episode 132: veni vidi vici

12 hours of Lodi Farm.

we came. we saw. we were victorious.

5 members of the Mighty Spot Brand presented by Twin Six team, accompanied by our co-affiliation, the Delaware Cyclocross Coalition of Delaware, converged upon Fredricksburgh, VA for the 9th annual 12 hours of Lodi farm.

Our compound housed a number of teams and solo riders they were:

Single Speed Trio: Surly Bob, Matt (run Forest) and your truly (fatmarc)
Sport trio: E-town, IPaul(c) (formerly Spot Paul) and Uncle Mike (formerly Jan)
Women's Duo: Chunky Monkey and FFAmy
Solo: Blair, Blair
Single Speed Solo: Fitzy, and Rotten Rob (formerly ntntacfmb20)

Running the compound and keeping us all sane were Meghan and Tom (papa smurf)

The weekend was a resounding success, as all of our efforts proved to be incredibly fruitful. Matt, Bob and I successfully ran away with not only the single speed class, but the entire event, logging the most laps of any team with 15 total. Matt started the race off with a bang, as he set the early fastest lap record, and held off a charging Bob Anderson to take the first lap. Matt's 49 minute lap would hold up through the night as the fastest lap, and would remain the fastest night lap. In the morning as things began to dry out Bob threw down a 46, Matt matched, Bob followed up with a 43 to take the fastest lap. It was blistering...

As for me, I admit, I never felt great this weekend, while my teammates were simply brilliant, I never found my rhythm, I put in solid consistent laps, and I gave them a little more time to recover. (51,51,48, 51,48) . For whatever reason I never felt like I could get on top of the gear, or into a flow. The last section of the course was flat, tight and had lot of hard corners. This is stuff I love, but frankly I never found my groove. I can't say I'm disappointed, but if felt like I had something more to uncork, that I never did. I dreaded that last section because I knew I just couldn't get my thang rolling. It's really a sad day when fatmarc is looking forward to climbing, because at least I can bite my lip and get through that with some proficentcy.

Fuck it, we won, I don't get to type or say that all too often and trust me, it's all smiles on this end of the keyboard.

I'll admit that the team format is really my favorite style of mountain bike racing, if I could bag regular cross country all together and just do team races (hey wait, I've done 3 so far this year...) that's all I would do. Simply put the relationships, the trust, the shared experiences of these events, is so much more rewarding to me than a normal cross country race. Even a solo event, you rely on your team in the pit to take care of you.

Every time Blair, Rob or Fitzy came into the pit, it was like a nascar pit stop, as people (mostly tom and meg) washed bikes, stuffed food, filled camel backs, and kept the rider mentally in the game. The commitment to finish one of these events solo or as a team, is huge, trying to becompetitive is even harder. You have to trust your teammates, you have to be able to be positive at the camp, when really all you want to do is die. You have to work with 12 other people when you have race gut, it's dark, wet and cold, and you don't want to get out of your sleeping bag to do your damn laps. But for your friends, for your brothers and sisters, you do it, you proudly do it.

These are experiences I never found in a regular cross country race. If the whole of our lives is a collection of our experiences then these are the kinds of experiences I want from my mountain bike racing.

As I said, my teammates were simply brilliant, and I was honored to be Dennis Rodman to their Scottie Pipen and Michael Jordan.

Here are some other random thoughts from the event:

The Sport (Uncle Mike, E-town and Ipaul(c) )team won their division and took second in the overall, with a last moment attack launching Uncle Mike for one more lap, stealing a couple spots in the over all. It was beautiful.

Ipaul (c) is a suffering machine, coming into the event with an already jacked up back, he kept grinding, and grinding. He was amazing, as was Uncle Mike, who hasn't spent a ton of time in the single track, but has plenty of power to throw down. E-town was at his best. Perhaps the best I have seen him ever, he threw down a nice :45 for his final lap, he really wanted to move up on the overall...

Rotten Rob rode steady for a 5th place ride in the solo single speed class, and then fell asleep in E-town's trunk, and the table at the resturant.

Fitzy overcame a broken axle on his first lap, and a light failure to keep his cool and battle back to a 6th place finish. I was really proud of Fitzy this weekend. He planned his work, and worked his plan, even when all hell broke loose for him

Blair Blair took 3rd place in the solo with 12 laps. The phrase most heard around our compound was "no offence Blair, but it was great to drop you on that last lap." or "sorry I had to drop you Blair, but you know I had to keep going you were just crawling along..." A think a lot of fantasies were played out this weekend. We may all pay for that later, but Blair was totally a good sport, and was really incredible.



Diane and Amy won the women's duo division, but were also scored against the 16 other men duo teams, and finished 5th overall- super work for both of them. Phil announced them as the winner of the class, and said, I'm para-phrasing, don't think they are winning just as they are women, these are some fast ladies, as they finished 5th overall in the open duo class. That was really cool. I know it made Diane's weekend as she beamed for the ride home. Okay, she beamed and pointed on all the new bruises she got this weekend.

there was a little prize money amongst us, it was all thrown in a pot for a very nice Mexican dinner that hit all the right spots.

Really happy to have Bob a part of the Spot Program. Yeah, the fact that he threw down the fastest lap was nice, but even if he didn't, he is a great guy, he meshes with the some what outside the box personalities than can be a part of our group. Bob comes from and is still apart of the Bean's family which is really a great program. Great riders, great people, I appreciate the faith he had is us, to trust what we are doing and join our family. Super stoked to have him on the team and a part of our family.

Uncle Mike from America drank Perrier the entire time. No comment.

Time to cowboy up: when Bob pulled up to my house to leave, I had my sporty sweater vest on, he said, "if you can wear a sweater vest, I can wear a cowboy hat"

When I saw Jason, our Twinsix step teammate, I planted a huge sloppy kiss on his cheek per the instructions of TwinSix leader Brent.

At E-town's urging I purchased a thing of nutella. Matt, Bob and I had never had nutella before. We found it's simple smooth chocolate flavor delightful. This may have been the secret to our victory. Matt, Bob and I have a nutella anonymous meeting on Friday.

we had our trailer set up as the heated changing room. After the first pre-ride lap, and all of us changing in there, leaving our sweaty and wet cycling clothes, it smelled like the nastiest lockeroom I had ever been it, at the end of the weekend, when we opened the door to load up, a cloud of funk was released that killed a flock of birds flying by our trailer. They all just instantly dropped to the ground.

B-man, Jason's son was rightfully kinda shy, and maybe a little intimidated by all of our set up, but as we offered him some of Meghan's birthday cake (she turned 16 this weekend), he warmed right up.

On my last lap, I came across a kid, totally bonked on the side of the trail. After making sure he was physically okay, he could count my fingers, tell me my helmet was pink, and I gave him some Gatorade, a couple a nice ladies rode behind me said, we'll stay with him, if you send help, I pointed at him, winked, and said, "you'll thank me for this one later" with a shit eating grin on my face. He broke his bonked look to smile back at me.

As we all waited in our tent city for the midnight start, which frankly is one of the hardest things about this race, and also what makes it really special, the rain poured down, there was an air of quite confidence in the group. We all really knew that difficult conditions were to our benefit, whether because of our pit, which is an obvious advantage, or the fact the most of us, considered ourselves at our best, when things are toughest. Matt, Bob and I talked about our strategy, to be as consistent as we could at night, see where we were at 6:00am when the sun came up, and then, then it gets real fast.

Matt was talking to Jonathan from Family Bikes, and he asked it we were gonna back off early, as we had built a pretty nice lead by 10:30. Matt commented, "no, we'll probably keep driving it, if nothing else to screw the last guy, by getting him out as close to noon as possible." Tom (papa smurf) would later explain that getting that last guy out as close to noon is one of the ultimate signs of respect and friendship in our circle. He lamented how he once sent Budha out for a final lap at the 24hrs of Canaan at 11:57. For the record, they won that 24hr race that year.

Following Matt's stellar first two laps, which really set the tone for our team, Matt sat in a chair looking into his can of coke, and then looked up and said, "what was i thinking, that was really stupid, I went way too fast for those laps...."

My hand blistered up again, and Ricky D provided some insight, that he had the same issues with the pink starred grips. He said he had to switch them out. And here I thought it was my switchblade fork. Well I guess I'm in the market for some grips... It was great to see Ricky, Nystrom, DT, and Gwadzilla. It looked like everyone was really have a great time, and rode very well.

Thanks to Phil Rice the driving force behind the race, and even if he passed his Spot Brand bike to his son, in favor of a new 69er, he is a great guy, and someone who I am always happy to see. Thanks for working with Diane and Amy too, and the props he gave them at the awards ceremony was really cool too.

Last weds on the hill ride, Tom kept saying to me, "eat marc", a few minutes later, "eat marc" Finally I asked him what he was doing, he told me, "oh I'm practicing for the weekend" I laughed.

I'm sure that Bob, Rob, Jason, and Diane will all offer their own takes on the race.

thanks for reading.

stay in school.

respect.
fm