I've had my eye on the Huracan for some time now. Reading others accounts of the race just kept adding to my desire to race the Huracan. I'd ridden areas such as Santos and Alifia, so I knew there was some high quality singletrack in Florida, I was just a little leary about what lie in between.
After waiting weeks and weeks in anticipation, Huracan weekend finally rolled around. I grabbed all my gear and bike and headed south for Florida. After sitting in a backup for an hour and a half trying to get into Atlanta, I finally made through one of the biggest cruxes of the entire weekend. I made it through Atlanta in one piece and the rest of the trip was pretty much smooth sailing. Before I knew it, I was sitting at my campsite with Chad Parker going over different setups, talking race strategy, and generally just having a good time shooting the bull.
After a restless, sleepless night with trains rolling by all night long (those of you that have camped at Santos know what I'm talking about), race day was finally here. Chad and I rolled out at 6:40 for a quick breakfast at Cracker Barrel, a pit stop at Publix for last minute supplies, and we were ready to go. The start was in front of Greenway Cycles across the road from Santos. Karlos went over some last minute details, had everyone toot there whistles, while I was still trying to remember the mystical sequence of buttons to push on my Spot unit. The GPS track was tracking perfectly. I was a little worried about that since I'd never used an Edge 500 for tracking purposes before, but it worked beautifully. And then we were off.
Karlos had called for a neutral start until the first singletrack but it was spread much more quickly then that. Chad, Chris, and a third rider were feeling good and before long they were out of sight. I found myself in a group consisting of real heavy hitters. Shey Lidner, who needs no introduction, Kelly Klett, hundred mile master, and another rider (I'm bad with names), were absolutely flying along. In a flash, we were through the first section of singletrack and back out onto a mix of pavement and sand. Once we got into the Ocala National Forest the roads really straightnened out and we caught a glimpse of the front runners. They had managed to get a gap of about a quarter mile and so dropped the hammer. At this point, I happened to look around and noticed it was just the two of us in pursuit. Eventually, we were able to make contact with the front group and then things finally slowed down for a bit.
After many more miles seemingly, endless forest road, we got to our first real hard section of the course. The thing about riding in Florida is that all there is is sand. Lots of sand! Florida may lack in geological ups and downs, but really makes up for it in really deep sand. It was now Shey, Chad, and I in the lead and we got into our first real section of sand. It was probably five miles of the thick stuff! We finally figured out that if we rode slightly off-trail in the weeds, it was slightly more solid. Then the weeds would end in sand and you'd have to try and wade across the sand to the next patch of weeds. This would continue until we finally made to the next section of singletrack.
Paisley is an awsome section of singletrack that gives one a real feeling of isolation. I kept thinking to myself that if you got lost out there, it would be very rough, very easy to die of dehydration. Where I'm from in Tennessee, there are stream crossings everywhere, but here in Florida, there really are very, very few water sources. After Paisley, we found a water spigot at a church retreat and loaded up knowing there may not be any more water for a long while.
After leaving the retreat, we rolled quickly through Seminole forest, Rock Springs, and weikawa singletrack. We got to a spot on some doubletrack where the gps track suddenly veered had left straight into the woods. Shey and I looked at each dived blindly into the forest. Eventually, we popped out onto one of the most beautiful and scary river crossing I've ever seen! The water was crystal clear and cold. I could just see a huge alligator lurking in the weeds, grabbing my leg, and pulling me under in a death roll. After some carefully surveying the surroundings, we quickly waded across to safety on the other side. Its amazing the rejuvenating effect cold water has on tired muscles! Despite the fear of being eaten, the river crossing was amazing to the body! Even though we wanted to hang out there for the rest of the day, there was work to be done and we were off riding more amazing singletrack before eventually getting out on pavement and back to civilization.
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| Shey Lidner and I somewhere just before Zellwood. photo courtesy: Chad Parker |
After a few miles of pavement riding, we stopped at a convenience store in Zellwood to top off supplies. It was around 4:45 in the afternoon. After a few minutes of taking a break, we took off for Apopka preserve.
Apopka was were things started to unravel for me. It started off fine. Shey and I had a great time watching the gators chasing fish and glad we weren't rolling through there in the dark. Eventually, we got away from the canals and got onto a wide grass trail. I noticed that my stomach was starting to feel a little funny. I knew I had been drinking and eating regularly, so thought it was just a passing gas pain. The grass eventually gave way to completely, unrideable sand. In Florida, they make these till rows to keep wild fires from spreading uncontrollably. This trail obviously had just been tilled very recently because it was thick. In the middle of our several mile hike-a bike-through-snad, my stomach completely turned upside down. After pretty much crawling the last mile, we finally made it back out to sweet pavemant. Thats where Shey and I split ways. Shey was feeling great and I told him not to wait up, maybe i'd see him later on in the night.
After sitting on the side of the road for 15 to 20 minutes, my stomach finally slowed enough to ride. On and on I rode. It seemed like I was getting to some hills but I was in Florida and there are no hills. But yes, there were hills. Not tall, but very steep and after 130+ miles and a fragile stomach, they seemed like the rockies. Somewhere in the hills, I spotted an orange tree with lots of oranges. Of course, I couldn't resist and ate a few of them. A huge mistake I will never make again!
I finally made it to Clermont and spotted a McDonalds where I could probably grab some quick junk food. Guess Shey had the same idea, he was just headed out into the night looking fresh as ever. I wished him luck and went inside. There was a man and his son in line and they just couldn't decide what they wanted. They would place their order then change it, then change it back with a little variation. This went on for at least ten minutes. To top it off, it was the first night on the job for the cashier. While I was standing there in line, my world started to spin. I couldn't make it. I had to make a beeline for the restroom and up came all the oranges and whatever else was in there. When I finally composed myself and came back out, there were 15 people in line, so I gave on trying to shove any food done even though I really needed the calories. I didn't any more food in until the next day.
The next miles were just a blur. Every so often, I would have to stop and yack but I was still moving forward. I don't really remember to much until I got to Center Grade road. It must be the Friday night hanging spot because every hoo-haw in central Florida seemed to be out there. That road is farely deep sand and it must be great fun to take a big truck drift around every curve at 70 mph. I could hear them coming before I saw them, so I had a chance to jump to safety in the woods. I finally was so tired of doing this over and over, being sick, and scared of getting ran over, I finally laid down somewhere in the woods and instantly passed out. Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up shivering uncontrollably, so I threw on some leg and arm warmers, and passed back out again.
The next time I woke up, it was starting to get light out. Crap, I'd slept for 6 hrs, 4 hrs longer than I wanted too! I did, however, feel 100% better, so I jumped on the bike and off I was. It was pretty much a mix of sand, limestone, and pavement until I got to the Withlacoochee trail. The Coochee is a rail trail that is wonderful pavement. There happened to be some sort of road race going on, so there were these wonderful sag stopped stocked with fruit, cookies, danishes, and gatorade. I hadn't had any food since the day before when I ate the oranges and they all came up, so I was pretty withered. The aid workers must have noticed and told me to eat as much as possible. It was a real life saver!
Next up was Croom singletrack. I'd ridden there before, so I had some idea of what to expect. However, the last time I rode there, I was fresh. This time, I had 200+ miles of sand in my legs. The steep ups and downs were absolutely brutal! There are a couple places on the trail, if you feel off the side, you could break something serious or worse, so there was quite a lot of careful, slow riding. Eventually, I popped back out of the woods onto a limestone road which led back to the Withlacoochee.
While riding along the rail trail, out popped Kari Lidner from a gas station. She had just drank a coke and the caffeine was kicking in. The circle was complete. I'd started the race chasing Shey and now I was struggling to keep up with Kari who had been riding all night! With renewed energy, we quickly got off the cooche and entered Potts preserve where it rained on us a little making the sand just sticky enough to stick to everything. At the end of Potts, we popped out along a canal. At this point, my body decided it needed food and lots of food. We finally got to Hwy 200 and there was a beautiful, glorious subway. Kari was anxious to get back and see Shey and so she continued on. The footlong chicken sub I got was one of the all-time best meals I've ever eaten, seriously!
Finally feeling awsome, I took off down 200, turned left, and there was Kari walking around in the middle of the road. She wasn't quite sure where the gps was leading her. We figured out that we had to hop a fence and then continued on through, you guessed it, more sand. I just put my head down and just put one pedal in front of the other knowing some beautiful singletrack of Santos was not far off. Somewhere along the way, I lost track of Kari. I waited for her for a while but never saw her. I had seen another racer at the subway (can't remember his name), so I knew he was not far behind. If something happened to Kari, I knew he was right behind her. I later found out she really just hates sand.
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