 4th place. Jeff was still right on me though. We talked a little during the 6th lap as I was leading him out through the singletrack. I planned to put the hammer on him on the same climb I was dropping everybody else on then go a little harder on the next climb than usual as icing on the cake. This worked. I had dropped Jeff again. I cruised into the end of the 6th lap and upon starting the 7th lap, I knew that either this would be my last, or I would barely squeeze in an 8th lap before the 6 hour cutoff. The 7th lap was harder than any of the other ones, though. It started with one guy from Tribe Multisport who looked like he was planning on slamming lap 7 to squeeze in one more and since I had the same goal, I tried to hang on his wheel for as long as possible. I held on for a little less than half the lap and decided to call it quits and try to catch him on the rocky climb. I surprised myself by doing just that. I caught up with him and dropped him just before hitting the top of the climb but I knew I would have to work hard the rest of the lap to keep him off my wheel. I kept him off until the end of the lap but toward the end, I noticed my rear wheel was going low again. I came in with 10 minutes before the 6 hour mark and repeated what I did last time I was going low and got back out for a final lap. This one, I was finally able to cruise the whole time and I needed it. I was almost out of gas and I was just hoping I wouldn't have to worry about anybody threatening to take 4th from me. That was what happened, I was able to just chill out and take this last lap easy. I saw my teammate and overall winner, Ryan Geiger lap me while he was on his 9th lap, a Prescott Sixer record. Then I cruised in to take 4th place, 8 laps completed in 6 hours 38 minutes.

This was one of the best events I had ever been to and it couldn't have happened without Mike Melley, Sage Grossi, and all of Hub Event Productions. It was an incredible race and I plan on doing it year after year.

Thanks to Marty Coplea and the rest of AZ Devo for the support as always and a big thanks to Hammer Nutrition for keeping me going the whole race with HEED, Endurolytes Fizz, and Perpetuem. I couldn't have made it through the race without any of it!