9.18.2006

Elvis' New White Shoes







Once again Beth has proved herself to be an awesome wife. This weekend I paid $100 to ride my mountain bike through the night, all the while Beth stood on the sidelines cheering me and the other teammates on. The race was the 24 Hours of Pisgah. 12 a.m. Saturday through 12 a.m. Sunday. 24 hours of dirt and gears.

What's the point? Ride as many laps as you can before noon. I don't claim to be much of a mountain biker, which is why I couldn't have done it without my teammates. I was on a coed team with Beth's brother and 3 others from the North East Tennessee Mountain Bike Association. Each of us would take a lap then pass the timing chip on to the next rider. I was third in the line up, and strange as it may seem, I think I was a little nervous which came through as a poor attitude. At one point before the race started I told Beth, "I really don't want to be here." To which she replied, "well, what else would you be doing this weekend? Sitting at home?" I had no reply. Anyway I really didn't get into the race until the second lap.

My first lap out, I couldn't shake my bad attitude, and it didn't really help that I was reduced to either walking or picking my bike back up after a wreck for alot of the 5 mile course. I made it back in 52 minutes later, which surprised me; I thought the race would be wrapping up by the time I made it back. To my own credit though, a lot of the other riders were having trouble with the wet, soft and rooty trail too. Did I mention there was a 3/4 mile long hill that was super steep? There were people who made it up this beast, but I thought I'd save that for next years race. I made better time just pushing up it. Oh, and they called "Puke Hill"; at the top was an outhouse named "Puke Bucket".

By the time it was time for my second lap, I was getting into it. I felt a lot better and it showed because it only took me 47 + minutes from start to finish. From then on, every lap I finished the more I enjoyed the whole deal, it was a really good time. Riding at night was a blast too, because all you do is chase the beam of light from the headlamp through the woods. I realized I probably wasn't riding hard enough when my lap times pretty much stayed the same regardless of night or light, so when daylight came on Sunday I rode pretty hard and came in under 45 minutes.

I'm pretty satisfied with my times, but just to give you an idea the competative times were somewhere between 30 and 35 minutes a lap. Also, there were some insane guys who not only did the race solo, but they did it on a completly rigid single speed bike. Crazy hard.

Oh, and our team name was .......Elvis' New White Shoes.

check out more pictures here

-well alright-

7 comments:

lisa said...

Sounds grueling.... I can't stay up all night and articulate a sentence let alone ride a bike on a mountain trail in the dark! Most impressive.

f1rststory said...

SWEET! Sounds like a blast! Do they let old slow people do that race? hahahahaha

Anonymous said...

Johnny T, whenever i'm feeling down i know i can always look to you to make me understand what a lazy bugger i really am, and motivate me to stop feeling sorry for myself, get off the couch, and go find something interesting to do! hmmm...my bike looks too shiny and clean, maybe i should fix that ;o)

Kel said...

Beth, you look cute! :)

yeah, go john. HAHAHa, just kidding. There is NO way I could ever do that. That's insane. I much prefer hiking.

Anonymous said...

have you ever thought of doing one of the multiple day primal-ecochallenge sorts of things? i bet you would rock as a team leader!

f1rststory said...

OK JT - so when are elvis' new white shoes going to leave the building so we can see a new post? heheh - yeah - clever, I know. ;)

f1rststory said...

OK - now you're getting close to "amberishness"....