Please share with all Mountain Bike Sites!! We are getting ready for 1st Annual Zombie Goat Enduro Mountain Bike Race. Trails are in great shape right now. We’ll be doing last minute tweaks to the trails this weekend. Some of the stages are going to be run in complete reverse of the normal flow and a least one stage will have some previously un-ridden surprises. The long range weather forecast looks good for the weekend of the race October 19-20. Race Maps will be posted 72 hours before start of race. Camping will be great as the lows have been in the mid 50s for the last few days. The stars have been particularly brilliant at night. We will have the big camp fire pit going as well as the redneck hot tub. The last few years I’ve wanted to do an Enduro event at Flat Rock Ranch and this year we are finally pulling the trigger. We did have a need to learn how to do it, so Charlie Cude and I journeyed to Durango Colorado and participated in the Big Mountain Enduro over this last Labor Day weekend. We drove from Comfort, Texas to Durango, Colorado in one day; VW TDIs don’t get 40+ miles to the gallon with 2 large bikes on back at 85 mph. Checked into the KOA Thursday night and went to sleep right away. Friday we picked up or number plates at a little park in down town Durango. We did manage to pre ride stage 3 of the Enduro that afternoon. The transition was a fairly easy trail, except we kept running out of oxygen and had to do the hike a bike thing. We did make our first friend, Casey, in the Fort Lewis College parking lot. It was dumb luck that we pre rode this stage as it was extremely technical, more hike a bike stuff for me less for Charlie. Saturday morning we staged at the Fort Lewis College Parking lot. They loaded us up on busses and drove us approximately 15 miles and dropped us off 5 or 6 miles short of Kennebec Pass. We rode and walked the transition fire road to the start of stage 1 at 12,500 feet. Made new friends with a senior citizen from Flagstaff, Arizona, he was 53. Found out every time he visits his sister and brother in law in San Antonito he rides Flat Rock Ranch, who knew. Found I could ride most of the transition, even at altitude, but as the fire road became stupid steep I had to walk. At the start, Charlie and I launched with the rest staged in 30 second intervals. First part was a scree field with lots of rectangular and square thin flat rocks. At my age and the speeds I was hitting made this a total near death experience. I don’t recall how long the stage was time wise but it was approximately 7 miles long, it went by fast. I did not have a dropper post and dropped mine manually. This did not work very well when I hit some uphill sections. The transition to the second stage start was by single track. I now understand the real reason you wear knee pads, you drop them down sideways to cover your ankles and protect them from pedal strikes during the hike bike sections. Also, flat peddles will allow you to wear shoes for better walking. Along the transition we found a large down tree blocking the trail. We’d crawl over the tree and the guy behind would hand your bike over. I caught a lot of crap, in a good way, from the guy who handed over my Jet 9 RDO, about its weight. “I heard you splash back there did your bike float away in the creek?” I believe we climbed 1,500 feet to the start of stage 2. Charlie and I started stage 2, dropped my seat post 1” and this worked a lot better in the uphill sections. Stage 2 was fast and a lot more forgiving than stage 1. At the end of Stage 2 we found ourselves 7 miles from Durango, with no shuttle back. Good thing for us it was a gentle down hill ride to town. There were paved sections where we peddled 30 mph+ so the trip was fast. We did pass a few 27.5” guys struggling along. 29ers may not be the best choice for Enduro trail riding but they are a lot faster on pavement than the big travel bikes. We arrived at the little park in down town Durango and got our lunch burritos and a beer. The ride back to Fort Lewis College was tough, all up hill. We flagged down a kid in a Ford Ranger at a stop sign. He turned out to be the event photographer; 3 bikes, Charlie, and I in the back of a ranger with no shocks, a high rate of speed made for an interesting ride to the top. Sunday morning we staged again at the Fort Lewis College Parking lot. We climbed the transition trail to the start of Stage 3. Great trail just not enough oxygen for us lowlanders to breath. Mostly able to ride, just had to walk a few times to catch my breath. Girls were having a sing along as we went up. At the start the girls grouped up and waited for the guys to go first, they did not want to get run over by the faster guys in the technical sections. Turns out the whole stage was a technical section. I decided that the girl’s strategy was a good strategy and we started before the girls. Turned out not to be a good strategy as the girls were trying to run over me. It was a very difficult stage with more near death experience. At the finish, we found our friend Casey on all fours getting cactus thorns picked out of his rear end by a nice lady. We formed a strategy with some of the other riders to stop and rest at shade trees along the transition to the stage 4 start at top of Telegraph Mountain. There weren’t many trees along the way and was somewhat lacking in oxygen. Stage 4 was a pleasant stage. I decided to just roll it without the need for speed; I totally enjoyed the ride to the end. We then went back to the little park in Durango for Burritos and the awards ceremony. Heather Irmiger’s dog Crash tried to take a bite out of my lunch burrito. Charlie told her she ought to re name her dog Burrito, she was not impressed. We watched the awards ceremony and marveled at the surgical battle scares on the 40+ Amateur women podium finishers. I did not finish very well although I did beat all the DNFs. I was, at 60, the oldest participant of the Durango Enduro. I get to cross Colorado Enduros off my bucket list. Labor day we drove back to Comfort causing the VW TDI to not get good fuel economy. We did stop at Roswell NM to pick up spare blow up alien for the bike shack. We made it to Comfort at dark. Really was a great extended weekend. I know Flat Rock Ranch cannot hope to duplicate trails in Colorado. We can, however, make a great rider experience with what we have in Texas. Our Enduro will be centered around a group campground with most of the stage finish lines close by. The stages will be shorter, but intensely fun. All Transitions to stage starts will be at your own pace. We hope to make this more than just another completive event by promoting racer camaraderie where old and new friends can gather to make the most out of a mountain bike experience. We want to get back to mountain bike basics with ultra fitness being less important. Please don’t miss this experience, Enduro style racing is and will be part of the future of Texas Mountain Bike Racing. Jimmy Dreiss Registration: https://bikereg/Net/21552 Race Flyer: flatrockranch.net/Enduro%20Flyer%202013%20final.pdf
Posted on: Wed, 09 Oct 2013 18:16:45 +0000
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