Shake Me

Another Tree Shaker down, and this time I feel pretty good about it. Saturday, the DPC and I teamed up to ride for 12 hours in a not-so-serious manner, but plans changed.






After setting up our pit area, we were ready. We had a guest hanging out with us too. My friend Mr. Ryde needed a place to keep his crap while he raced solo for 12 hours, and we happily obliged. I didn’t see much of him though, since he was pretty much riding the whole time. Besides, we had plans other than riding.



Told ya. Our progress for the day would be tracked via this silly little white board, and it was on the honor system. I couldn’t wait to drink my first beer, but the plan was to do a lap first. The Dirty Party Cycle wanted to go first, so I would have to wait quite some time to down my first “recovery drink.” I wasn’t too worried about it though, because things were starting to get a little serious for our little race team.


The DPC had set a goal for number of laps, and he planned on hauling ass. I thought we were gonna take the “easy” approach to 12 hours of racing, what with consuming beers between laps and all. With his new “I’m hauling ass” approach I wondered if I could handle both racing and drinking at the same time. Only time would tell. I sat back and watched as the DPC got going on lap number one.



Photo credit: Lunchbox

I sat and waited. I knew the really fast guys would complete the 9.5 mile lap in around 45 minutes, so I figured on an hour or so for the DPC. That wasn’t blazing fast, but good enough to be uh, competitive. After around 40 minutes of sitting on my ass, I got my shit together and waited at the start/finish line. The DPC came in from his first lap in under an hour and we exchanged our timing chip.



Just to help make him famous on the Internets, Lunchbox got a photo of Mr. Ryde coming in from his first lap too.



My first lap hurt. I didn’t warm up at all, the trail was a little slippery, and I was dehydrated from drinking beer the night before (in preparation for the race.) I hadn’t been riding all that hard lately either, so it took a few miles to get into any kind of rhythm. About halfway through, I started feeling pretty good. I rode a lot faster than I had originally planned, and pushed as hard as I could on the climbs. The DPC was hoping for a good showing for team B-43, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. Besides, I wanted to hurry up and get to the beer.



Lap one in the books, and beer number one going down the hatch. The DPC tore outta there for his second lap, and I noticed that he had only put a mark in the “Laps” column. He decided to wait until later for his first beer. Damn, he was serious about this stuff.


When he came in from lap two, his time was a bit slower. He told me that he crashed, and that a lot of people did the same thing in that very same spot. After the chip exchange, I headed out for my second lap. I felt a little better, and rode a lot faster this time. About two miles in though, I dropped my chain. My chain watcher had come loose, offering no protection for my flopping chain. It was stubborn and didn’t want to go back to its original place, so I spent probably five minutes or so on the side of the trail fixing it. I got everything back in the right place (better even), and got back to it.


I kicked up the pace a bit, passing all four of the people that passed me while I did trailside repairs. I was getting serious too, I guess. So serious that at one point I started thinking that maybe I should lay off the beer until after the race. I quickly came to my senses, yelled at myself for being such a sissy, and rode my ass off. I would stick to the plan (the beer part anyway), and just ride harder.


Even though I had to stop to fix my bike, I still had a faster second lap time than my first one. I knew I could ride faster and drink beer, so when the DPC went out for lap number three, I sat down for beer number two (which probably equals four since we were drinking IPAs.) I ate a little, socialized a little, and remembered why I was out there in the first place: to have fun. I could still ride my ass off, drink beer, shoot the shit, and stay competitive. A quick look at the standings even backed me up. We were sitting in fourth place. The DPC was having a good ride too.



After a crash-free (and still beer-free) lap number three, the DPC delivered the timing chip to me. I took off on what would be our sixth lap in six hours. We were setting a pretty good pace, but starting to slow down a bit. With two beers in me at this point, I knew that wasn’t the problem. The DPC stayed away from beer (until after his third lap), and he was feeling the pain too. Our lap times were getting a little slower, but I still came in from my third lap a hair past the six hour mark. I knew we couldn’t keep up that pace, so when my pal went out for lap number four, I told him to take it easy so we could last the whole twelve hours. Actually, I wanted him to take it easy so I could rest a little longer. At this point I had three laps and three beers. The DPC had three laps, one beer, and one crash. We weren’t doing too bad, I guess. Shit, I wasn’t even drunk yet. Things were getting fuzzy though.



I’ve gone on way too long today. Just like I usually do, I’ll drag out another race report over multiple days. Well, this one will only go two days. Stay tuned for part two of the Tree Shaker/Beer Drinker race. See y’all tomorrow.