Dirty Spokes Suffer-Fest

Friday I headed out of work towards GA with completing the Dirty Spokes 12 hours of Conyers on my mind. I was going to do this solo and on my singlespeed. I make it to the big empty field after a long boring drive to find that camp has been set up already by fellow cahaba cycle employee Ryan Dye and his buddy Greg. They were going to be competing in the 4 person 12 hour race as team UNCAGED(you have to say like a wrestler then its funny) and were waiting on the rest of the team to show up. While we were talking they told me that the course was completly different and that we were not going across the road into the famous/infamouse slickrock secton. This was good and bad as I was really looking foward to riding that section as it is so different then anything else around here, but it was going to make riding for 12 hours straight much easier. We chowed down on some grub and kicked back a few brews before the third member of their team, Jeremy, showed up. It was getting late at this point, so I chugged some water and we all hit the bed(not together of course).
Saturday morning arrives and I appear to have gotten good sleep which is weird for me before a race. I cook up some oatmeal, drink some gatoraid, eat a few other things and prepare for the long day in the saddle. Uncaged' other member Nick shows up along with David and their wives Aly and Holly. I explain to them what I am doing and they agree to help me keep my bottles filled up and the food stocked. I thank them and head to the pre-race meeting.
They inform us at the meeting that there is not going to be a LeMans start, but a parade lap around the field instead to break up the group. This is alright with me because I really did not feel like running. So as we are waiting for the start I decide that I am going to hang out towards the back of the the pack to avoid racing the fast guys not riding solo and blowing myself up. This ended being a bad decision because every time the trail tightened up, the riders would bottleneck up and I would have to wait until it cleared to continue. Still at least I hadn't blown up at the start and that was a plus.
The next few laps I rode fairly consistently, keeping my laps all within the 45 to 50 minute range and restrained myself from racing the faster guys doing the 6 hour team stuff. I had run into one guy in my class that was racing with a broken sitbone and was forced to ride the entire time while standing. I was amazed at this and complemented him on still racing. We ended up riding together for awhile before I left him in my quest for consistency. When I got back to my pit on my sixth lap I asked one of the guys to run up and see where I'm at in the standings while I took a 5 minute break. He comes back and says that the guy in the lead has lapped me plus ten minutes and that I was in fifth with fourth through second on the same lap as me. I thought this was cool, so it was a little bit of motivation to keep it up.
I came out of the pits feeling better and proceded to put in a lap that was faster then my first lap of the day. Also during this lap I passed two more guys in my class that seemed to be hurting a bit. Entering into the eighth lap I am thinking that I am sitting in third, I just took a break and those other guys didn't look so hot; I might get a podium here. I should also mention that I've only been on the podium for team events prior to today so this was pretty damn exciting. So as I am about half way through with this lap I catch another singlespeeder who also appears to be hurting. I came around him and gave it some juice just to make sure he couldn't try to speed up and pace with me. I did not ask him if he was in my class but by the way he was riding and the fact the six hour was over I was almost positive that he was. After this I put in a few more fast laps just to try and put some time in between me and the other guys. On lap ten I decided that when I got to the pits I was going to take another 5 minute break and find out my splits to the other riders. While I was sitting down one of the guys comes back and tells me that I am in second with about a half a lap on the third and the rest of the field is falling back. The guy in first was still about a lap and half ahead. I knew that I wasn't going to catch first place but that second was mine to lose. I decided to ride more conservatively and not crash out or get a flat. And if the guy behind me did somehow catch up, I would be more rested then he and able to respond.

The next few laps brought the darkness and on came the lights. When I finished my thirteenth lap, it was 9:30 and I was praying that the guy behind me was not going to make the cuttoff at 10:00 so I could end this sufferfest. When the scorer informed me that he was about twenty minutes behind and would probably make the cuttoff, I cussed to myself, and proceeded to get back on my bike for one final lap. And god I thought this lap was never going to end. I was so anxious to finish that I couldn't stop thinking about it. Finally at 10:22 PM Eastern time zone I finished. And I finished in second gaining my first ever podium(cheers and applause). I ended up covering 116 miles and climbing over 12,000 feet with each lap being 8.3 miles and 900 feet of climbing. Also worth a mention is that not only did I get second in Singlespeed but I finished second out of all the other solo 12 hour guys and fifthteenth overall. Not bad for my first 12 hour event!
I want thank everyone at the event as they were always cheering when I rode past, helping ease the pain, the organizers for putting this together, and mostly to team UNCAGED. David, Holly, Nick, Aly, Greg, Jeremy, and Ryan, you guys made my life so much easier I wanted to thank you again. Here is a link to the event with results and photos. http://dirtyspokes.com/results_conyors.php


This is Brendan Gibbs signing out.