Bailey Hundo

Hello there good people, this is Dave.  After we got back from... I'll tell you where. Someplace warm. A place where the beer flows like wine. Where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I'm talking about a little place called Aspen.  Thanks for the set up, Meg.  Anyways, after we got back from Aspen, we had a little downtime (time to study for my upcoming boards) and then we headed off to a ridiculous race, the Bailey Hundo.  It's a HUNDRED miles of mountain biking through the... mountains.  Intense. 

Ben is a mountain biker through-and-through.  He lives and breathes this stuff, getting up at 5am to go for a ride before work.  This was his 4th or 5th Bailey Hundo.  After having to swap out his really nice (but broken) wheels for an older set the night before the race, he was ready to go. 

Our day started early.  5 or 6 am?  And we had a crew ready to cheer that guy on.  Leah, Isaac, Meg and I met up with Ben several times though out the day along winding dirt roads through the mountains, which was a great way to see the mountainside.  It was a long race.  Long.  Doing Daddy duty and commuting to a new job, Ben didn't have quite as much time to train over these past several months. He was an hour and a half behind his time from last year.  Half way through, Ben had wondered if this was the year he was to be done in.  I suppose when you start having cramps at mile marker one, that will take it's toll on the body.  I thought to myself, "Was I going to need to ride his bike the last 30 miles?"  It crossed my mind with a quick answer of: no chance.  Not this guy, good luck Ben.  

The next scene was priceless.  The ladies and Isaac took a snooze.  I took Ben's Jeep into 4x4 territory on a solo cheering mission.  I found him with 18.68 miles left.  The next 18.68 miles Ben and I were one.  He on his bike, me yelling from the Jeep, and at times running up some of the hills with him.  At one point, I parked the car over a hill and came running back down to cheer him on.  To his perspective, he's thinking the Jeep died again (just got fixed) and he probably thought I was going to try to hop on with him.  The key moment of inspiration was when he was going up one of the last climbs and I'm following him in the Jeep, going 5-10 mph, blaring classic rock and singing along.  I can't say it helped him much, but I sure was amused with myself.  Then, he did it. He finished!...Eleven hours later. Well done, Ben.

Ben ended up finishing the second half faster than the first and we found ourselves eating some dang good BBQ food at the finish line, paired with a few smuggled in beers from Wisconsin.  It was a good day, even though we were all exhausted. 

This little tike is quite the trooper- cheering on his dad all day with hardly a cry.  I think he was the inspiration that kept Ben going. That or the classic rock sing-a-long.