Muddy Buddy - A SLAGI revival

Yesterday I registered my wife and I for the Muddy Buddy race which will be held in Los Angeles on November 2. This will be the first time my wife and I have teamed up in a race, but I'm confident that we'll both have a blast. If you've never participated in a Muddy Buddy race, you should head on over to MuddyBuddy.com and see if there is a race near you. They have 9 races throughout the United States on an annual basis. I've competed in two races in Richmond, VA and had a blast. I'll post a video tonight that we took on our first encounter with Muddy Buddy. To keep the SLAGI name alive, I've registered our team under that name. Me and my buddy Chris took 3rd in our division a few years ago and I'll see if my wife and I can take gold in our coed division.

One of the great perks of such a race is that Red Hook generally sponsors the race and they usually have a tent set up where you can get 2 or 3 free beers after the race if you participated. Let me tell you, if you've never drank a few beers right after a strenuous activity, you're in for a treat. But, you may as well plan on sleeping the rest of the afternoon. So, head on over to MuddyBuddy.com and register for the race. You better do it soon, because they are notorious for selling out pretty early.

I am/was fortunate enough to have my photo on the muddy buddy website at MuddyBuddy.com... The images appear randomly so each time you view the page there are different images in the image placeholders. Here is the photo:



Here's a scene from a past race.

Ah... The good old days - 24 hour races

This morning as I was riding my bike to work I started to recall the fun I had when I used to ride in 12 hour and 24 hour mountain bike races. There were three of us who were always on the team and the fourth spot on the team seemed to cycle through a few different people. Our team was SLAGI, for "Sounded Like A Good Idea". Our first experience was in 2003 at Snowshoe Mountain in Appalachians of West Virginia... Man, that was one gnarly trail. It was 8 miles of rooty ascents and descents that were sure to have you screaming in agony by the end of the race. A lot of the time at night I can recall running with my bike through ankle deep mud and a tangle of roots trying to get to the next dry spot to curl up and cry for mommy. It was the funnest thing.



The race was put on by granny gear productions (see the link to the right), and they are still putting on 24 hour races. You should definitely check them out. I think I'll try to make it to the 24 hours of MOAB this year since I'm on the west coast now and it's the closest race they'll promote this year (aside from Vail Lake in April).