2015 Turn and Burn

"Bangers and Mash", "the CRANKy Goats", "Four Wheels, Two Pendejos", "Team Shit Happens", "That's a Long Time in the Saddle", "White Rice", "Just Made It", "The Bad Asshes", "Middle Aged Malisha", "If We Dic We Dic", you get the idea. Even if I had stumbled upon the scene, not knowing what race was alternately grinding up and bombing down the hills, it would only have taken a glance at the team list to know - "yup, its Turn and Burn."

Six hours of straight racing. If you were fortunate enough to have discovered someone willing to accept you as a teammate, you could have split those six hours two, or even three ways. But if you were not so fortunate, or maybe you're just into suffering, those six hours were all yours. That's right, six hours of leg-cramping up, six hours of on-the-edge down, with not a lot of room for respite in between. If you posses the un-diminishing ability of a Tinker Juarez it probably didn't matter - much. The problem with that, of course, is that there is really just the one Tinker, and the rest of us, well, we are subject to varying degrees of suffering, everything between simple hurt, to sheer agony. 

But hey, moving the race back a month did mean the temperature only reached to the low 90s, rather than the low 100s, right.

Anyway, once again Omar  and the Cycling Events Company put together a great race which, quite frankly, allowed everyone who passed before me to exhibit a heck of a lot of riding talent and determination. Congrats, and see you all at  Mt. SAC for the Triple Crown finale.

Good idea to race today. Or not?

Downhill, but only so they can go back up again.

Ah, the single speed guys. I'm never quite sure if I should feel awe, or pity.

Hand up. And race radios for mountain biking?

Fast, banked turn.

Around the water coolers.

And David 'Tinker' Juarez. Watching him race really puts things in perspective, doesn't it?

You probably know the drill by now, but here it comes again anyway: there are one-hundred and nine photos in the Flickr album which comes out to, maybe, one-sixth of the shots taken that day. The photos are not a complete catalog, but are representative of all the others taken during the day, so if you don't see what, or who, you were looking for in the album, let me know and I will see what I can find. If you see a photo you like, feel free to download it (credit where credit due, of course). You can also contact me via email and I will gladly send a full size jpeg file of the image. As usual, I don't charge for photos, but do appreciate it when someone purchases a copy of the annual (link at top of page). Until next time, good riding.