2009-04-25

MTB Whiskey 50, Prescott

Quite a few of us headed up to Prescott on Thursday for the Whiskey Off-road Mtb Race: Kevin, Jo, Ian, Conner, Ryan and his parents, Nick and his motorcycle. Lani and Rylan joined us on Friday evening.

I hadn't spent much time in Prescott before riding in the Whiskey. It is a neat place. Seems like there are a ton of great trails to ride around Prescott. Definitely heading back up there ASAP.

Friends did the Whiskey 25 and I did the Whiskey 50. Both courses have a lot of steep climbing. If you're thinking about doing the 50 next year, don't be afraid of the climb out of Skull Valley. The road to/from Skull Valley is smooth dirt so just shift to a low gear, turn your brain off and grind it out. Pretty neat when you're in Skull Valley and you look at the ridgeline way up in the air and you realize that you're headed up and over that ridgeline to get back into Prescott.

Time: 5:39:16. Finished 102 out of 141. Next year, I need to start closer to the front of the pack. Wasted a lot of time waiting for the knuckle-heads in front of me who couldn't clear relatively easy obstacles to get out of the way. Also, I decided to hold back a bit on the first part of the course because Kevin told me that the Skull Valley trail was gnarly technical. I didn't know better and decided to take it easy on the first half of the race. With friends like these...

~45 miles, 5:40 hr:min, ~7000 ft ascent

http://www.epicrides.com/wor/wor.htm

2009-04-23

MTB Whiskey 25 Proof course pre-ride, Prescott

I pre-rode the 25 Proof race course on Thursday (race was on Sat). Awesome. Saw a horny toad on the road and large wild boar on the trail (at least 80 lb).

25 miles, ~4 hours, ~3800 ft ascent