Oh, Poop.

So, the WYDAHO Rendezvous Mountain Bike Festival last weekend was awesome!  Fitzgerald's Bicycles kicked it off with a party on Friday night, complete with a smoking DJ and the 50/50 BMX boys going HUGE on Main Street.  Unreal.  (Scott got permission from the City of Victor to shut down the southbound lane of Hwy 33/Main Street for the evening--so killer.)


On Saturday I went on a "group" ride with Fitzy teammate Dan Abraham up Mill Creek and around a portion of the Pierre's Hole 100 course.  It's all in really great condition right now, and Julia (our one festival rider) swore she had a great time despite the interminable uphills.  (More about that later.)

Rick's Basin is gorgeous this time of year.  Dan and Julia make the long climb out.

Julia descends into Mill Creek

Peaked Sports hosted a party on Saturday night with what is now my favorite local band ripping guitar licks and Jeff Lenosky throwing trials stunts on Little Ave.  (Dick got permission from the City of Driggs to shut down the first block of Little Ave for the evening.  What's up with these municipalities coming out in support of cycling events?)

Nikki rips down upper Red Creek.

Sunday morning was a group ride with Jason Berning (this time with a real group) on the Spooky-Red Creek-Corral Creek loop.  Just as good as I remembered.  And the jungle-schwacking section down Red Creek wasn't so bad!

Chris prepares to get wet.

Jason climbs out of the jungle.

What a weekend.  I even got out for a solo ride up Pole Canyon on Sunday evening.  Damn.


Monday was back to work, but the real fun started around 4:30 in the afternoon.  My stomach started to get tumbly sometime after lunch (which is unusual for me--I typically have an iron gut), and once I got back to the shop the first wave of diarrhea struck.  Then another about 15 minutes later.  No shit, I was on the pot over ten times between 4:30 and bedtime.

Other than drinking as much liquid as possible and eating a light, bland dinner, there wasn't much I could do besides try to distract myself with terrible cinema.

Even Thor couldn't hold my attention.  Crap.  And more crap.


Anyway, lots of sleep and a good dinner last night resulted in general feelings of health this morning.  Which brings me to an email waiting in my inbox this from Pierre's Hole 100 race director Troy Barry.  He included a brief updated course description:

Now, this being my local NUE Series race, I have a definite soft spot for it, despite the course being fantastically hard.  But they've outdone themselves this year:

If math still works, that translates to 20,000'+ of climbing over 100 miles!  What the f#*k?!  17,000' felt like a lot last year, and was by far the most in the series.  Damn, this is going to hurt...


Not that I'm complaining.  I love this race.  It might be a bit more difficult to get the 9:30 belt buckle this year.


At least the diarrhea's gone.




***Update: Apparently the PH100 crew had a squirrelly GPS that errantly registered 5067' of climbing; actual climbing will be more like 3800' per lap.  Phew!