Knickerbocker 8 Hr in Cool, CA

The Knickerbocker 8 hr MTB race is part of the "Leave No Trace" Series put on by Global Biorhythm Events. The other races are 24 hrs of Boggs Mountain, 24 Hrs of Cool, and Tahoe Sierra 100. After racing at Tahoe Sierra 100 and talking to Jim Northey who is the enthusiastic organizer of all these races, I decided it would be fun La Ruta training to do the Knickerbocker 8 Hr race. Auburn is only about a 3 hr drive from our house, so it was a fairly easy trip on Friday afternoon.

Le Mans start

After a quick Starbucks stop on Saturday morning, we drove the 10 miles from Auburn to Cool. The race started with a very short run to the bikes, and as 200 people hit the single track the dust was brutal!! You literally couldn't see the ground in front of you and I took it pretty easy because I had no intention on crashing. After the first loop the dust settled, and the course was fun! Each loop was approximately 12 miles with 1700 feet of climbing. It was almost all rolling single track, with a few steep sections. There was a checkpoint after 7 miles, with lots of helpful and cheery volunteers.

My goal was just to stay consistent, get a good training ride in, and have fun. At one point I thought I might be able to get 8 laps in, but as I had to stop a couple of times to get my chain cleaned and re-lubed at the check point, I realized that was going to take way too much effort. 7 laps was plenty of riding for me. I ended up with 84 miles and a little over 10,000 feet of elevation gain in 7 hrs and 9 minutes.

Me and Melanie Dominguez who won the overall series and got to ride home on a cool scooter!

Hanging out with Tinker and Roger- my pen pal I met on ebay.

Tinker- who didn't have to ride that many laps to take the overall title of the series, also won a hard-earned scooter for his efforts. He was really excited about the scooter and said he wouldn't think of selling it, because he had to race hard for it. After the race, the volunteers started BBQing hamburgers and we stuck around for a while before heading back home. Jim told me that he only found 3 gu wrappers on the course after the race, and filled 3 bags of recycling, and only 1 with trash. Pretty good for 200 people racing for hours.