Santos Fat Tire Festival - 50mi Epic Ride
Where: Ocala, FL (Santos MTB Trails)
Date: March 9, 2019
Distance: 50 miles (but GPS had me right around 46)
Finish Time: Approx 6.5 hrs moving time, total time probably closer to 8hrs
Place: n/a
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/2202638356
So…this was a drunk decision. After Tom and I ran the Long Play 33 1/3 Trail Run, we had BoneSaw & Jamie over to drink bees and play games. After talking about their upcoming Epic, I stupidly agreed to do it with them. I don’t even own a mountain bike and had never been mountain biking before. The longest I’d ever ridden on a road bike was 30 miles and that was damn near torture by the end. At that point, I had maybe ridden about 10 miles over the previous 6 months.
BUT – I had signed up, so I rented a mountain bike from the lovely folks at the Santos Bike Shop (I picked it up the day before since we would be starting before the shop opened) and met Bone and Jamie at the trail head bright and early on Saturday. The event wasn’t any type of a race, so people could start whenever they wanted. The only time constraint I had was that I had to have my rental back by 4:30pm.
The event would have three sag stops (which is what they call aid stations in biking?), two with aid station fare and the third in the middle would have a full lunch provided, so 5 stops in total for fueling. They were great! Very enthusiastic volunteers, lots of good food, and my favorite thing was the oreo topped with peanut butter and a banana slice I had at the first stop.
But before I could get there, I had to learn how a mountain bike worked and how to navigate the trails. I will say straight up that I was petrified and was worried I wasn’t going to make it. I also did not shift gears the entire ride because I had a death grip on the handlebars and my hands ended up being so, so sore from squeezing them so tight the entire time.
About 3 miles into the ride, I full on hit a tree. My body slammed into it with such for that for a moment I thought I was wrecked and would have to end my ride right there. After dusting myself off, I realized I was fine, my helmet saved me from damage, but I would have a huge bruise on my thigh (and as of the day of writing almost a year later, I still have a slight indentation from the bruise)
Besides that big scary moment, the rest was fine (minus 4 other times my handlebars clipped trees and I fell). It was a nice ride because my endurance was so high from running. There were challenging parts past the Landbridge section and I didn’t know how to handle myself on the various hills and dips, so there were some places where I had to walk the bike up over those areas rather than ride. I also made sure to avoid any of the “features” because I did not have the experience to take them on.
I stayed with Bone the entire time and both of us got a little frustrated by how many times we had to pull over for faster folk on the trail. Because people could start whenever they wanted, many people started mid-morning and were passing us due to them being faster.
Around mile 40ish I was ready to be done, and kept repeating to myself that I just had to keep going and I could have my beer that was in the cooler in the truck. We eventually finished and I checked out that absolute stunner of a bruise that had developed.
I definitely want to do it again next year and would have done the October 50 mile epic ride had it not been on the same day as Gate2Gate. I know I can shave off at least an hour or so off my time, so I look forward to doing that if the dates work out!
Date: March 9, 2019
Distance: 50 miles (but GPS had me right around 46)
Finish Time: Approx 6.5 hrs moving time, total time probably closer to 8hrs
Place: n/a
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/2202638356
So…this was a drunk decision. After Tom and I ran the Long Play 33 1/3 Trail Run, we had BoneSaw & Jamie over to drink bees and play games. After talking about their upcoming Epic, I stupidly agreed to do it with them. I don’t even own a mountain bike and had never been mountain biking before. The longest I’d ever ridden on a road bike was 30 miles and that was damn near torture by the end. At that point, I had maybe ridden about 10 miles over the previous 6 months.
BUT – I had signed up, so I rented a mountain bike from the lovely folks at the Santos Bike Shop (I picked it up the day before since we would be starting before the shop opened) and met Bone and Jamie at the trail head bright and early on Saturday. The event wasn’t any type of a race, so people could start whenever they wanted. The only time constraint I had was that I had to have my rental back by 4:30pm.
The event would have three sag stops (which is what they call aid stations in biking?), two with aid station fare and the third in the middle would have a full lunch provided, so 5 stops in total for fueling. They were great! Very enthusiastic volunteers, lots of good food, and my favorite thing was the oreo topped with peanut butter and a banana slice I had at the first stop.
But before I could get there, I had to learn how a mountain bike worked and how to navigate the trails. I will say straight up that I was petrified and was worried I wasn’t going to make it. I also did not shift gears the entire ride because I had a death grip on the handlebars and my hands ended up being so, so sore from squeezing them so tight the entire time.
About 3 miles into the ride, I full on hit a tree. My body slammed into it with such for that for a moment I thought I was wrecked and would have to end my ride right there. After dusting myself off, I realized I was fine, my helmet saved me from damage, but I would have a huge bruise on my thigh (and as of the day of writing almost a year later, I still have a slight indentation from the bruise)
Besides that big scary moment, the rest was fine (minus 4 other times my handlebars clipped trees and I fell). It was a nice ride because my endurance was so high from running. There were challenging parts past the Landbridge section and I didn’t know how to handle myself on the various hills and dips, so there were some places where I had to walk the bike up over those areas rather than ride. I also made sure to avoid any of the “features” because I did not have the experience to take them on.
I stayed with Bone the entire time and both of us got a little frustrated by how many times we had to pull over for faster folk on the trail. Because people could start whenever they wanted, many people started mid-morning and were passing us due to them being faster.
Around mile 40ish I was ready to be done, and kept repeating to myself that I just had to keep going and I could have my beer that was in the cooler in the truck. We eventually finished and I checked out that absolute stunner of a bruise that had developed.
I definitely want to do it again next year and would have done the October 50 mile epic ride had it not been on the same day as Gate2Gate. I know I can shave off at least an hour or so off my time, so I look forward to doing that if the dates work out!