RMNP: Trail Ridge Road

Hanging Lake

18 Hours of Fruita

Here we are again: Back to Fruita for the epic 18-hour race. This year was a hot one! The daytime temperatures hovering near 80 and the nighttime lows in the high-40's, maybe. For the cheering section, there was a nice strong wind to keep us cool. Unfortunately for the racers that wind only added to the already tough laps around Highline Lake.

Billy, Ken, Rob and Ben made up the Natural Grocer team this year. Ben formed the four-man Natural Grocer team with a couple of the old 18 Hour racers and another of his N.G. teammates. And a highlight for me in my second year at the race, Gina and Tracey (Billy and Ken's significant others) came along for the weekend!

Ben's Race Series:

Here's Higgins. He was Ben's biggest fan out there. It seems he could pick Ben out in the distance and his eyes would not leave his path until B. passed us. Then it was a tug of war with the leash to try and catch Dad. Oh, he was so excited!

 Back at camp:

The team and race support hiding in the shade.

Tracey and Squiggy (AKA Dog That Doesn't Leave Tracey's Lap)

Ken starting the grill with a blow torch.  Blow torch courtesy of the neighboring camp.

Ben, grilling.

Relaxing after the race!

A little before six pm, the Natural Grocer team finished the race and immediately joined the crowd at the finish line cheering in the last of the finishers. The team was pretty pleased with their race; Natural Grocers placed 11th out of 31 four-man teams and all raced pretty solid laps. To Ben's surprise and delight, he was the fastest man!

Congrats to the team and to you, Ben! Another great year of racing begins.

The Koppenberg

Ben finally took the plunge and signed up for the Koppenberg race this weekend. He's been a bit apprehensive about the road scene and I sure can't blame him. Racing around at 35+ mph in a tight pack filled with bikes and people taking sharp turns and jostling for position does not sound fun (or safe) to me. As it turned out, he loved it!

The course is a 5.5 mile loop around Superior/Marshall which is just minutes from our house. This made for a happy girlfriend who didn't have to wake before dawn to drive to the course. (I've had my fill of 5am wake up calls on race day.) Ben warmed up with a couple of his Natural Grocers teammates, toured the course (he'd be doing four laps in his heat) and headed to the start line with one of his teammates, Samer, who was also racing in the men's 35+ cat 4 race. Ben's goal was pretty straight forward: Finish without crashing. We talked a bit about race strategy and his plan was to get in with the pack early so as not to be dropped right away. This is key in bike racing as you are significantly more efficient and therefore faster when riding in the pack versus on your own. The problem is that getting in the pack is easier said than done: it's an all-out sprint in the first portion of the race. Gotta weed out the ones just looking for a free ride. I drove to the top of a big hill to cheer on the team and take some photos, so when I saw B. he was already a couple of miles into the race. He was lagging off of the back of the pack with Samer, but once he hit the hill he started passing people left and right and caught the back end of the pack.

Unfortunately just after the uphill is a long downhill dirt track and Ben quickly lost the pack again. He never regained his position, but had a solid race anyway. Samer and Ben rode together challenging and pushing one another the entire race.

Ben learned some valuable lessons during the race and he'll have plenty of opportunities to put them to practice, too. There's a road race just about every weekend in the Front Range. Summer racing, here we come.