Littleton’s Legs of Steel Dominate Pats Peak 24

Team LBF was easy to pick out through the crowd in our red skin suits at The Pats Peak Mountain Bike Festival http://www.patspeak.com/summer/bike.php. Jamie and I were standing with a couple Littleton Landsharks, Greg Jancaitis (24 hour) and Marty St. George (6 hour) lined up for the lemans start. In 2 minutes we would be trotting across the lawn heading for our bikes only to jump on and mash on the pedals for 24 hours. Jamie was very firm in his demands that I not pull an “EFTA” and take off at mach 2 only to leave him chasing me down and pulling on the reigns. So off we went at a snails pace with a bunch of other yahoos hell bent on hurting themselves. The firsts lap was a little crowded, there were a bunch of 6 and 12 hour racers chugging along in the midst of the 24 riders. So we marched along to the beat of Legs and his opening pace. This was our first time on course so every corner was like a little surprise of dirt, root or rock that jumped out as if to say “surprise”. A lap consisted of a little pitch to warm up the legs out of the pit, then a stroll around a snowmaking pond followed into a ditch and some single-track, traverse across the mountain back by the start to more single-track and up the first major climb on a grassy ski slope. A not so quick teeth chattering descent down to the base of the downhill course left fillings loose and quads burning, then it was back up the slope for another highway to hell, this one was a bit longer and had a long single-track climb through the woods just after you blew your legs on a steep ski slope called "Dead Mans Drop" or something cheeky like that. After the legs were toast the upper body was due for a good pounding and that was just what they set us up for us on the run down the mountain. It was about 10 minutes of wrist breaking, shoulder traumatizing, quad cooking, deep fried forearms kind of fun. To tell you the truth after we got to the bottom of this combination of Old Webs (Kingdom Trails) and The Flume (Mt Lafayette) we said “oh crap…we have to ride that 27 more times!” Who knew we would be so accurate in our predictions? After the descent we had a little leg loosening climb to the base area by a house with 8 people drinking beer and telling us to “hit the sweet jumps we made for you”, then it was down a chute and into the timing tent. Jamie and I had received bike numbers 1 and 2 which was funny the first 20 times we came in and said to the score keepers “ one, two buckle my shoe or, two, one...Blast Off!” But we got a lot of smiles and cheers as we would pass through the tent, pitched our selves back on the bikes with food and new water then disappear only as “1 and 2 those fast red guys from Littleton”. We rode hard throughout the afternoon and did a couple laps with Marty and Greg here and there but come 7 pm we welcomed the fading light and heat. Night brings out a whole other element of racing; from managing light systems and riding in the dark to puking up everything you eat and falling asleep only to wake up while on a collision course with a tree. It’s a side of racing that one can’t see from the cozy support tent because if one did, support crews would tell us to sleep not “get back out there and tear it up slackers”. 4 AM was the worst time for me; my heart rate wouldn’t rise above 110 regardless of effort (150-170 is normal for an endurance event) and I was ridding like a wet noodle. We had a solid lead on the field but only a lap up on Greg who was proving to be the snake to my mongoose or the mongoose to my snake…whatever…anyway I was bonking and the sleep monsters were running me down. I begged for a 15 minute nap at TA after lap 19ish but settled for 10 in an emergency bivy that I’ve slept in in three countries for a total of 28 mins over the past year. Those ten minutes were like a decade and just enough to reset my head and get me mashing again. We jumped on the bikes and out the door, we were in the early light with almost 75% of the race over, it was the best time of the race. We started putting time on our competition and felt great as long as we weren’t climbing or descending which was the whole course except for the 200 meters around the snowmaking pond but man oh man…those 200 meters were awesome! People started waking up an hour or so later and were pounding out laps after their little snoozes but as long as we didn't stop we were just too far ahead to catch. Greg was one lap back on us and just out of reach to the next competitor but he was coming on strong so Greg had to ride all morning to keep his lead thus, we had to ride all morning to keep our lead (talk about the trickle up effect). All in all the morning was what a bipolar cocktail party would be like, some people crying and puking while some laughing and riding :-o At the end of it all, we put in 28 Laps totaling about 190 KM of biking and at 850 vertical ft per lap a total of 23,800 feet of climbing (and likewise 23,800 vertical feet of horrid descending). Team LBF and Maine Landshark Gerg came into the finish just as the skies opened up, the lightning struck and the race was called off early at 11:36 am exactly 28 Laps, 23 hours and 36 minutes, 153,234 pedal rotations, 17,000 Calories and 3 up chuckings after starting and thinking “this is gonna hurt” well...it did.

Final Podium
1st Place (Tied) 28 Laps Jamie Myers and Dave Stiles (Team LBF)
3rd Place 27 Laps Greg Jancaitis (Maine Landshark)

Ride On -Yacky