Shey and I planned to arrive at the start for the Huracan 300 at around 7am so we would have plenty of time before the 9am start. Of course we got to the parking lot at more like 8:40 and said our hellos to eveyone as we quickly attached our gear to our bikes and threw on our cyling clothes. We both turned on our SPOTS and rolled to the start, which was across the street from the Santos Campground, at Greenway Bicycles.
Karlos made a couple quick announcements and reminded us of a few things, like he and his son would be riding a tandem, so don't call them to come pick us up. There was NO pick-up, but he added that Florida has a fabulous bus system if we needed it..............then 23 of us were off. Man, I forgot to turn on my gps. I turned it on and was the last one to roll out of the parking lot. I was watching my gps to make sure it was working and it was not. It was an hour and a half and a few wrong turns/added miles before I got it working.
So, I was an hour and a half into the ride, but it felt like it was just starting for me. We were riding on dirt roads through the Ocala, in the open sun and I started to pass people. I saw Karlos and his smiling son and said hello to them. I rode a bit with Ruth while she snacked on something yummy. After a short bit, Dave passed me and we crossed a paved road into a hell-hole of sand. I walked most of it and came to the realization that my time guesstimates would have to be readjusted every time I hit one of the deep sand pits. The sand filled my shoes for
four miles and it was at least 30 minutes before I had any idea of how to ride in this stuff.
After the sandy section, we hit the Paisley singletrack. Yeah!! Fun, fun, fun.
When I reached the end of the singletrack a man in the parking lot gave me a number, in case I was wondering how many people were in front of me....I wasn't wondering, but it was cool that he was watching.
Maggie Jones road is sand, sand and more sand. When I hit a little patch of solid ground tears come to my eyes, I am so happy. I quickly learn to tell the rideable sand from the squirrley sand. I keep my eyes peeled for the rideable sand. We rode Maggie Jones for a long time before heading back into the woods, but still on jeep road. I think this is where I come across a couple parked cars and some sweet picnic tables. I stop on the bridge to take a picture of the beautiful water, when I see something moving through the water. It's an alligator. Great, the first place I stop to grab a photo and there is an alligator.
After a bit of pavement came the Rock Springs Run singletrack. I missed the trailhead and had to turn around to hit it, but was glad to have some shade and stopped to get a snack and stretch. The day was glorious and I was so happy to be riding my bike. At some point I bushwacked through the foliage to find a river crossing. I could see fish swimming around me and I tried very hard not to look for alligators.
I think there was more singletrack and I know there was a lot more sand. I remember riding with a big green cactus sticking out of my leg, because I knew if I stopped to take it out, I might not get going again. I came across cross guy a couple of times, then I passed a couple guys and met a trail angel and gate hopped. Over the gate, picture taken by trail angel, pleasantries, then on down Ponkan road.
I picnicked at a gas station, where the Floridians were very excited to see me and three people took my picture. I LOVE sitting on warm concrete, so I took my ice cream sandwich and soda outside and spent 40 minutes enjoying the evening and looking back at the awesome territory I had just covered. I knew this would put me into the Apopka at dark, but I wanted the time to enjoy the ride. I wasn't tired and my legs felt good, so I put my light on and headed out.
I stopped right inside the the Apopka gate to call in to Mtbcast. I took off my pack and turned on my light, a little early. Mosquitos swarmed me. They covered my arms, legs, shorts and jersey. I frantically pulled out my big bottle full of (heavy) bug spray and hosed myself down. Then I started shooting them in the air and watching them fall, just because it felt good. THEN I got out my phone and turned it on to make the call. I squinted at my gps and tried to read what the town, or waypoint was that was near me and under a little mountain symbol.....and I got the name wrong....sorry Karlos. Here is the link to listen to the calls from the racers:
http://mtbcast.com/site2/category/hurocan2012/ I loaded up and hit the track. It would be dark soon and I wanted to move quickly.
I made sure to stay in the center of the jeep trail and away from the canals on either side just as Karlos had instructed, but everytime I would look off to the side and into the canals, several sets of alligator eyes would reflect my headlight back at me. As I rode down the center of the road I could hear the loud splash of the gators who I had scared off the side of the canal and into the water. Wow, it sounded like a cow doing a belly flop. This was crazy! I could not believe how many alligators I was seeing, there were tons of them. I rode steady and hard and I sang every song I could think of as loud as I could and I am a terrible singer, so that pretty much kept them away.
Then there were the snakes. I saw 5 or 6 of them, but I noticed they were laying on the road, but not moving. It was too cold. It felt like it was in the 60's and I would enjoy that later, but not now. Now I needed to get the heck out of here! At the end of that section I hit some more deep SAND, how 'bout that?!?! Somewhere in there was a small orange orchard with black irrigation hoses that look a lot like snakes. Then, the track had us cut across the palm trees and barbed wire fence and onto pavement.
The Sugarloaf Mt. Road was awesome and I stopped several times to enjoy the amazing night views.
At some point the course had us turn onto a paved path. My first light, that I thought would last 5 hours on the lowest setting, had gone dead in 3:15 and I was now riding by my camping headlamp that I had stretched around my helmet. My camp light does not have a strong beam to shine far ahead, so the paved path was slow and painful, instead of fast and fun. However, I wanted to save my other light for any craziness that I ran into during the night. Miles of paved path passed by, then I was back on the road. Most of these roads have really wide shoulders to ride on and I had a blinky on my backpack and a blinky on my leg. On to Floral City and you guessed it......MORE SAND!!!
Sand, sand, sand. Rideable, unrideable, rideable-but-i-just-don't-want-to-anymore. After a long stint in the sand, I saw two lights behind me and what sounded like two men talking. They followed for a long while and a couple times I tried to wait up, as I didn't want them to think I was being rude. I just like riding my own pace and having time to think. I made a wrong turn and when I came back onto the track, I came across..... cross guy! Cool. It turns out he had a light on his helment and one on his bike and I think he was carrying on a conversation with himself, which I am known to do quite often.
On to the Withaloochee paved path and the Croom singletrack. (It was here that Shey almost hit a pig. He had passed this parking lot area earlier and heard a scurrying on the pavement to his left, then had to hit the brakes to keep from slamming into two pigs who were running across the path to get back into the woods.)
The Croom singletrack came next and was awesome! A rider looked at my set-up and asked me how many miles I was in for today and I mumbled 300.....he asked me to repeat that. Back out of the woods and onto the paved path again.
Ah, I see the signs. There is a century ride going on. Cool. I stopped to turn on my phone and text Shey that I just finished Croom and should be back by dinner, but I was going to stop and enjoy a bench for a bit. I didn't know if he had finished or had any issues. As I pulled back onto the path, Jason rolled up. A larger lady in a brightly colored jersey yelled at him to watch out, as she toddled her way toward him on her bike. He was completely out of the way, but she was concerned and we both smiled and shook our heads.
Jason and I rode the rest of the path together and we would alternate sitting and standing to stay comfortable. It looked a little something like this.
He said Shey was worried about me, but that is normal for us. He had ridden with Shey and Chad for a good ways before his stomach started to have problems.
Jason and Shey (photo by Chad)
Jason and Shey (photo by Chad)
Jason and I split at 200. He went to eat and I wanted to eat dinner with Shey, so I pressed on....then I got the track mixed up, my gps had a brain fart, I stepped in a fire ant bed and got hung up in the barbed wire fence..........so in the time it took me to restart my gps, get the ants out of my socks and get untangled from the barbed wire, Jason had ordered a meal, ate and caught back up to me. NICE! And to top it off, he was practically flaunting his little fanny pack thing that looked so light and nice to wear when riding 300 miles. Not cool, at all. So, we rode on and I was worried that I would start getting hungry. Hey, guess what?!?! There was more sand!! And Jason quickly rode away.
Onto pavement then the Ross Prairie trailhead. Fun roller coaster of a trail for a while. Then two guys called out and asked if I had a tool. Uh, yeah. Can you fix my handlebars? Uh, yeah. So, everything comes out of my backpack and onto the side of the trail. Multi-tool found, stem loosened, handlebar adjusted, stem tightened.....to stay. Other guys says, can you look at my pedal? Really, do these guys not notice that I look and smell like I am on mile 250+ of a xc ride? Sure. Pedal tightened and they are good to go. Now I am off and a little ticked that I am starting to crave mac-n-cheese. That is not a good sign.
Across the road and into some more single track. Roughly 20 miles to go. Fun riding, up and down and around and slam! I hit the ground hard on my jaw and left wrist. My vision is blurred and my head immediately aches. When I can get up, I turn on my phone and text Shey. "I hit my head hard, will be out after dark. Really want bbq" I mean I will be riding after dark. Shey thinks I need to be picked up after dark and immediately goes out to find a Santos map and find where he needs to drive to pick me up, just in case I text him again. Oooops.
The last 20 miles that should have been a happy treat were torturous due to headache, hunger, lack of a good light, rain and darkness. I knew I should have been at the campground an hour ago and I was mad at myself for messing around before this last section, thinking I would fly right through it. Crashing never entered into my plan at all. Oh, well.
I was now riding for mac-n-cheese and that kept me pedalling right along, though it was slow going. My headlamp did not let me distinguish between trail and pinestraw, so I had to go slow and watch the gps. I was off trail a lot, but I made it. And it felt AWESOME!
I assumed Ruth had been far in front of me, so I asked Shey how she was doing. Shey didn't know and I wanted to check to make sure she was okay after her ride, but Shey didn't know because she hadn't arrived, yet. Most of the group had not arrived. I had been out of touch and thoroughly enjoying it! Jason had said he had only noticed a few sets of tire tracks and he knew which ones were mine because I run two different tires. I looked for tracks to make sure I was going the right way, but it never occurred to me to look at how many there were. Though, I have to admit, when I saw a pair of footprints in a section that I couldn't ride, it made me smile to know that someone else had to walk it, too.
My legs still felt good, but I was really ready to hit some bbq with Shey. I did my best to save my times and tracks from my gps, then I grabbed a quick......cold shower. Yeah, no hot water left, so I sure hope SOMEBODY enjoyed their hot shower, while I spent 10 minutes trying to get the crap out of my hair with cold water..... I had been looking forward to dinner with Shey all afternoon and I was so happy we hit the bbq joint before they closed! Yum!
Then we hit the hay and I slept very well. The next morning was spent with friends at the campsite, Cracker Barrel for breakfast and back at the campground under the cool shade of a huge tree.
Shey, Chad, Jason, Kelly, Ruth, Chris
The stories were hilarious and it's always fun to hang out with our mtb friends. Chad does one mean sasquatch impression.
Chad
Chad, Chris, Kelly, Shey
Ruth came in Sunday afternoon and looked no worse for the wear. She still had lots of energy and was ready to head home and get ready for the Arizon Trail Race in two weeks, which is just CRAZY girl!!! So proud of you! And so very proud of Shey for setting a new record for the course and all our friends for heading out on this adventure.
Ruth
Out of 23 of us, I think 14 finished and that is pretty impressive!
Results can be found here:
http://www.singletracksamurai.com/2012/04/07/2012-huracan-300-results/
Kelly, Shey and Chris. Top three finishers.
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