Fire Cracker 50

[p-tex]

OK – so I nutted up and did the FC50 this past weekend with a couple friends. Oh man that is a bitch of a race. You want to be humbled about your riding ability – do this race. Think 5+ hours of racing, 10K vert, rough, loose downhill, 600 riders and 50 miles at 9K to 11K altitude and you got a pretty good idea of the fun involved. I’m just happy to have finished ‘cause there was a point in the middle where I wasn’t sure that I wanted to. Here is a couple pics from the day. Anyway, it’s not the Leadville 100 or the Ultra but a pretty big accomplishment for me and I’m pretty stoked to have finished. This despite the fact that my cassette somehow managed to get loose on me ½ way through the race and my bike went to “auto-shift” mode. I thought the chain would break for sure. A quick stop to hand tighten the nut on the cassette got me a few miles of riding before it loosened up again. I got talked into running tubeless for the race and didn’t have any problems (much to my surprise). I’m not a big fan of tubeless since they are such a pain to change when you do get a flat but maybe I’ll keep ridding them for a while and get my mind changed.

Good scene at the race and most folks on course were friendly and not too stressed about passing since the race is long and there are lots of places to pass on the double track. You sometimes had to wait for a good spot but with soo much time to ride, it was cool that nobody got to worked up when you did get stuck behind someone slower.

Finished up the race and went on to try and have a few beers but didn’t make it much past 10pm that night and crashed – hard!

[Crinkle]

that's huge. good work mang.

[Hugh Jass]

Well done. Was reading a race report over on mtbr about that one. Wish I'd known about it.

What's your estimate on % singletrack?

[Particle]

Nice work Matt! I've known a few people to ride that thing...it's a beast. I've kinda been tempted to try it one of these days. That deserves a

[homerjay]

Nice work Matty!

[p-tex]

Well done. Was reading a race report over on mtbr about that one. Wish I'd known about it.

What's your estimate on % singletrack?

It's probably about 50% double/road and the rest is single track or close to it. You need the double to get the passes done 'cause alot of the single track is off camber and you cannot pass at all. the course map is at www.mavsports.com if you're interested.