2011 40 In The Fort

It was a tough call to choose between the Winter Park Point-to-Point race and the  40 In The Fort put on by the Overland Mountain Bike Club in FT Collins, CO this weekend.  Although I love the WP race series, I thought I'd give this new one a try.  I had only ridden in the FT Collins area one time before back in October 2011 for the first annual Ergon Monster Ride.  The race was on trails in both the Lory State Park and Horsetooth Mountain Park.  We did two 20-mile loops which covered the gamut of conditions: smooth singletrack, chunky technical climbs / decents, hike-a-bike,  and 20+% road climbs.

It  felt something like this:

It was a true mountain bike race.  If you don't have technical dirt skills, you'll be walking a lot up and down and probably will hate the race.  If you like technical (rocks, roots, water bars) climbs and decents, you'll love the race course.  I had a pretty good race unofficially finishing 10th in the open classification.  I had one issue with my front shifter that prevented me from using the big ring the 2nd lap but as you can see from the elevation profile above, the big ring was used sparingly.  Thanks again to all that helped out and put this event together.  A big thanks to my teammate and one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. Jim Fu.  He and his family put me up the night before and made me feel very welcome on and off the course.  I'm looking forward to returning the favor sometime soon.

Rippin' Fast Downhill

One of the many big drops in Horsetooth.

Top of Bacon Hill or whatever that evil road is called.

Fu Dog making sure I make it back to a warm shower and awesome meal. That white sticker says "FU".

The lower trails were plagued with endless mud puddles.  Glad I used the wet lube.