wahcheeta

I blow stress out of my system when I ride. Maybe that is why I break so many bike parts. 60 miles will blow out more then stress. It can eat your soul if you are not careful. The Ouachita Challenge was epic for me. My goal was to finish. I have been having trouble juggling work schedauls with races and broken bikes which has left me with little or no time to just ride. Well everything came together for me despite the whirrel wind of stress that blew in on Friday. Let me begin at the beginning...

I blew my fork out and toasted my brakes at Rim Wrecker. Monday I spent searching for a new fork. I am a little skepitcle about riding a reba after blowing one out twice. I settled on a Marzocchi Marathon Corsa world Cup and got it order on Tuesday and shipped 3 day air from UPS. I ordered in some sweet Avid Juicy 7's to replace the 5 year old Deore's I was trusting my life with.

Friday found me sitting at the shop waiting for brown with my bike completely disassembled. The UPS truck drove past. I waited...and waited...and waited...then called Marzocchi got a tracking number and located my fork in Des Moines Iowa. I called UPS and was told that if the fork was shipped on Tuesday night 3 day air meant it would not be delivered till Saturday and since they do not deliver on Saturday I wouldn't get it till Monday. Morel of the story UPS sucks because if you do the math there are 3 days between Tuesday and Friday.

I bumbed a fork (A pretty sweet Fox F100) off of Matt AKA Casey Ryback and started throwing my bike together at 5pm. I put her all together and couldn't get the rear Der dialed. Add more stress and I was starting to lose my cool in a major don't-think-I-am-going-to-go kind of way. Enter Drew AKA Sparky a former Co-worker, friend, and Mechanic extrodinare at Ghisallo. Drew ran home and brought me up a set of Sram X.9 shifters and a X.7 Derailleur. 830ish and Airin is in working order and sporting a wicked XTR/XT/X9/X7 drivetrain and running off of friendship so pure that you would have to dilute it under normal cercumstances.

Saturday I drove down with the Seagal boys and their Single Speeds of Supiority and checked in. I got a ACE bandage for my wrist which I had some how sprained and ignored hoping that it would cease to exist if I neglected it. Now it hurt too bad to keep out of my thoughts.

Sunday morning came with awesome weather. At one point I saw God smiling on all 150 riders lining up to put themselves through pain Arkansas style. I kept asking people if they were ready to get awesome as our roll out start moved down the fire road toward the womble trail. Suddenly we were in single track heaven. The womble was in pristine condition. We climbed and descended and hit the pavement. I was feeling great and after chatting some more hooked up with my new found friends for a 25mph pace line to get to the single track faster. This ended up being mistake. I blew up heading up Blowout Mountain which is pretty much pinch flat hell. I was sucking down any energy gel, power bar, fresh fruit, cytomax ect. I could get at the rest stops and was caught during a bindge by Marc and Brad from Team Seagel at the last rest area, 14miles and one mountain from the finish. I started up Big brushy and was forced to walk. I couldn't do this well either and kicked my rear derailleur, bending the hanger and limitting me from using the last cog (something I realized after jamming the chain between the hub and cassette twice). Mud was keeping my front Derailleur from shifting into the granny and I was forced to walk or grind. I did both and traded places with a few riders on the way to the top. Once there the down hill melted my face and gave me new life. I hit the road and again hooked up with another rider and we paced each other. I dropped him later. It was sweet considering how crappy I felt. I big ringed it all the way back on the roads as I drained the last of my cytomax. I crossed the finish line at 5:35 and some change good enough to land me 36th overall. I finished with my soul intact and a pretty muddy smile.

Awesome trip awesome company and one awesome race!