This weekend was race #2 of the E100 series in Park City. The first was the 12 hours, this one was the 50 miler and the final will be the 100 miler in August.
Goals for this one were to win and set a new course record - which I did. My official finish time was 5:18. Jack Dainton won the mens 23 mins ahead in 4:55.
I've been wearing out all of my equipment at an amazing rate with all of the training and racing miles this season. The recent riding in the muck and rain didn't help. A few days before the E50 I took my bike in to Desert Cyclery for some work and Andy the head mechanic said "Lynda your bike is jacked up". Oh no... Oh yes :-( Desert Cyclery owner, Kong, stepped in and pulled out a new Yeti frame. Andy spent the next couple of days building me up a new bike with parts cherry picked from my old bike and shop parts. Here it is clocking in at 24 lbs. Purty sweet.
I would never advise one of my athletes to get on a brand new bike and go race a 50 miler, but that is what I did. Andy got the fit dialed in almost exactly like my old bike so it didn't take much getting used to but it sure rides differently. It turns faster and I was overdoing the corners. I kept stopping during the race to adjust the settings on the suspension. At first I had the rebound set too fast and it was boinging me around the trail. The E50 has some tight single-track tree sections and two times I bounced to the side of the trail on a descent and hit the end of my bar on a tree sending me flying. That made me a bit grumpy.
The course was hard to follow at times and I went off course about five times. One time I was with a couple of guys flying down a jeep road and we all saw the single-track snaking up off into the trees as we flew past at about 30 mph. We slammed on the brakes and ran up to the trail. I got there first but it was steep and I was in my big chain ring. We were all bitching and I was blocking the trail so moved off and got it into the small ring meanwhile there were quite a few f's and b's flying around. Then I see the cameras, three of them surrounding us. The E100 series is being filmed for a documentary and we were so busted for being potty mouths!
