Trail Rider Magazine

June 2015 37 Y ou don't really expect an event called "Lile Rhody" to end in tears, screaming, and fruitless bargaining with God, do you? When my boyfriend Greg and I lined up on our minute, the sun was shining, a pleasant breeze was blowing, the trail had been described as fast and flowing, and rumor had it the whole thing had been organized so that NOBODY would hour out. Really? I thought, taxi-ing toward the start as the me cards turn over. Not even me? No, as it would turn out, not even me—even though the following testament should be used as a primer in riding schools about how NOT to race an enduro. Hold on to your shorts and hide your children—things are gonna get ugly. From the moment that minute 20 turns over, I ride as fast as I possibly can—and this works great, because as prom- ised, the first few secons are a dream. The weather is perfect, the trail has a nice mix of fast-and-flowy and ght-and-twisty, and other than consistently dumping it in hairpin turns, I'm having a great ride. Lesson One: "Riding as fast as you possibly can" is no way to pace yourself for a five hour race—I mean, unless you're in shape and know what you're doing. I make it to the first gas stop without significant incident. I find a guy on a Beta riding with great consistency and moderate speed, and I lock onto his rear wheel. With me providing some stress to keep my target on the throle, and my target providing all the good lines, we zigzag through the forest for about 10 miles at what is, for me, a dizzying pace. One memorable secon threads through pine saplings so dense that I navigate them mostly by fol- lowing the Beta's brake light. If I'm going to crash, I figure, I might as well do something to deserve it. Lesson Two: Do not tempt fate. Fate is coming for you anyway. Suddenly, the Beta's brake light vanishes in what appears to be an explosion of baby powder. I hit my brakes, and when the dust clears, I am squinng into an endless moonscape of fine, white sand. What is it doing there, I wonder, and more pernently, how do I get across it? Beta Man immediately pulls a larger gap on me than he had at any point in the woods—so I lay on the gas. The bike howls along in fourth, twitching and lunging through the driing white stuff—then the handlebars snap to full lock and it launches me into the stratosphere. I swan dive into the sand, then the bike turns a somersault and lands on my ankles. This hurts a bit, but what worries me most is my contact lenses, which now resemble a sand quarry. Will they fall out? I try to expel sand from my face, re- sume breathing normally, and dig out from under the bike at the same me, lest some other out-of-control, dust- blind lunac run me over. I recover my vision at about the same me that I get the bike re-started. I don't have to dodge any traffic—in fact, I can't see or hear any other bikes at all. I pick the direcon that re tracks seem to lead in and gain speed, unl I bin it again… and again. On the ground, I take a drag on my CamelBak to try to clear the grit out of my mouth and suck air: deep in my lizard brain, a ny voice tells me, "That's it. You're going to die out here." Lesson Three: Don't run out of water. Tie extra boles to your gas can so you can refill your CamelBak at the gas stop. Lesson Four. Do not listen to the lizard brain. It is full of lies. Both dehydrated and raled, I waste no me in geng lost—so much so that I am only alerted to my mistake when I meet another bike coming in the opposite direc- on. An expleve-fueled reconnaissance mission in the dunes reunites me with the orange arrows, and it is with great relief that I finally re-enter the woods. Back in my element, I am eager to make up me. Lesson Five: "Making up me" is code for "about to eat shit." Just catch your breath and keep a steady pace unl you get your wits about you. Needless to say, I throw cauon to the wind and ride like hell. At this point, things go downhill so fast for me that the rest of the race is blurry. I catch the tail end of another group of riders, lose them aer a crash, and wash up at By Anna Svagzdys Yard Sale Enduro Lessons: Take 2

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