UltraRob's Adventures

Unlike last year, the weather at the 24 Hours of Moab was perfect today. Of course now that it's night the temperatures have dropped.

A couple bummer's in the solo classes. Chris Eatough was here but was sick and didn't start. Defending womens champion, Jari Kirkland, crashed on the 2nd lap. She cut her knee open and had to go to the ER to get it stitched up.

Local Colorado Springs Pro Men's team from Pro Cycling have a lead over the 2nd place Hammer Nutriton team. For up to the date results go to Granny Gear's website and follow the RealTime scoring links.

I have uploaded some photos to Flickr. Since the internet connection isn't very good, I'll upload the higher resolution ones to SmugMug later. Update: I've uploaded photos to SmugMug here. Many more photos to come. I've also uploaded the photos to the UltraRob.com fan page on Facebook.

- UltraRob

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Labels: 24 Hours of Moab, endurance racing, mountain biking

Update: 2009 24 Hours of Moab Day 1 Photos

This weekend is the 15th annual 24 Hours of Moab. This year it is the USA Cycling 24 Hour National Championships. This should bring out a lot of the top riders both in the solo and team categories. Chris Eatough will be there but has announced he is retiring after this last race.

I've always done better and longer races but the 24 Hours of Moab in 1997 was my first ultra endurance bike race. I showed up and had never intentionally ridden at night except commuting on the bike path in college. The only bike light I had was barely bright enough to avoid sticks and junk on the bike path.

Fortunately Schwinn loaned me a set of good lights for my first 24 hour race. I was in 3rd after 12 hours. I had been sick earlier in the week and was still congested.

Soon after midnight it started snowing. With the cold, I got even more congested and had to stop riding for 7 hours. I was so congested I had to stay sitting up to breathe. Even then I'd start choking if I feel asleep. Once it warmed up, I went out and rode another 2 laps to finish 8th.

Since then I've raced the 24 Hours of Moab 3 more times solo. Like last year, I'll be back this year but shooting photos instead of racing. Depending on the internet access I can get out in the desert, I'll be posting updates here and/or to twitter.

- UltraRob

Related Links

• 2008 24 Hours of Moab Photos
• 2008 24 Hours of Moab Day 1
• 2008 24 Hours of Moab Day 2

Yeti 303 RDH Bike 2009 Price: $4700.00

Yeti ARC X CX Bike 2009 Price: $2350.00

Yeti ASR 7 Bike 2009 Price: $4440.00

Labels: 24 Hours of Moab, endurance racing, mountain biking, Utah

The 24 Hours of Moab has long been the party at end of the mountain bike race season. A lot of the the teams are there just to have fun and the race is secondary. A few teams like the winning Pro Men Monavie/Cannondale team and the winning Coed Pro/Am PRO CYCLING team are serious about racing. Solo riders are either serious or don't know what they got into.

One year when I was racing solo there was a team close to my pit that had a portable hot tub surrounded by pink flamingos and Christmas lights. Middle of the night, I so wanted to take a soak instead of heading back out into the dark.

Saturday I walked around camp looking for the most fun camps. Sadly I didn't find any interesting ones. I don't think it was because the fun has been lost but because of the wind. Saturday morning tent poles were snapping and tops had blown off Easy-Ups.

I think everyone was just trying to keep everything from blowing away. I did spot a disco ball lying under a camp table but I didn't make it back later to see if they put it to use.

Even though the wind caused some problems, it didn't keep people from having fun.

The Flawless Penguins always rode with a penguin on the top of their helmet.

Turns out the Flawless Penguins really weren't flawless.

The French froggies looked like they were having fun whether it was day or ...

night.

Spencer Powlison of team Dicey seemed to still be having fun in spite of his wardrobe malfunction. Maybe the wind was blowing his wedding dress around too much.



Konrad Binder was all about business while he was having fun.

John Woodruff of CRUISER BIKE DISASTER felt racers chose a bike that didn't look like fun on a rocky course but he looked like he was having fun.

I think this tall bike was only for riding around the venue.

Want to see more of the fun at the 24 Hours of Moab? Take a look at many more photos I took at the 2008 24 Hours of Moab.

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Labels: 24 Hours of Moab, Moab, mountain biking, Utah

Roan Exelby on lap 16

Update 10/27: I've created a page for my 2008 24 Hours of Moab photos.

When I woke up Sunday morning, it was cloudy and cold but none of the wind from the day before. It's always cold there first thing in the morning. Even the year I raced when it was in the 80's Saturday afternoon, it got cold at night.

Breakfast at the 24 Hours of Moab
I headed over to the the big check-in tents to check the RealTime Scoring and get something to eat. The lead solo riders of Josh Tostado, Tinker Juarez and Roan Exelby had continued to hammer out the laps while I slept.

Just after I posted my Day 1 report, I checked the results and saw that Chris Eatough hadn't headed out when he came in at 10:21 PM. I had seen him on that lap. He looked good and had opened a couple minute lead over Tinker. The lap before I had seen both of them riding together.

I heard that Eatough had gone to the medical tent and that he wasn't feeling good. I never heard what they thought was going on but he was feeling better in the morning. On Tostado's last lap, I heard a couple guys riding with him saying it was probably because he was so far behind Tostado. Some riders are that way but I've never heard anything about Eatough being like that.

Jari Kirkland, Women's Solo winner on her 13th lap
After breakfast I headed out and spent a few hours on the first part of the course. Not surprisingly most of the team riders still looked fairly good. Even the top solo riders were looking good. Some of the other solo riders looked like zombies which is at least how I felt Sunday mornings when I raced there.

Tinker Still Looking Strong on Lap 16
Although Tinker was still looking good on his last lap, he said in his race report that he was beat up. His knee was hurting and he took way too many Advils. Because the top guys make it look so easy, it's easy to forgot that they suffer too.

This was the first time I've been to the 24 Hours of Moab since I last raced it solo in 2001. It's a good course for me in a lot of ways but all 4 times I raced it I had an asthma attack. It didn't seem to be so much from all the dust but from the campfire smoke. I'd do fine until I'd come through the pits around day break. By then there was always plenty of smoke and my lungs would shut down.

Being there this year certainly made me want to go back and race it again. Since I started taking Xolair, I haven't had any bad asthma attacks. Maybe I'd be alright racing there now.

The best I've done at the 24 Hours of Moab is 13 laps. Since 2001 I've learned a lot about staying awake and how to eat. With more experience and being able to breathe better, I think I could do 14 laps. As competitive as it's gotten, it probably wouldn't get me in the top 5 but I might be close. First I have lots of weight to lose and lots of training to do.

Ben Sonntag of the winning Men's Pro team making it look easy

Related Link: 2008 24 Hours of Moab Day 1

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Labels: 24 Hours of Moab, endurance racing, Moab, mountain biking

Travis Histed from Fema Response Flying Through Sand

Update 10/27: I've created a page for my 2008 24 Hours of Moab photos.

I've been busy going through all the photos I took at the 24 Hours of Moab. I uploaded over 1100 photos to my Photrade account. Although there were things I liked about Photrade, I ended up deciding there are too many things missing to keep using. At least for now I plan on leaving the Moab photos there.

It's in beta so hopefully it'll turn out to be a good service. The biggest reasons I've decided not to stick to it are that it's difficult to organize the photos, the displayed image quality isn't as good as other photo sites, no way to view large images and no custom cropping when ordering photos. It also hasn't helped that I sent them an e-mail a week ago with some questions and I haven't heard back.

I know I've already used a few different ways to display photos. I've now set up a customized SmugMug account. So far I'm really excited about the way it looks and everything that can be done with the photos. The thumbnails look good and the navigation is easy. You can view the photos in 7 different different sizes. If they're geotagged, you can also view where they were taken on Google Maps.

So far I've uploaded over 400 photos from Saturday. The 1st album is from the start and the riders coming into the check-in tent. The 2nd album is from out on the course at sunset. I manually geotagged them so the locations aren't exact but will give you a pretty good idea where I was when I took them.

I've found a couple other good albums on SmugMug. My favorite one is from Xavier Fane. The other is also very good and is from Jen Curry.

Superhuman Magazine also produced another one of their great videos. It shows how rough some sections are. It also shows a great shot of a rider riding down Nose Dive.

Related Links: Video Preview of the 24 Hours of Moab | 24 Hours of Moab Day 1

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Labels: 24 Hours of Moab, endurance racing, Moab, mountain biking

The first day of the 24 Hours of Moab has been very windy but the wind starting calming a little before dark.   At the end of the 1st lap, 4 of the top 10 were solo riders.  Josh Tostado was the 3rd rider to finish lap one.  He has continued to build his lead in the solo race with Chris Eatough and Tinker Juarez chasing.

Here are a few of the photos I've taken so far. I have plenty more to upload but it will probably take a few days after I get back.

Update 10/27: I've created a page for my 2008 24 Hours of Moab photos.

Update 10/23: I uploaded over 1,100 pictures to Photrade but then decided Photrade wasn't ready for prime time yet. I am working on uploaded them to my SmugMug account now.

Update 10/14: I think I took over 2,000 pictures at the 24 Hours of Moab. I still haven't downloaded the ones I took on Sunday. I've uploaded a few photos from Saturday evening to Photrade. It's in beta and could use some improvements on upload but I plan to keep uploading as I find time. It has a way to share photos on your blog or website. If you'd rather not use their sharing, let me know and I'll send you one as long as you link back.

 

Night Before Race

Camp Area

Ergon Tent. The Table Had Been Clean an Hour Before

Racer Meeting

Bikes Lined up for the Lemans Start

Waiting for the Start

Granny

And They Are Off

Josh Tostada at the End of Lap 1

Watch the Sandy Spots

The La Sals

Chris Eatough and Tinker Juarez

Surfing in the Sand

Camp from the Ridge

Tinker Juarez

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Labels: 24 Hours of Moab, Moab, mountain biking, Utah

Bicycling has put together a good preview of the 24 Hours of Moab with Cullen Barker. I've raced with Cullen since the early '90s. This will be his 5th time racing the 24 Hours of Moab solo.

The video gives a bit of an idea of how sandy some of the sections are. There are a couple downhill sections were it's feels like you're surfing on your bike. It's hard to capture Nose Dive and it's really looks bigger when you're riding up to it. It can be intimidating for less experienced riders.

With so many riders the good lines keep shifting during the race. Generally there is wind and that also keeps the sand shifting around. As a solo rider, I've noticed fair change between laps. The change is much bigger for team riders that will only see each section about every 5 hours.

Team riders will generally be doing their 2nd lap in the dark so they don't always know the lines where there a drops. I've generally been on my 5th lap when it's gotten dark so I already knew the good lines pretty well.

Bicycling has a Google map of the Moab course with the location of the videos segments marked. The video of each section are also longer.

Related Link: Headed to 24 Hours of Moab

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Labels: 24 Hours of Moab, Moab, mountain biking, Utah

The 24 Hours of Moab is this weekend. I've raced there solo 4 times. This time I'm just going to hang out and ride around. I also have a new camera to play with and hopefully I'll get some great shots.

Of course I'm most interested in the solo racers. Both Tinker Juarez and Chris Eatough are registered. It should be an interesting race between them.

Josh Tostado from Colorado is another guy that could do well. Pete Basinger who holds the Iditarod Trail Invitational record should also do well. My guess is the race is a little short for him but I still could see him in the top 3. I raced with him in 2003 at the Fireweed 400.

I don't know if I'll be able to get internet access out at the race course. If I can't I'll try going in to town Saturday night to upload at least a few photos. Granny Gear will also have a webcast during the race. The race standings are generally updated very often so you can so how the race is going.

The 24 Hours of Moab is where I first raced at night when I raced solo in 1997. Little did I know the path it would lead me down. I didn't even have a light system. I was racing on the Schwinn/Grand West grassroots team and the team manager arranged for me to use one a demo unit of a new Schwinn dual light system.

It turned out the lights worked great. Unfortunately my lungs didn't. A couple days before I was laying on the couch with fever, aches and chills. I was feeling better for the race but I was still very congested.

The race went really well for me for the first 12 hours and I was in 3rd place. During the night it started snowing and I got to the point I could barely breath. I ended up sitting in the back of my truck for 7 hours. If I laid down I couldn't breathe. Even when I fell asleep sitting up, I'd start choking.

Once it the sun came up and it warmed up a bit, my crew convinced my to head out for one more lap. I felt good on that lap and had time for one more. I ended up with 10 laps and finished 8th out of 16.

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Labels: 24 Hours of Moab, Moab, mountain biking, Utah