100MoN: Winner of the Completely Insane 200 Laps Around a Half-Mile MTB Course Division

10.23.2014 | 8:06 am

A Note from Fatty: Today’s 100 Miles of Nowhere Race Report comes to you courtesy of Mike K — the very same Mike K I (unsuccessfully) spent chasing in the 6 Hours in Frog Hollow race last April. 

I gotta say, it’s pretty awesome to have Mike, a guy I previously didn’t know at all, now riding the 100MoN and posting a story. 

Enjoy!

I completed my version of this nutty challenge at the Eagle Bike Park in wonderful Eagle, Idaho on Monday, 10/20/2014.

The weather was fabulous and at the end of the day…well take a look below!

I got my inspiration from other past participants such Bull Schuck for doing his ride in a Cul-de-Sac; I know that I am not tough enough for that sort of thing, but I figured if I was on my mtn. bike and playing in the dirt, a short course would not be that difficult.

Well let me tell you, the mind can be a terrible thing!

As the picture above shows, the Eagle Bike Park has many wonderful, fun and challenging trails. However, I was on a 0.5 mile section that took me approximately 2 minutes and 20 seconds to complete. I pressed the lap button 56 times in just under 2.5 hours before I finally cried uncle and decided laps really do not matter.

On all but four occasions, I did not deviate from my route! Two of those were for nature breaks and the other two when I tried to break up the monotony and go in the opposite direction. I felt like Derek Zoolander, because I could not go the other way; my turns were all off and I was forced to ride much slower.

So like a lab mouse I figured the safest thing for me was to do the same route; over and over and over again! But I still made sure to have a little fun.

I was fortunate to have a couple of friends join me off and on for the first 5 hours; Rich Brown and Rich Miller (my photog) chased me or had me chase them while yelling encouragement. Good times!

Rich Brown in chase mode

Rich Miller; follow my leader!

I stopped every hour for a fresh bottle of Tailwind and on occasion a Clif bar or Roctane. I also needed to clean and lube my drivetrain during that time since the moon dust was so thick.

At the 5-hour mark, when I took a short lunch break, I finally let myself look at the mileage and I was very happy to see 64.2.

YES!

I honestly thought that I might be riding into the night, since the laps were so short and I was too paranoid to peek at mileage any earlier.

After lunch I was ready to rock and set out to push myself a little harder. If I had not yet mentioned it, I was treating this as a race and not a ride. I figured this was my last big training effort before 25 Hours in Frog Hollow; being both physically and mentally taxing due to the course.

My next mileage check was not due until hour 7, so T.V. on the Radio, RHCP, the Beastie Boys and a host of others kept me company until that time and time went by fairly quickly.

I really was having fun in my little maze!

Hour 7 arrived and I switched to the mileage screen; 91.1 miles. Oh yes! It was looking like I was going to finish by 5:30pm, which was some arbitrary time I had thrown out to my friends. Another small victory!

I took my last feed and headed out to knock off those remaining miles. Now I already knew that I should switch my Garmin screen back to ride time and not have the mileage up, but hey it was less than 9 miles to go; how long can it take? Well it took forever and I kept looking at the darn screen! 91.7; 92.2; 92.8 and it just went on.

All I had to do was reach down and press a button twice and I would have my ride time up and life would be better again.

Nope, I had to suffer, watchig the tenths of a mile tick by.

At mile 97 Rich Miller came by to check on me and give more encouragement, so I lied and acted cheerful and exclaimed “only 3 miles to go!” He even got a picture of me with the lie on my face.

Well those miles eventually showed up on the Garmin; I passed my pit area at about 99.7 miles so I got one more lap.

All in all it was a great experience and I plan to do another 100 MoN; in fact I think I have a spot already picked out. I need to thank the local cross racers for making most of the course that I followed: Waffle Cross was the 18^th and 19^th and those darn dirty crossers know how to have fun.

And thank you Fatty for one off-the-wall challenge!