2011 12 Hours of Mesa Verde

I keep telling people that I am retired from mountain bike racing...then I keep finding fun races to do. This one is at the top of the list. Phil's World in Cortez Colorado, is one of the best places I have ridden a mountain bike!

Russ and I did the race last year as a Duo and we both decided to NOT do that again. So over the winter I hatched a plan....put a four man team together containing a few of the old school crew and call it team "Legends Packfill". This year's "Legends" team contained Ned Overend, Dave Wiens, Travis Brown and Daryl Price. Our team had myself, Russ, Wade and Todd Wilderman. At least three of us were packfill for those guys in the 80's and 90's!

Of course being an ex-racer, I had set some little goals to keep me motivated all winter. One was to beat my best lap time last year and hopefully get a 1:20 lap. Another was to beat the lap time of at least one Legend. Pulled it off. I did a 1:20 and change my first lap and beat Daryl Price on both my laps! Of course, Daryl probably didn't even ride much and was still pulling decent times. He could train for 2 weeks, like Wiens did, and crush me just like the old days!

Had to steal this shot from the photo website. Throwning down some style in my non-descript jersey.

The team decided that Wade should start us off. It was a "Lemans" style start which meant a 300 yard dash in cycling shoes. I did it last year and vowed to avoid it at all costs. Wade was always good at starting fast (still is) and would put us in a great position for the rest of the race.

I swear Wade looks like a gun-fighter ready to draw. We picked the right man for the job!

Here is a quick video of the running start and subsequent chaos:

Lemans start of the 12 Hours of Mesa Verde mountain bike race from Alan Keeffe on Vimeo.

Wade's daughter Sage was also there with her team, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Devo Sweet Elite. She already has a closet full of National Champion jerseys and proved she is the future star by setting the fastest lap by a woman (and all but the fastest men) of 1:15!

Here is Sage with two of her heroes, Susan DiBiase and Susan Demattei (of the Women's Legends team):

One of Sage's teammates is Colton Anderson and he came into the start/finish in first place at 1:09 with Travis Brown a few seconds behind. I thought I heard Travis saying something to the effect of "he tore my legs off on that first lap". I think the future stars of the sport are making themselves known! Here is Colton leading the fastest of the fast (including my buddy Daniel Matheny in the second Honey Stinger kit):

As it turns out, a four man team is the way to go for maximum fun. We placed 24th overall out of over 500 teams. And we were 11th place in our category (Legends got 3rd). The top 5 in our 3-4 man category were also the top 5 overall so I feel like we did pretty good for a bunch of 45+ year olds.

I'm already looking forward to next year and hope to bring more friends so they can be part of the fun!