Moving forward

Fast forward a couple weeks and we are now well into January.

We had been hearing about a new event - The Red River Riot:

The course will be a unique combination of singletrack, dirt roads, gravel roads, Jeep roads and as little actual pavement as we need to tie it all together for well over 100 miles of off road greatness for the strongest of the strong.

Staging, mid point and finish will all take place at the historic Breaks at Bar H mountain bike ranch. From there we will ride approximately 50 miles of dirt roads, etc through the toughest terrain we can find. Riders will return to Bar H as the mid point for a lap of singletrack and then proceed out for another adventurous 50 miles throughout the Red River Valley. Only the toughest will be able to make the cutoff times and return for final lap of singletrack (probably at night) at Bar H.

We kept hoping for some dry trails, but decided that if there wasn't any rain in the forecast we would drive up for this. Alan would do the full 100+ and I just wanted to beat the 1/2-way point cut-off with plenty of time to contemplate doing the full distance.

The forecast for Saturday was a chance of rain, with the rain to hit later in the day. We made the drive up Friday night. If it was raining in the morning, we would head back home, if not we would drive out to the ranch. Saturday morning was overcast, but no rain - so off to the ranch we went. A few sprinkle drops on the way out, but not enough to turn around. The dirt road into the ranch was in good shape and it wasn't raining so we changed clothes and put on our race numbers.


Everyone gathers for the pre-ride instructions. Since there had been rain recently, the ranch singletrack trails were too wet to ride, so the event would be on the road only.

The recap of the event was best said by the promoter:
122 riders set out at 8am on a gorgeous Saturday morning for the First Annual Red River Riot. By 8:01 am the rains came down and didn’t let up until the middle of that afternoon. After all was said and done only 10% of the starters completed the full 105 mile course mostly made up of dirt roads through the scenic Red River Valley.

For the most part, the roads weren't that bad. It was messy, but with the exception of a couple sections it was still very rideable. Although my goal of reaching the mid-point cut off with plenty of time to decide to not do the full distance, turned into just get back to the ranch... it would be a bonus if I finished before the cut off.

I made it back to the ranch, with plenty of time to debate going back out...
NOT!

I was surprised to see Alan at the car, already cleaned up and changed. Ends up that the mud was playing havoc on his drive train. His bike was shifting gears all on it's own, so to avoid further damage he called it a day.

More pictures of the event can be found at Ric Ceron's website.

All for now, it's time for bed.