Around the Clock 24 Hour Mountain Bike Race

5 person co-ed Podium. (Left to Right) Teams "Friendly, but not Nice" - 2nd (I'm in the back with the black visor, Dan's in the orange hat), "Mountain Monkeys"-1st, "Team Chopper" - 3rd.


Riverside State Park, Spokane, WA





noon 5/24 to noon 5/25.





Team "Friendly, but not Nice." 24 hours of good times.





We learned our lesson about braving holiday weekend traffic - don't do it. What is normally a 4.5 - 5 hr drive was a blissful 8.5 hours, 3 of which were basically sitting on Snoqualmie pass. At least we got to memorize the latest 3 CDs of the audio book we're listening too.





The course was dry and very sandy this year. I also made the mistake of not pre-riding (something that I had planned to do the night before had we not been stuck in traffic) so I felt like the Tazmanian devil on a bike the first lap as I overcooked every corner and took myself out on a flat gravel corner. (A reason why I'm still expert and not pro...) Amazingly, that turned out to be my fastest lap of the race - 58:10 (58 minutes and 10 seconds).





After my amazing first lap (ha!) my mountain bike brain kicked in and I felt smoother and more fluid each lap. And was only 5 minutes slower on my night lap (at midnight - we learned last year that Kari's are not meant to bike during REM sleep hours). So in my 5 laps, I only varied 7 minutes total and met my goal of 65 minute or less lap time throughout.





The competition for the co-ed 5 person division was hot. It was the biggest feild in the race - 15 co-ed out of 104 teams total for all feilds. We were again evenly matched against Team Chopper (the team that beat us last year) and it was going to be a test of whether the strategy of fast and faster (Team Chopper) or team consistent (us) would take 2nd place. First was pretty much sealed by a team that consisted of 3 pro level riders. This year consistency paid off as our whole team posted lap times that were within 8 minutes of each other (58 to 66 minutes) for the entire race - 23 fifteen mile laps. Pretty impressive considering it this was the first 24hr race experience for two of our team members.





I think this continues to be one of my favorite races and I can't wait for next year!