SoCal Endurance 6/12 hr
It seems that at the start of every New Year we have goals that we set,
but in most cases we fall short of accomplishing those goals because they take digging deep and suffering just a little bit. I’d like to say I suffered just a little bit at last weekends SoCal Endurance 6 hour team race when trying to stick to some of my New Year Goals.
It had been about 4 years since I raced a Endurance event so when my longtime friend Jake Elkins and I nailed down our 1st event of the year it came up quick. I had put in a decent amount of miles and my body was feeling good, but I wasn’t feeling overly confident in my prep. We decided to do the 6 hour two man event in the open men’s class where there was 27 entries and the largest class at the event.
Jake Started off the race for us and was in the top 5 until he followed the 3rd place rider on the wrong route for about a 1/2 mile where we would lose about 10 min of time going into the Transition. Jake had the timing chip out as he came into Transition he passed it to me and I went off hard for my first lap. I had a uneventful lap as I pushed hard to get time back on the 8 mile 34:57 lap course. I had passed a lot of riders but we didn’t know where were in the standings yet. Jake went off for his next lap and ran the exact same lap time as me going into my 3rd lap. We went back and forth smashing laps and when the 1st results were posted we were happy to see we were leading the race by a little over a minute. On our off laps we made sure to take in fluids, food and necessary supplements from MRM USA. We were heading into our last laps and had stretched the lead out a little. We were both feeling fatigued but the end was in sight. Besides the 1st lap we ran a smooth uneventful race and Jake finished off the race for us so we totaled 9 laps.
We were pumped we won, UNTIL the awards were given out and we were called up in 2nd. We were shocked! The team that had won had not been pulling their timing chip out crossing the transition line which should have been a 1 min penalty per the riders meeting. During the race they were way back on the timing sheet and there is no leg markings to identify riders so we could have never know we they were ahead of us. The promoter Jason Ranoa gave me the opportunity to press the issue and protest, but because I didn’t know until the awards were being presented Jake and I took the 2nd and were still pumped on how we rode. The team that won was the fastest but because there was no way to track them due to them not taking out their timing chip we never even knew we were racing them. In the future I’d like to see the the riders legs marked or number plates differentiating riders so if that were to happen you would know who was leading.
At the end of the day Jake and didn’t come to win trophies we came to test our body’s, have fun and race our bikes and we did just that. The course the SoCal Endurance team put together was amazing and the staff even saved the day by finding my GoPro Karma grip and camera and letting me know the next day they had it after I had left it on the table while I was taking podium photos. Will I compete in another race in this series? Yes I will.
We would like to thank Toyota of Escondido who loaned us a truck and took care of the $150.00 entry fee. We hope to be able to do more races with this organization in 2018.
Click Here to see the full ride from Strava
The Bike
Intense Cycles Hard Eddie 29er
Sram 1-12 Eagle Drive Train 34t up front
The AC system is a must for endurance events
All photos and content put together with GoPro Hero 6 with Karma Grip