These folks in Virginia city do an AWSOME job of putting on an event. Second year doing this race. Last year rode a wr250r. Decided that a better bike would be more fun. Fast forward to April 29 2012 . Upgraded to a 2011 TE449. Left the blinkers on just to see how they would fare. "they are still there. No breakage. Got a good number, 101 eleventh row start this means 100 start ahead of me and roughly 300+ start after me. Sunday morning the sun rose over the mountains to a cloudless sky. What a pleasure compared to the pouring rain we left behind in Washington. After a short riders meeting and our national anthem the race begins. One row of ten riders every fifteen seconds. So row eleven comes quick. I got the inside position and got a good start.Each year they aparently put in a section that people have problems with. This leads to bottle necks and delays. Tom A guy we met from lake Tahoe raced sat. he gave our group the advice to beware the bottle neck. Take different lines. "don't shortcut" just different lines.This course was tough, but fun. One lap is 28 mi. I need to get in better shape my average speed was 22 mph. This I have to give credit to my husky. this bike eats this kind of stuff for breakfast. I kept falling down. The large rocks would catch me from time to time not paying attention. It also did not help to get run into by others and knocked down. A lot of good single track with some rough down hills and some tough uphills combined with blinding dust and some road sections thrown in to give riders a break. I finished 22 in the over 50 division. not the best but! I did finish, and not everybody finishes. It takes between three and four hours to finish. Cool thing about the 449 is I can race then ride to the tavern for a beer after.Hope to see more Huskys next year. This is a fun get together Around 1000 riders in two days.
