THUMPED AT THE HUMP...

These are the final pedal strokes of climbing the Humper captured here by Cait Boyd and the rest of the crew, I've never suffered worse than I did trying to get to this point, but damn it felt good.

And so it was, as another large enthusiastic group rolled into Eagle, Colorado on Sunday morning to test themselves on the singletrack surrounding town, roughly 38 miles and somewhere around 10,000 vert of climbing, with a Harley Davidson lead out. The weather could not have been better with the rain holding off until about thirty minutes after the ride ended. Temps were cool, in the 60's up high, 70's down low, and with a late attack on the final descent coming down the Abram's singletrack, Sweet Peter Fralick pulled away from Stephen White to gain his name forever etched into the Stanley Cup of Mountain Biking, the Holy Grail itself, the infamous Humper Antler.

For the rest of us, it was a fantastic day on the bikes, as this year most of those who showed up got the picture and rode a civil pace, stopped a lot, refueled, and drank a beer at the Yellow Chair before heading back down into town. There were plenty of crashes, two of which I enjoyed myself, and we pounded disgusting amounts of ugly food afterwards at the Dusty Boot in Eagle Ranch.

This could not have happened without the help of Courtney Gregory and Todd Moyer who marked most of the course and set up the beer/water drop at the bottom of The Plunge, Charlie Brown of the Mountain Pedaler in Eagle for supporting the amazing Moyer family put together aid station, which included Mexican Cokes on ice when we all needed one desperately. And of course thanks to the 50 or so of you who came out to ride and meet some new folks and get back to grass roots mountain biking, and congrats to Chris Kehmeier for finishing on a FUCKING RIGID SINGLESPEED, all 6' 10' of him, gawd. BTW, Cait Boyd basically kicked mine and a lot of other boyuz asses, well done Cait.

So I guess the only thing left is to line it up again next year, and try to make the climb to the Yellow Chair without stopping and making little girl noises all the way from the bottom to the top, somehow I do not think this will be possible, I aint gettin younger, but who cares anyway, after all, it's the Hardscrabble Humper.