Blue Ridge 24 hour Adventure Race this past weekend. 86 miles of mountain biking, running and bushwhacking with 12,000 feet of climbing. Raced with an awesome team, Lisa Ropke Randall and Bill Fletcher. Lisa told the story best, so stealing her words, “Was feeling good and enjoying the singletrack at the front of the race, but unfortunately my teammate’s freehub imploded and his bike was reduced to a 29” Strider. He was tough though and managed to get from the top of Bull Mountain Trail, over Winding Stair, and back down Noontootla. At that point, he wasn’t up for another 10 miles of scootering his dead bike (and we had already snapped our tow system trying to drag him), so we had to call [him] a rescue, which unfortunately ended in a DNF since we had to drop a teammate. Marcus Barton and I continued to the next TA, and rejoined with Bill Fletcher for the second foot section. We collectively decided that none of us were wanting to do the paddle since at that point we were just racing for the hell of it. Instead, we went and had breakfast at the Iron Bridge Cafe, which was way better than paddling an overloaded barge down the Toccoa River. After breakfast, Marcus and I finished up the last bike section, mostly because I just wanted the extra training, and I roped him in since I wanted a ride buddy. While it’s disappointing to have to go from first to DNF, it was a success for me personally since I felt good the entire race, felt strong and my navigation was on point.”
Boy, ain’t that the truth. Lisa was rocking the navigation and we continued to clear the course even after the official DNF. We only had one checkpoint that gave us issues right around sunrise.
Thanks for talking me into that last bike leg, Lisa, even though I complained about the hills all the way back.
Really cool starting a 24 hour race at 6pm. Sorry I didn’t get any footage of the awesome, overnight bike trekking. I left my GoPro in TA1 but a volunteer returned it to me at TA2.
Thanks Argeorgia for an fun and outstanding event!!
Speedy Lizard 