24 hours of portolet - Broken frame and 2 sprained ankles - team MC900poundtumor

About 2 months ago crash test started talking about the 24 hours of adrenalin..  I think he was shooting for a 4 person elite team, that changed to hopes of 5 person coed with PMD in the estrogen category, which changed once again after a hamstring injury to 5 person 99% testosterone team that we talked about for weeks and finally registered last minute..  I figured like 1.5 hours per lap, that's 6+ hours rest - no problem, Im in, Focker needed an excuse to wear his fear and loathing in Los Vegas outfit, Sock stuffer was hoping for a new nickname (HT Hubless Todd?), Crash and burn will travel any distance for a combination of mountain biking and drinking where there are no cops in site and last but not least, Crash test - our team captain needed time off from stunts and drop-offs, so his sprained ankle would heal..  Actually he was milking the whole "I have a sprained ankle" thing, im pretty sure it was just broken..

The Team - MC900#tumor - Captain Crash Test, Crash & burn, Sock Stuffer, Focker, PUkemaster and PMD as our support coordinator, volunteer, photographer etc...

Friday - Focker and I took the day off from "work" - The rest took half days from work..  Loaded up the X-terra with all sorts of crap..  "do we really need an extra bike?"  Can't even see out the rear view mirror through spokes, clothes and coolers..  We arrive around 1:30, and pick a 40x40 square to live in..  It starts to rain, thunder in the background - this is a good sign..  Soon to arrive is sock stuffer and Crash test, following a crash and burn..  The place is pretty empty at this point and as I ride around on hogi yogi - PRE preride, this guy says - HEY - I know that bike (hogi yogi that is) - "your bikerag!"..  Recognized from some Philly boys - truly amazing..  Bikerag flags are hoisted and are flying high - If there was a best flag contest..  1st place hands down..  Tent erection went off without a hitch, sock stuffer pitched the biggest tent (acording to PMD)..  People across from us are smoking, and focker has the rare pleasure of catching some tent screen cellulite.  His retribution was to walk around in his underwear (I take my hand off to you)....  Pulled out these awesome new portable chairs I got at sports authority - with dual cup holders - there new name "barfaloungers"..  SS and CT struggle with the 12 dollar off cheesy sun tarp that was SOOOO key for keeping us out of the sun.  The porto-toilets here are  cleaner than my bathroom - focker was very impressed with the dispenser that shoots a gooey white liquid on your hands..  Yes there's that 1% of missing testosterone you were wondering about!!  So I decide I was not going to pre-ride, but crash test convinces me that he will be riding in granny one the whole time..

Pre - Ride:  Skipping all the details here 1/2 way through the ride I say "it will take alot of grey goose to get me to ride more than one lap tomorrow!" crash test disappointed with my lack of enthusiasm - "start pouring".  We did the course in just over an hour at a moderate pace, and ran into lots of walkers also pre-riding..  I wanted to build a see-saw, but left the axe in the car - Ill make sure and bring it for lap one..  Mapped out the course with my GPS and CB's laptop - about 8 miles and 1007 vertical..  They mention beginners may have to walk some sections..  Yeah like 50% of the course, and the rest is so hilly they would be walking anyway..

Back to camp for more carbo-loading.. IT WORKED - focker walking around in his underwear scared away one of our neighbors with babys..   Focker "remind me to stop drinking"..  I brought some habenero prince puke salsa to warm all our asses up..  . Registration, then free T-shirts..  Im trying to get PMD's volunteer T-shirt and the shirt girl is giving me sh!t within 2 seconds answering my question with a question.. eh??  Feel like we are living an episode of Kids in The Hall.. Music in the background was either BAD or awesome, nothing in-between.  Lots of stuff off our music mix's.. At one point, when we were trying to sleep, I hear them playing "I cant get no sleep" from S&B's mix.. So during some of the bad music sessions I decide to pull out the boom box, just need put in the batteries..  So as Im putting them in I notice a wet brown substance on my hands - its batter acid - FOCK..  Anyway to make a long story even longer I had to tell CB the story about when I was a kid and had chocolate candies and old 9 volt batteries in my desk drawer I licked chocolate off one of the wrappers and my tounge was suddenly on fire..  I was like screaming for hours and my mom just thought I was on crack..  Crack I tell you..  They didn't even have crack back then..  So anyway - focker gave me an antacid and I was fine..     Team wasabi? next to us arrive at like 10:30 and make all kinds of noise till midnight..  Everyone tried to crash early, I made 700 trips to the Porto let due to excessive h20 preload..  Froze my ass off in the tent as the temp dropped from 90 to like 44 and 90% humidity, didn't bring any warm clothes, due to FUTC's weather report..  Focker..  2 towels and a pair of shorts on my head, didn't warm up me or my blow up doll (Betsy) very much..  Slept like 2 hours which should help me for sat night!!  New term Pre-un-sleep..  FOcker must not have slept much either, with his cell phone ringing, and loud neighbors..  Since PMD wasn't there yet he decided to call her at midnight and wake her up.. No joke.. 

How should we carry the batton?  "Bikerag suppository style per usual" - SS??  Now our team is the only one riding with latex gloves..

Its morning - Sat am, we all tried to sleep in and pre-sleep, but to no avail this event is actually held on a farm with a 900 pound rooster that starts crowing in a big red barn at 5:30 - how cliche, we are living a cartoon.  Yes next years team will be mc900poundrooster.  Breakfast burrito for me, gary had breakfast of champions, make that breakfast with lesbians (kashi indeed)..  He is such a kashi fan, he even got some kashi energy bars for the trail..  Crash test goes to the captains meeting and gets the skinny..  First rider needs to do a lemans start (explanation later), and an extra prologue lap thats 1 mile long..  PMD shows up just in time for the volunteer meeting and luckily brings some blankets, and water, and an X-terra full of moral team support..

Before I get into the actual race here is a course description - hopefully I can get this right as right now its just a blur of mud and roots in my mind..  Starting in transition area its a 1/4 mile dirt road ride, right onto single track through pine tree forest, up about 100 feet in 3/4 miles, then steepish decent, quick up with speed to off camber decent, that quickly turns into a 150 foot climb which stops at the blue water tower..  Now its a smooth downhill high speed dirt road down 150 ft right turn onto soft rooty single track..  With increasingly high banked turns and more exposed roots and mud every lap..  The first bridge is about 30" wide but has a slippery off camber exposed root before the entry that will send you east coast into the river if you don't wheelie it (CB experienced this phenomenon!)..  More pretty nice single track with some rocks, some roots, to single track uphill (lined with tall grass), to quick downhill, then your at the bottom of the first real uphill - 300 foot fire road climb with check point about 1/2 way up for gator aids and cliff splooge shots and water..  Once your at "the top", right turn onto single track, yes downhill, no not for long.. uphill again another 150 feet through muddy root infested suck the life out of you and cough you out on the ground... progressively wider... singletrack..  Next mile or so is the Le-miserab section..  Up and down through barely rideable muddy, rooty trail with TONS of exposed slippery roots..  Great over the bars practice here..  Couple bridges to cheer you up, finally you emerge from the grip of golf ball sized mosquitos and start travelling down a fire-road for about 1/2 mile and 200 vertical feet at 40 mph not forgetting to slow down for the slight corners and semi rocky sections.. Banked turn at the bottom you can lay into like a sofa - immediatly following a flat bridge, then climb, then more fire road.  Single track right turn, pretty soon you hit a nice hairpin downhill to killer off camber rooty section, left around big rock (the only big rock), steep down, some whoopty doos you just have to throw the bike in front of you..  To stream crossing you basically air over these tree roots and land on the entry ramp to the delapadated bridge (that is a rotten bridge on top of a rotten bridge), follow the stream to hairpin left gonzo uphill climb 1/3 mile 200 feet of vert up single track that is laced with sand (yes for traction)...  At the top there is a field, but its not the field you think it is..  The field with the 100% dowhnill to the car..  Nope this is not the field..  Left turn at field second check point, onward up fire road and back into some more muddy but cool less miserable single track, that actually had some fun sections..  Some roller coaster stuff..  I see mulch - this is a good sign, the "real" field is right around the corner..  1/2 mile descent around perimeter of open field - through warn in single track groove - very cool - high speed, one cool s-turn section, then crazy corner where the crowd cheers you on with cow bells..  Yes all downhill to the car - No your focking hallucinating again, and will be going uphill through the field within minutes and going back into more muddy singletrack.. There were some farm animals at some point, but no time for pictures or mounting..  Its almost over soon as you emerge from the last muddy single track section, ride through a stream and several wooden ramps over mudd..  Final field downhill, one high speed stream crossing, quick up, more down, up past bike showers, around corner over dropoff you are back at the timing gate and hopefully someone is waiting for you..

Back to the race - we elected Bryan to do the lemmas start since CT has a sprained ankle and gets community service hour credits for the run and prologue lap..  Besides... the rest of us only run when being chased by naked babes on roller skates..  So basically 200 pregnant women are lined up at the start line and you have to run over to them, remove a fetus, gnaw off the umbilical cord with your teeth and tattoo your team number on the little tykes arm..  You have to carry this newborn in your camel back for every lap and hand him off to your teammates as they arrive in the timing tent..  If you loose your fetus 1 lap is deducted, if you forget to smack your fetus down on the table ......   Well it wasn't quite that bad..  It was actually a lemans start where you deliver a child in the backseat of a Pontiac... ANYWAY -   CB got a place near the gate and did a 1/2 mile or so run around the campsite and back to the start line (in clip less shoes I might add), then the starters had to do a prologue lap of 1 mile through a completely different section of the course.. In the meantime, Crash Test does a warm-up road ride up some sick hill - "crack I tell you".   CB finished the whole deal in UNDER an hour - unbelievable!!  I was busy with the video camera for the first couple laps since I had the time and energy, and Betsy was in the mood..  Just coughed up some light brown flem - is that not good?  Anyway Crash test starts with a real quick lap (46 minutes)  and SS, and focker follow, both coming back in under a minute.. Pretty impressive with fockers mental state before he left ( "do I really want to do this?"  "So Why are we doing this?").   I was up - First lap was hell, lots of people in my way, hot (the temperature, not the people), many times I had to just get off my bike and run past them because of excessive cluster focking and no bushwack line in site..  I pushed hard the whole way, then when I had nothing left flying down the first grassy section, crowd was cheering, filling the adrenaline chamber back up cranked through at mach speed finishing in 49 minutes, I was beet red and had the chills..  I even forgot to smack my baton on PMD's timing table..  SHHH.. 

Next lap was better for all, course was getting wrecked though - new lines appear every lap, new roots, new rocks, and broken trees that most likely focker knocked over.. Since I was last, my second lap was1/2 in the dark, but I did not use my light until the very end, just to piss people off.. I also went by some guy on the ground with cramped up legs - being a nice guy I stop and offer him advice - the next rider agrees with me "get off the ground and walk", im sure if CT was there he would have at least gave him some tips on how to pick up girls (since he was on team wasabi!)..  Another great showing by all 5 of us..

So our neighbors have this big pot of witches brew I see in the distance - they are giving out samples - it is steaming so I think...  Sore throat - hot soup - yes..  So I shimmy over and find out that its really dry ice in a pot of bloody marys - so I have do " a shot for the team - which by the way are in urine specimen bottles " - otherwise that would be rude..  I don't make this shit up you know..   They also gave me some tatoo's - in return they got some shwag..

3rd lap - Houston, we have a problem..  I took a cold shower and then was finally trying to get cozy with PMD in the tent for some sleep, when I hear focker utter "my frame is cracked!", I unzip and pop my head out of the tent (easy!!) - "How cracked?" - the short tube behind the bottom bracket shell that ties together 2 chainstays is completely sheered at the weld..  PMD wants to be helpful so she offers to duct tape it..  You see focker thought his bottom bracket was making lots of noise lap one - guess what his BB was fine..  He now has an articulating full suspension bike that drives much like my fathers GMC Denali all wheel steering truck -except completely different..  Word to the wise - NEVER BUY MOUNTAIN CYCLE!!  This is the second M.C. he busted..  They are disposable..  My sh!tiy homemade bikes that I scotch tape together in the basement are more worthy..  anyway.. I'm done..   So he considers riding it, but me and CT convince him that without the short tube the pivot joint will crack, sending him flying east coast west coast..  Contemplating what other bikes he could use - maybe Ill use SS's hard tail..  Problem lighting system coordination..  Decision - set up pukecycle.  We only have like 20 minutes before he gets back... . (So we think)..

Just ripped pukecycle off the car rack for focker renovation and SS comes hobbling back to the tent..  We are all thinking OH MAN - he must be pissed if he pulled off an epically short lap and there was nobody there to greet him at the transition area..  He quickly explains that his hub locked up top of first huge hill, so he walked it back and sprained his ankle because he played a quick game of B-ball with the hucking locals..  Bad sign the first 3 bolts I checked on pukecycles unique suspension are loose - so I HAND tighten them, we swap the pedals, through some lights on him and send him off into the dark - none of the team is sure we will ever see him again on this maiden voyage  - BUT  focker had no hesitation, what a trooper..  Nothing like 5" travel fork with a 1.8 tire on it.. 

  So Its freezing out once again and my insides were  actually trembling when I put on my wet bike shorts and shirt..  So focker makes it back in one piece while loren and I chat by the fire..  Loren does not have a nickname but all I can think of is maybe bulls eye for now..  I stumble into the transition area and leave with 3 "sweaters" on..  one minute in the ride im of course hot, but also have to take a piss..  I wait till I get to check point one, dismount, disrobe and discard some liquids..  I even got passed! That sucks..  I then ran over a small squirrel on the trail..  Slow time for me, very wet, rooty muddy and very dark..  I did pass lots of people with those fancy HID lights though..  CB was there to greet me..  Back to the camp - we contemplate "strategy"..  Sock stuffer is out - down to 4 riders with 3 1/2 bikes, focker is beat, My back is so sore..  Excuses filled the air like a rosery around the neck - CT's neck..  So Focker and I decided we would try to get some sleep while Crash brothers pull some graveyard shift riding..

CT does a lap, comes back to NOBODY in the timing tent - so he goes to camp - refuels, and does another lap..  2nd lap his light goes dead, with nobody around, so he runs the rest of the course in complete darkness.. At some point he went over the bars and head butted a tree (reminder to CT check to see if your helmet is broken).   I wake up at 4:30 or so to sounds of shifting - CB tuning his bike..  So he leaves, and I walk to the portopiss..  Im sort of awake so I took a zombie like stroll to the timing tent - HOLY CRAP - Crash bros graveyard shift hell ride brought us back into 2nd place contention..  I look up and there is CT running in, COVERED with mud, looking more disheveled, battered and confused than I have ever seen him..  CB there to meet him, I get pumped, run back to the tent and prepare hogi yogi for another spin..  Had a great lap although I wish I didn't bring those extra 2 pounds of lights that I didn't use at all!!  At the finish line I was greeted by many team members and spectators..  Focker was waiting with pukecycle in hand..  Later on I got him on video - too funny, im zooming in on the FIRST rider I saw in the distance, you CAN spot pukecycle a mile away!

Who made the cant drink before noon rule ?  " my mom - we had a strict houshold growing up" pm

Crash and burn up next takes off with no problems (oh he did have a problem with his piece of Manitou shock that now has 1" of sticky travel..  Meanwhile Sock stuffer is up and thinks he can ride..  I was on a mission to find athletic tape since the medical tent was out and get him hooked up with CT's spare rear.. (rear wheel that is)..   I borrowed some tape from a nice lady but gave her a tube later to pay her back..  Ct up next, crawls out of his banana peel infested tent with locking cramped legs..  CT needs some fuel..  Does a 49 min lap with ease, because he kept telling himself "this is your last lap" im sure..  I had to do that 5 times..  SS limps out and does a really fast lap - definitely coming through for us..  pulling a lap out of his ass, along with the batton, taking some pressure off the crew.. At the second stream crossing, some guy was walking across, wouldn't move out of the way, so he launched off the 2 footer, landed in the stream and soaked the guy..  He really was just being polite!!

So we decide that after SS comes back we still need 2 riders..  CB has another lap in him, its between focker and I..  So I opt to ride if focker will drive the X-terra home - he agrees without a struggle..  It was weird I rode the last lap really timidly (after I went like 15 feet over the bars into a ditch), so I expected a huge time but still came in leaving CB 1:40 to do one lap and keep us in second place..  He of course did like a 52 min lap to finish things off..

Now that the pain is over, time to soak in the sun and wait for the other teams to come in..  Lots of contests going on like the female cartwheel contest (loosest top wins), push up contest, naked see-saw riding contest and last but not least naked jump in the lake contest - whatever happened to that - focker was a shoe-in..  So the event was over, people waited in 100 foot lines for bad food, finally they had awards and prizes..  Mad dog showed up to cheer us on, but made sure and showed up right on the 25 hr mark, just in case we were thinking of sending him out on a lap..  So we got second place and all won platapussies..   I tried mine out today and it worked great..  I think I can use it like 20 more times before I take it out of the fridge and drop it off at the sperm bank..  Thoughtful gift for our anti-children team since we all want kids at best after we are very old or possibly dead..  We were also able to finally meet the 1st and third place teams, and stand with them on the podium, as the announcer for the 100th time cant seem to figure out our team name - mc900numbertumor eh??  Focker and PMD hang out for the raffles, and win someone a rock shock jersey while the rest of us break down camp..  Crash and burn was busy getting a jump from some guy he met on the trail..  No joke..  Finally his car starts and he is on his way to bean town for most likely much needed community service.. 

 Miscalanus crap that im too lazy to put in the recrap..

PMD took a picture of CT's banana

"mosquitos the size of golf balls - they dont bite, but they also dont taste that great" SS

"It was a mental course.." pm

"all downhill to the car" my ass

"we are 50 feet from the field"

"on your left.. OK on your right..  are you going to let me pass?"  CT

"Craig - show him the batton" PMD 12 times

"this 24 hour weekend event will be catered"  Catered my ass, I was waiting for the hostesses in french maid outfits walking around with whorederves..  Instead we got, at best, bad cold coffee..

Choppin Brocciri - CT will be staying away from SS's pasta salad - thrusters or foggers you be the judge

Flag symbolism - naked man, skull, sword  

allien blow up doll - retribution for anal probing??

"yup i ran over the asian dudes bike that should of been sporting training
wheels. It was one of the guys that were camped next to us that argued about
not wanting to sleep with the grils they brought. Something wrong with that
team.. Description sounds pretty acurate.. I think the 24 hours of pain
actually helped my ankle. It feels better now than it has in two weeks..
Who's riding Wed???"  Crash test

 

Rating - A WHOPPING 98 slightly used, dried up, but muddy umbilical cords that you will most likely find in your next moo shoo pork that our neighbors team will be cooking up..  That special brown sauce they put on top was pumped out of the portolet's at noon on Sunday..   Actually, my people just informed me that Chinese restaurants will only use dog and cat, NO FETAL CORDS and that the Slim Jim corporation will be buying the whole vat of twisted dried up food delivery tubes with a 7$ off coupon.. 

Nice Adventure Team bikerag!!  Thanks to EVERYONE on the team for putting in such an incredible effort and actually winning something to boot..  They say everyone does the 24 hour race for different reasons - im pretty sure we all just came to experience it and give our individual 110-175%..   Didn't hear one bitch or moan the whole time..  Ok maybe one out of me during the pre-ride.. 

Good game, nice game good game - PM

What to bring next time!!!!

Everyone should have a watch - we had like one for 5 people

Alarm clock

4 more extra bikes

Everyone should ride with a spare light - yes even crash test

coffee maker - focker was right

blow up doll

more shwag

warm clothes, blankets etc...

bigger sun tarp - maybe 2 of those 12 dollar specials!!

Only marzocchi shocks - leave the rock shocks and manitou's at home

masseuse