Nebraska Cycling News

USA Cycling and the National Offroad Bicycling Association recently held the 24 Hour Mountain Bike National Championships in Wausau, Wisconsin, and Psycowpath racers were there to represent.  Larry Kintner (Midwest Cycling Community), Roxzanne Abbott and Ryan Feagan (both of Bike Masters) had raced there in 2006 and in 2007 John Holmes joined to make a four person team for the Coed Open Division.  It was a full 24 hour journey to reach the top end of the standings; here is Roxzanne's recount of the event.

Well, 24 Hours of 9 Mile is history and it was an awesome time for all involved. Team Psycowpath Nebraska, was made up of Ryan and Roxy of Bike Masters, Hot Pepper Harlan (Larry Kintner) - Omaha Cycling Community, and John Homey Holmes. More important were the team's support crew, Mrs. Homey and their two sons, Micah and Jessie. Two words for Donna - ROCK STAR! tornados. This year we were greeted with pristine dirt and mild temps. We entered the co-ed open division so to defend and hopefully move up from third place last year. If you aren't familiar, last year the race was cancelled after only 19 hours due to white-out rain conditions and With a cloudless sky and a moon you could read by, a positive vibe had been set for the whole weekend. The good weather put people in great moods and the excitement was contagious.

The Holme's got up there two days before the race and hooked us up with primo camping, complete with enough room to park my now dead Trooper (more of that later) and the trailer that hauled all the gear and bikes. After setting up camp, we did some gravel road rides to get the heart rate up and then dumped into a few miles of single track to check our bikes' vitals. Dialed! Again, thanks to the camping quisine diva, we had pasta, TOASTED garlic bread and fruit for dinner. A great way to end the day.

water sourse, first aid tent, vendors, wrenches, support stations onThis event is so tight, dudes. They have a coffee vendor serving lattes all day and night. A food vendor that serves all day and night. A men's and women's shower house, porta potties, bike wash, drinking trail complete with professional tunes and flashing lights. Oh and twinkies. So breakfast consisted of coffee, three pancakes and sausage. Oh yeah, while eating, we watched the Tour on a large TV under the circus tent. Life was only about biking at that point. After the mandatory riders meeting, RF started shadow boxing in preparation for elbowing his way through the le mon start. The roll up of this race was cool. They announced the super men and women and sang the National Anthem. Then like a heard of buffalo, racers of all sorts and sizes ran rediculously down an open field and back up to their bikes while the crowd cheered like mad. Heaven.

The order of things was Ryan, Larry, Roxy and John. RF busted out a first lap just a bit over an hour. Larry answered it plus but a few extra minutes. My lap was longer by a few more minutes but John righted things by cruizing in about the same time as Ryan. (To put that in context, the winner of the men's solo did his opening lap around 55 min.) After lap one, Larry discovered that we were the only team in our division. Seemed there was a rule change we didn't know about that made our category somewhat bogus and nobody else signed up. Well, crappers. So, we changed our strategy; race the open men teams
and make it into the top 20 overall. After each of us completed a lap we were in 35th place. We had some work to do. (Side note: this event requires racers to wear a chip on their ankle and then as one passes
under the finish banner, their time is instantly recorded.) Here's the sweet part. There are lap tops right at the start/finish tent so we could track our progress in real time. Tight!

The 14.4 mile race course at 9Mile is really fun. It's a cross-country skiing area, so there's barely elevation. It's not Manawa flat. It's more like Swanson with some challenging rock sections in spots and
twisty turny stuff w/ double-wide rolling service roads in between, that either propelled you forward or wheel sucked the life out of you. Needless to say, we were always engaged while on the single. Roots,
rocks, twists and turns and always pedaling. All went well in the opening laps. After my 2nd lap, I came back to a very flushed and tired Ryan. He was not recovering very well and we were concerned he was dehydrated more so than usual due to his work travels. He decided to chill and not go out so hard next time. That seemed to be the ticket. Sometimes, you just gotta adjust things knowing you have many more hours ahead of riding.

As dusk approached Mrs. Homey took care of things. She made chicken and rice for all of us and I can't tell you how yummy it was to chow it down. I couldn't eat it while it was hot as I was getting ready to
head out but even cold, it was so good. Power fuel. Now John's got an iron gut. His power fuel was sardines and some other fishy thing. GROSS! But he was rockin it, so I should probably take some notes. My routine was Accelerade, a bagel and pbutter, followed by some chips or crackers, followed then by a coke and ibuprofen. Seemed to work for me.

My first night lap was a couple minutes slower than my day laps. I got stuck behind some peeps in the trees at the start. For the most part people are super cool about getting over, many times calling out what
side they are going to before I got to them. We had a huge full moon so coming out of the trees with moonlight to show the way was spectacular. It really added to the experience.

My 2nd night lap was my slowest as I made some adjustments to my suspension that turned out to be the wrong ones. I got kicked around like a pin ball in the rock gardens. Lucky for me I stayed upright. There was one time when I came out into a clearing hot and hit a patch of gravel. I pulled a Troy Nelson and layed the bike flat but managed to stay clipped in and right the bike. I had no idea how but I pulled it off and the guy behind me gave me some props. I gave props to the Almighty!

Night lap three wasn't too bad. 3 a.m. is such an interesting time in these events. Solos are shot beyond comprehension. I came upon Mark Hendershot (Santa Cruz Syndicate) who placed 3rd in Pro Men solo. He
had one leg out of his pedal on an open road climb. He's a rock star and I felt bad riding by. I gave him props and he did the same. I wished later I woulda at least pushed him up the hill. These laps are
tough because your legs feel like lead weights for the first few miles and you think, "I'm so done. Let's just take a nap." As long as I didn't stand up I was fine and as the lap went on things loosened up. Thanks to some of my co-rider buddies back here, I was hooked up with lights that lit up the night. Made for pretty fun night riding.

My last lap was at 9ish and I felt like it was my first. The sun does something to my chemistry. Or it could have been that I knew I was an hour from being done and layed it all out there. The very end was a
riot. The single track is swoopy and tight and I was just ripping through it. I could hear a guy's bike chain banging in the distance, so I used it as a guide to keep me on pace. As I heard it get louder I pushed harder but I wouldn't let up. Finally when we popped out into an open section the guy took off and wished me luck. Then, at the finish he said, "Great job int the single." That was icing on the 24hour cake.

You know, this kind of torture is as much mental as it is physical. You gotta really love riding your bike to do this type of racing and even more you gotta be having fun. You take what comes and deal with it. Your attitude effects everyone. There was a moment in the middle of the night. I was waiting for Larry to come in so I just stopped and took it all in. Here were 50 or so riders, helmets on w/ lights strapped to them, legs bouncing up and down in anticipation. As each set of lights approached, everyone would sit up straight, and strain their heads to see if it was their man coming in, hoping it was their turn to head out into the darkness. It was awesome seeing weary folks stroll in with dirty grins on their faces and then high-fiving the next person as if to pass on their energy and being alive in the moment. That, my friends, is the answer to why we do this stuff.

Team Psycowpath ended up 16th overall. Only 15 other teams or solos did better, including Eatough who got 15th overall but won the solo pro open. We did 20 laps each or 72 miles for a total of 288 miles.
The same as Eatough. (Yes, one man did the same as four and overall probably was faster on average. Scary.)

24/Hour of Nine Mile 2007 was a great experience. Good times, great friends, great eats and best of all great riding.  It was a test of our ability in every aspect of racing. We each had our own goals but
as a team, our success was that much more sweet!