Following stage 1, I was feeling good about myself in my head but my stomach and body were telling me otherwise. I had some concerns that I went too hard. I spent a large part of the day after the first stage going to and from the bathroom. The cold that I had been trying hard to get from Lizzie seemed to be winning. I was not in a great state of mind starting the 2nd day. Which is great because the 2nd day is one of the longest stages with a lot of climbing. However this had been a day I was looking forward to.

The start was downtown as it would be for the next 3 days, and rolled out “nuetrally” until we hit dirt. Then a punchy climb, to some flat stuff, before a punch in the face and the real day got started. I actually got an ok start and stayed with the folks I felt like I should stay with through the grunty start. In hindsight this might have been a bad idea.

Once we started the long climb up to the CT (Colorado Trail), I started to feel the wheels coming off. I could seem to produce any power, every inclination of the trail was forcing me off the bike. This was not good.

Dan Durland came arouund, then a few more SS’s, and there wasn’t much I could do about it. Finally over the top, and in one of the first big switchbacks I lose the front end and go down. Perfect, now on top of feeling terrible, my leg is bleeding, my hip hurts, and my confidence descending is blown. I do what I can to try and minimize the losses, which isn’t much other than tell myself that I expect to have a rough day from time to time.

The rest of the day doesn’t get much better, confidence in descending stays shaky, and the power never seems to come back. I finally make it back to the finish line and learn I’m the 7th SS and have given up 20ish mins to the other guys. Not the result I was hoping for and kind of a kick to the small high I was riding after day 1.

Day 3 is the Circumnavigation of Mt. Guyot, which is the longest stage with the most climbing I think and it goes up to 12,000 ft. All of this was weighing heavily on my just crushed soul. All I wanted to do here was right the ship and I figured I really just needed to ride my own race. So I decided to try and do just that.

When we rolled out I tried to settle into my own pace instead of worrying about what the group was doing (of course I still kept a small eye on the others). As it turned out by the time we hit real climbing I was still in touch with a few of the guys I was trying to keep an eye on. We hit the first little descent and I feel some real life and some confidence come back, I’m passing guys/gals on full squish(Full Suspension) bikes like they were standing still. This is a good sign.

We start the climb up to the first big pass, French Pass, things that look rideable are hard to walk. Luckily this seemed to be the case for everyone, geared riders and SS’ers alike. I look up and it’s a complete death march for as far as the eye can see, everyone pushing their bikes. But I can still see the folks I’m competing against so that is a small victory for now. As we start down the other side I got caught up in some traffic and could not find a good place to pass. We hit some steep stuff and I realize this guy in front of me is out of his element so I found a place and made a sketchy pass and he finally realized he should have let me go a while ago.

The next climb up to GA Pass was a little more mellow and largely on gravel. I found a geared rider and had a short chat, this helps pass the time and keeps me from thinking negative thoughts. Finally I felt some recovery and decided to push on. Over Ga pass and into what was my favorite Descent of the week, rocky, rooty, wet, slick, this felt like home. I passed people left and right and finally felt like I knew what I was doing again. We hit some flume trail and I had a copule of geared riders right behind me. I asked a few times if they wanted to go and every time I got a “no, you’re killing it” it seemed like different voices too. Come to find out I kept hearing different voices because I kept dropping folks.

We popped out on some road for the final climbs and I could see the other guys. We got to the line, while I was still the 6th SS on the day the gap between all of us was less than 10 mins and 2-6 were within just a few minutes. I’d managed to ride with all of these guys the day after falling apart. It felt like a win.