12 Hours Of Sundace and Other Bike Rides

With the kids back in school Michelle is having a much harder time finding time to go biking - gone are the days where we could leave the kids in bed and head out biking. Now they have to be sent off to school. However we did have time to go for a quick evening ride from our house and up the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. We made it almost to the highest point near Dry Canyon before we decided we'd better head back to get home before dark. Michelle was way stronger than me on this ride - she had to slow way down and wait for me to rest a couple of times.

The next week I (Brian) had the chance to ride the BST again by myself on the way to work.


Below is a ride I did last week. It's basically the Area 51 loop that I've done before, but I also added the Roller Coaster trail then back up the dirt rode and Betty to Area 51. I took a wrong turn and went the wrong way on Area 51 for a little while, but I was really glad I did because that part of the trail was really really fun to ride. Once I hit a steep part I knew for sure I was going the wrong way and turned around.



Last Saturday (Sept 5) Michelle and the kids were at the story telling festival all day so I took the opportunity to do a ton of bike riding. I got up early and started out on cascade springs road and rode the 252 loop counterclockwise. Just when I got to the stop it started to ran. Then it started to rain hard. Pretty soon the trail and my bike were a muddy mess. I was disappointed thinking that my long day of biking was going to have an abrupt halt. Pretty soon my tires were caked with mud so that they were super slippery. Between that and the muddy ground it didn't take much for me to wipe out. Fortunately I was going super slow and it didn't hurt much. By the time I got back to my car the rain had pretty much stopped so I thought I'd give it a try and ride some more. So then I rode up Cascade Springs Road then up a dirt road to 157, then followed it across and rode down 252. By the time I hit the dirt road the rain was stopped and by the time I hit 157 the mud was gone - yay! So the total ride made a nice figure 8 as seen in the picture below. I finished up at about 10 am and drove down to Sundance.


I got started riding at Sundance at about 11 am. I rode around Sundance until about 3pm. After riding around a bunch, I rode up the ski lift once.

Then on the way down it started to rain again. I tried to take the shortest route to my car and ended up on a dirt road with lots of loose rocks. Before I realized how bad the rocks were I was going too fast and out of control. For wrecking, I did a pretty good job - I jumped to the side so I landed on dirt instead of the rocks and landed on one foot. Unfortunately I put a knee down and banged it really hard. Between the rain and the hurt knee it was clearly time to be done. By the end of the day I had ridden somewhere around 32 miles with 4000+ feet vertical. I was supposed to go to the storytelling festival that evening, but my knee hurt bad enough and was stiff enough that I just stayed home with Adam.


The main reason I went to Sundance on 9/5 was because I was thinking about riding 12 hours of Sundance on 9/12. My friend from work, Darby, and I were talking about riding this as a team. However, when I went to work on Tuesday, Darby's bike frame was broken from his riding that weekend, so he wasn't able to do 12 hours of Sundance. I almost decided not to do it because my knee was pretty sore from my bike wreck. After hiking Timp on Monday it was really tight. I rode a little in front of our house on Tuesday night and my knee didn't feel good at all. I decided I would go for a quick ride on Wednesday and see how it felt. I did the Bonneville Shorline Trail noted above - it was about 1,000 feet vertical including the road up to the trail. My knee felt fine so I decided to register for the race.

I was nervous doing this race. I was well aware that I would be way way outclassed by the other people there. First of all, pretty much everyone out riding trails is already faster than me. Second, these are guys who race bikes all of the time. Third, this isn't your standard race - it's a long difficult race so only the more serious or crazy riders would be there. Having never done any race at all I was really nervous to do it, but I like the idea that there wasn't a finish line - you just ride as many laps as you can in 12 hours. I only slept a few hours the night before and got up at 4:30 to get ready and head to the race.

There's too much to tell about the race to even try. But a summary of things is

• I had a lot of fun
• People were really nice and supportive
• Lots and lots of people passed me lots and lots of times
• I rode 6 laps, 11.5 hours for a total of 48 miles and around 6000 feet vertical
• I was dead last by a long ways. I think first place did 17 laps or so - 2nd to last probably did 8-9 laps. (Ok there was one lady, Brandi, whose partner didn't make it and ended up riding solo, who also did 6 laps, but she finished her 6th lap way before me.)
  
• Me first 4 laps took me about 6 hours. My last 2 laps took 5 1/2 hours. It was an interesting experience to push my body to the limit. I didn't push so hard that it was torture, I just had to slow it down a lot once my body was tired.
• I ended up with my race number being #1. Part of the trail went under the ski lift and there were some kids on the chair lift that were really impressed that I was #1.
  
• I'm way less sore today than I expected.
• My knee was stiff but did great.
• My favorite trail section that I rode was Sherwood Forest. Archies loop, Boneyard, Switchback Alley, Speedtrap & Bobsled were really fun too.
  
• Michelle came up to visit to support me. It was a great surprise. It really tickled me that she took the time to come up. She drug an unwilling Adam & Todd along with her. I saw her between laps 5 & 6 and hung out in the parking lot with them for a half hour. She had great timing - she only waited about 1/2 hour - that lap took me over 2 hours. Always it was exactly the time that I needed to stay and rest for a while before heading back out.
• I had a great time & people were really nice, but I still felt like I was quite out of place. I had been considering trying out mountain bike racing, but this convinced me at least for now that I don't want to. It's because I think racing would take the things out of biking that I like the most - I just enjoy being out there and seeing how pretty things are and how fun it is to be riding. I don't want to worry about the racing aspect, although the social part of the racing aspect would be a lot of fun.
• Will I do 12 hours of Sundance again next year? I don't know. I did enjoy it, and I might want to see how much I improve, and the people were super super nice and supportive, but on the other hand I think maybe I would rather just be out riding. I definitely want to do a 12 hour ride again and see how far I can go. I'm just not sure if I'd want to do it at a formal event like this. I definitely will be back to ride at Sundance again.

Here's a picture Michelle took of me riding around in the parking lot between laps 5&6. You can see Sundance in the background where the track was - that road on the left was the first part of the track - and it's a lot steeper than it look in the picture.