APC Report

Post-ride picture courtesy of Max

At 7am, we started at Willow Springs Rd off Highway 77 and rode to Oracle as a group for some coffee and scones... Mmmmmm! After taking a group picture, we rolled out from the Station in Oracle at 8:00am. At Tiger Mine Rd, Scott, Kevin, and Max were rolling in front of me, no surprise, these guys were going to win this race is what I thought. But then, Kevin had some mechanical issues with his shock. I continued to ride on and eventually passed Max(who was stripping down to drop the hammer),who quickly caught Scott and I before pulling ahead.

Scott and I started to chat a bit about the gasline bonus (clearing all of the hills).We concluded that whoever could clean all the hills without dabbing would probably win the race. My attempt during the pre-ride pretty much sealed my fate, I would have to dab at least one time and I did. I watched Scott clean every steep hill, very impressive. About the same time, Nathan passed me on his singlespeed.

I rode solo until getting to the bottom of Antelope Peak, where I saw Max, Scott, and Nathan on different sections of AP. I jogged up most of the trail. My next goal was to try to catch Nathan, having realized that Scott was too far (with respect to time). I hammered on Willow Springs Rd to a little before Junebug, at which time I realized the person I had been seeing was actually Scott.

He convinced me to crank out the 24-hour lap, something I am glad he did. We did the 24-hour course together, chatting a bit, before exiting back on Willow.The new singletrack (his/her) is amazing; I am excited to do the OP 24 Race in Feb.So we were finishing the 24-hour course. and Scott dropped me with about 1/2 mile to go on the 24 hour course. I tried to stay with him, but my legs were getting a little tired. Not sure what happened to the legs, but I needed some food so I slowed down a bit to eat, turned my music up, and hammered to the car.

I got back to the car (having left my trunk intentionally open) to a beer fest at the cars... great way to end over 7 hours on the bike on some great AZ Trail single track.

Post-ride cool down before heading to De Marco in Oracle. It was a great, small race that was made possible by friends like Scott, Jeff, and Max and The Station (who opened up early just for us!).