13 Hours of Santos

Preparation? You're suppose to TRAIN for this?

About a month before the race, We all just "decided" to go to the 13 Hours of Santos. Granted we were all sitting around Thomson, dripping with sweat(and testosterone) drinking beer; but that shouldn't have anything to do with this insanity - should it?

GOING SOLO? Whose bright idea was this, anyway?

"Yeah, I'll do it" says one, then another, then "yeah, it'll be fun!". Well if you guys are going, then we're going too....

And with that, the Georgia contingent invaded Florida - we had 4 solo riders and 3 teams entered; we even talked Angie onto a team. They call it a race but we plan to just have fun and drink beer. The idea at this point is to see if anyone of us can actually ride for 13 hours.

The results are impressive (considering the absolute lack of planning for this)

13 hr Solo ---



5th - Mark Duffus
6th - BK Taylor
8th - Don Bill
10th - Steve Slosek

13 hr Teams ---

5th - 4 person Co-Ed

Debbie Blankenship
Renee Martinez
Courtney Akin
Jake Corwine

6th - 4 person Co-Ed

Sarah Slosek
Kat O'Neal
Angie Bill

19th -4 person Beginner

Donna Synder
Bret Broughton
John Hofmann
Ryan Fields

13 hours of mountain bike racing on 7 miles wonderful trails; unfortunately for us, the course was 8 miles long. That 8th mile was not a race course - it was an obstacle course. From what others were saying during the race, this type of trail is typical in Florida - they make up for the lack of climbing with extremely tight switchback turns, turns thru narrow tree openings, turns over rocks and roots. Maybe we "over groom" our trails in Georgia. Anyway, it was harder than we expected, and a lot harder than we were lead to believe. I think we all renamed Sinkhole every lap, "Stinkhole" is the only printable one of the bunch.

We all survive with just cuts and bruises and we all had a great time; and that is the real point in all of this. A weekend camping with friends having a good time.....