Idaho City Qualifier

[roostafish]

As requested by Rick, my personal report from the 2013 edition of the Idaho City qualifier.

Leading up to this race I decided to do the Ought Six enduro in Montana just to get a good two day event in preparation for what I know is a long weekend with fast tests. I am a woods guy, the slower the terrain, the better I perform, gas tracks have befuddled me. Montana provided excellent practice, with a true six days format, an endurocross section, and a final moto. It was good practice, but that is a different ride report.

Friday, signup and tech. All went smoothly and I was assigned a primo minute. 22c, with Scott Bright, just ahead of Paul Krause and Matt Stavish. A pretty stacked LOI E-4 class. Early day one went well and I felt good and fast on the rough and steep course. I felt really good on the grass track, but apparently, that wasn't good enough, as Stavish caught me at the finish. The 120 mile course is mostly easy, but they had a special section between check 3 & 4 that was quite challenging, 29 miles in 84 minutes, nearly half of which was special test. I began to get severe muscle cramps and had to get off the bike and drink pickle juice. I remounted and hurried to the gas check, where my rock star wife fueled me and my machine, shoved some aspirin down my throat and sent me off with the encouragement of, "you got this, hammer it!" I endured the rest of the day and fought cramps 'til the finish, but I was on schedule and feeling ok. I quickly lubed the chain and swapped the air filter, looked at the tyres, the clock, and decided they were good for another day. We impounded with plenty of time to spare and began the body recovery for day two. Sunday was the same 120 mile course, run backwards. I don't remember a lot of details, but I remember my wife at the gas checks being a huge help and encouragement, and thinking what a beautiful and wonderful course it was. I had some really good sections, and had lots of time at the checks to recover. At one point I helped a friend who was having a hard day and it cost me some route points at the finish, but it didn't affect my results. I ended the weekend 5th place in the E-4 LOI class and a silver medal. It's as close as I've ever come to qualifying for the ISDE. I'll be back next year, and we'll travel east to Ohio for that qualifier, giving myself a mathematically better chance at making the team.

Idaho is beautiful. I wish I could have mapped the trails with my gps. It would be a great camping/riding destination.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

[blitz11]

Mike,

You're huge. A real inspiration. Your enthusiasm for this sport is really impressive.

Congrats on a great ride, and best of luck for your next qualifier.

blitz

[Rick]

Nice report, sounds like it was a good weekend. I've seen some you tube clips of a few specials.....looked really fun!

Again thanks for the report and congratulations on a silver medal.......go get"em next year!

See you this weekend.

[roostafish]

Thanks blitz, looking to improve, and stretching myself this weekend at the Funky Chicken national HS. Need to improve my sprinting speed, so we will go hammer it.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2