Another Journey to Big Bear

June has begun, signaling another year almost halfway spent and the irresistible pull of the mountains has me scurrying around looking to pull a team together by the end of the week. This year, however, things will be different for me up at the airstrip that is the 24 Hours of Big Bear venue. I have signed on to be a correspondent for yourMTB.com and Granny for this year's race. I'm stoked to have been chosen, and I'm looking forward to having the chance to share my take on the race with , well, anyone with the gumption to feast his or her eyes on the yourMTB.com blog.

This will be my tenth 24 hour race (if we get a team together by Friday) in the past five years of participating in these seemingly inane events. To date, I have logged two races each at Snowshoe, Big Bear, and Moab (all GrannyGear events), plus two years at the 24 Hour race at Seven Springs with it's merciless hill at the finish, and a foray down to western North Carolina last weekend for a smoking singletrack race in Wilkesboro. Past team names include the popular "Happy Hour", "Travis Bickle and the Pimps", "East Coast Mud Loving Ass Draggers", "Cytogas", and the latest, "Riding With Scissors".

I cut my teeth on the 24 hour racing in the peanut butter mud of Snowshoe the year before the Enchanted Forest (read: Bog), was eliminated from the course. It was truly a baptism by fire, and my legs have never looked the same. For weeks after that first race, wearing shorts caused children to stare and old women to look away, gasping in horror at the deep cuts, rainbow-like bruises, and odd patches of ingrained mud that dotted my bony shins and knees. Moab left me questioning my existence, pushing my hardtail up a hardpack jeep trail five miles from the transition tent with the battery on my backup backup light dying a slow painful death. The dessert has no heart, but the sight of the race venue from the halfway point lets you know that the dessert's soul has a groove that will never die. Seven Springs has the hill, which, for me, literally ruins every lap. And while the singletrack down in Wilksboro was by far the best constructed trail I have ever ridden, the organization was less than perfect.

Which leads me back to Big Bear. The course is about as perfect as you can expect for the central Appalachians, a gritty sandstone based mineral soil interspersed with a few rocks and enough tricky roots to keep riders from getting too carried away. The venue is excellent with a seemingly neverending supply of flat campsites and no guesses as to where the transition tent can be found. Of course, Granny always has a good selection of vendors, including good warm food and showers. Did I mention the course? It is excellent, lots of twisty singletrack, screaming downhills, and uphills that end before your heart explodes.

I hope to see a big group up at Big Bear, it should be fun. Until the weekend...