Clark Brothers Racing: Pats Peak Mountain Bike Festival

Taylor and I headed over to Pats Peak for the Mountain bike festival on Saturday. We had made up our minds earlier in the week that we would do a 2 person 6 hour team and figured we could be relaxing by 6:30. The way things had looked on the weather scene we could tell prior to the race that we were headed for a shit show. 3 Plus inches of rain was set to fall Friday and into Saturday morning but rain or shine we were going. It’s a local race for us and neither had raced there before so why not. We could sleep in and head out at 9:30 and be home at a decent time.

Upon arriving the sun was out and we set up shop next to the Seib Family. You can’t say enough thanks because Don, Kristen, Donnie and Melissa basically extended their welcome to everyone. Thanks! After setting up it was off to the racers meeting. You have little time between the racers meeting and the start of the race to get your stuff together. I decided to do the “Petite La Mans start” only because I run once a year when I get the winter blues and Taylor had no objection. After the national anthems ceased we we’re off and running.

I hit the bike and took off on a course that I had never ridden before. I kept telling myself you’ve got 6 hrs. Just follow those skinny tire tracks laid out by Steve Crossley and you’ll be just fine. Another rider from a four person team was riding my wheel both of us just following the course not knowing how much energy to expend. Somewhere around mile 4 he said “We have over a mile of downhill coming up.” I let it fly. This paid off as I was able to hand the baton off to Taylor putting us in front for our class. Pats featured 800ft of climbing per 5 mile lap. The course has a good feel to it. You climb for a while on single track and fire road only to get your reward of over a mile of downhill to the finish, all with a river of mud and water beneath you. You know you’re going to need to service the brakes and bearings when this one’s over. Taylor ran his bike single speed and we put in 4 laps each. We had a strong race showing and that put us in first place for the 6 hour 2 men. We were able to get changed in to some dry clothes and catch up with fellow riders. You’ve got to hand it to the 24 hour solo riders and teams they stuck it out for 18 more hours. Cheers!

-AC