Clydesdale Championships?
This is a race/event is something that I have been interested in being involved in for years.
A few years ago I searched and I searched but could not find any information on it. Went so far as called the guys at Dirt Rag to see if they knew anything about it. They were of no help, which is odd since the founder of Dirt Rag, Maurice, was the first person to win the title and has won it several times since. A friend of mine and fellow Clydesdale, Bill Davis, went to this race a few years ago and said it was not worth the trip. That is a great distance to travel just to do a race.
As for me, if I am going to travel a good distance, I might as well fly and head out to the 24 Hours of Moab or the 24 Hours of Tahoe and get a good ratio of race miles to travel time/expense.
A few years ago I did the Moab event and had a great time with a bunch of my Clydesdale buddies from out west. The race went well, we managed to win the coveted first place in the Clydesdale division (just a week before my wedding) but the days prior and the rides in Moab were superior to the race course itself. Moab is a Mountainbike Mecca with an assortment of terrain. The Granny Gear course is not the best sampling of what is to be ridden out there, but it is a great race just the same.
The year prior my brother and I grabbed a plane and headed out to Donner Pass for the first Granny Gear event out there (which has since moved to Tahoe proper) We had a blast. The course was awesome, a tad too much hike-a-bike, but that is the granny gear way. We linked up with a college buddy of Marc's named Tim Noakes and a cool cat from San Francisco named Kurt. Noakes was a roadie who had little respect or knowledge of mountainbiking and had never been night riding. Kurt was and is a seasoned cyclist with numbers of races under his belt and many miles on dirt. The race itself was small and had a great grass roots feel to it. Marc and I arrived a few days early and did a fair amount of preriding as well as some afternoon swims in the mountain ponds that were all over the mountains. There was also a guy named Gordon who worked for Marin that I had met in Bali racing there. It was a great gathering and a good time. We took first in the Clydesdale at this event as well. The numbers are not fresh in my head, but our overall standings are often respectable as well. It is not just a matter of being a fast Clydesdale, but being fast over all as well, oh, and there is that notion of fun that everyone claims it is all about.
Granny Gear 24 Hour Race History and Results
This is a race/event is something that I have been interested in being involved in for years.
A few years ago I searched and I searched but could not find any information on it. Went so far as called the guys at Dirt Rag to see if they knew anything about it. They were of no help, which is odd since the founder of Dirt Rag, Maurice, was the first person to win the title and has won it several times since. A friend of mine and fellow Clydesdale, Bill Davis, went to this race a few years ago and said it was not worth the trip. That is a great distance to travel just to do a race.
As for me, if I am going to travel a good distance, I might as well fly and head out to the 24 Hours of Moab or the 24 Hours of Tahoe and get a good ratio of race miles to travel time/expense.
A few years ago I did the Moab event and had a great time with a bunch of my Clydesdale buddies from out west. The race went well, we managed to win the coveted first place in the Clydesdale division (just a week before my wedding) but the days prior and the rides in Moab were superior to the race course itself. Moab is a Mountainbike Mecca with an assortment of terrain. The Granny Gear course is not the best sampling of what is to be ridden out there, but it is a great race just the same.
The year prior my brother and I grabbed a plane and headed out to Donner Pass for the first Granny Gear event out there (which has since moved to Tahoe proper) We had a blast. The course was awesome, a tad too much hike-a-bike, but that is the granny gear way. We linked up with a college buddy of Marc's named Tim Noakes and a cool cat from San Francisco named Kurt. Noakes was a roadie who had little respect or knowledge of mountainbiking and had never been night riding. Kurt was and is a seasoned cyclist with numbers of races under his belt and many miles on dirt. The race itself was small and had a great grass roots feel to it. Marc and I arrived a few days early and did a fair amount of preriding as well as some afternoon swims in the mountain ponds that were all over the mountains. There was also a guy named Gordon who worked for Marin that I had met in Bali racing there. It was a great gathering and a good time. We took first in the Clydesdale at this event as well. The numbers are not fresh in my head, but our overall standings are often respectable as well. It is not just a matter of being a fast Clydesdale, but being fast over all as well, oh, and there is that notion of fun that everyone claims it is all about.
Granny Gear 24 Hour Race History and Results