24 Hours in the Enchanted Forest & the 1st Laramie Mountain Bike Series race of 2012

It's been a busy week for NCGR!  Several of us went down to New Mexico for the 3rd annual 24 Hours in the Enchanted Forest over this past weekend and a crew went up to Laramie last night to race the first event of the year.  None of us sucked.

24HITEF
Mike, Bryan, and I stole away with Doug's suburban (thanks again) to head down to NM for 24 hrs of racing fun.  Mike and Bryan went after the male duo category and gave it a pretty good run too!  If it weren't for dead cell phones and no alarm clocks they probably could have been on the podium with the lap times that they were putting down!  As it was, they finished 5th in their category!
I gave my best effort at my first single speed solo attempt.  It was awesome!  It's pretty great to start riding your bike knowing that you will be able to keep riding for (almost) as long as you want; of course, your body has to oblige...  I felt like I was really well prepared mentally and physically. Funny thing about life, you always learn a lesson when you think you've got it all figured out.  My arms, back,  neck, and to a certain degree my hands and feet, were destroyed by lap 6 and mile 96.  My legs felt great and my head was in a good place but my rigid bike abused me on that course.  I was able to put one more lap in during sunrise, after a nice nap, for 112 miles and 10th place.  Next time I roll in a race like that I will add a bit of suspension to keep my body a bit happier.
We had a great time and left wanting to ride our bikes some more.  I'd say that's a good sign considering that we rode a total of 288 miles in less than 24hrs.

Laramie Mountain Bike Series
Looks like it was nice weather for the first race.  Seeing as how I wasn't there for it, maybe I can talk one of the guys into giving a better write-up of how it all went down.
For now, here are the results:

Open Men
Brian - 5th
Doug - 11th

Advanced Men
Ralph - 4th (missed 3rd by a 0:01!)
Jeff - 13th

Open Women
Libby - 3rd

Great rides!

Back Into the Swing of Things

It's already the end of May and Memorial weekend is upon us.  The racing season has come back around!

Brian going hard!  (Photo credit to Yann Ropars @ Yannphotovideo.com)

The New Belgium Short Track series has gone through 3 of the 4 races for the season and NCGR had a good showing with Brian and Ralph, even though Ralph looked like he came out of a coal mine at the end of the race (thanks Mike Woodard for capturing that one!).  Brian roped in 3rd place in the Single Speed division at the third Short Track race!  Ralph fought a hard battle to ride into 11th in the Mens Expert division

Ralph gettin' work done!  (Photo credit to Yann Ropars @ Yannphotovideo.com)

Is that Ralph or his Klingon brother?

In addition to the Short Track races the Gowdy Grinder went down on May 20th.  Brian once again represented us on the short, but technically challenging, course.  Brian finished up in 16th place out of 55 in the Men's Open category where he raced his single speed against the geared boys.  Great job Brian!  Brian was even quoted in a post-race interview with Josh Cooley of Examiner.com.  You can find the article here.

This is just the beginning to the season and as things get into full swing we'll keep putting up the results!

Ride on!

Chris

Back in Action

Wow!  It has been quite some time since we posted anything here... I'm gonna try to get back on it and publish some of our team stuff, race results, and other fun stuff.
First an update from last year.  We were fortunate enough to get a variety of sponsors for the 2012 season!  We would like to thank Full Cycle Fort Collins, Long Building Technologies, Hines Irrigation, Wright Environmental Services, Blue Sky Coaching and Training, Akinz Boardwear, and Equinox Brewing for their support this season!  Thanks to the support of our sponsors and team riders we will be rocking a custom team Jersey this year, so keep an eye out on the Fort Collins trails for the NCGR jersey and say hello!

Here is a selection of the races we are riding in this year:  Gowdy Grinder, 24hrs in the Enchanted Forest, 40 in the Fort, Steamboat Stinger, Dakota Five-O, Lory Mountain Challenge, and the Laramie Mtn Bike Series.

It's looking to be a promising year for us with a group of strong riders so keep an eye out for us!
I'll post more team information as things come up and season starts rocking!  For more frequent updates and group ride info, follow us on Facebook here.

Ride on!
Chris