Enduro Time

I am finally managing to get a free moment to write about my first Enduro. We had decided to head to the middle of the state for XC and Enduo races at the Loup Loup Mountain near Twisp Washington. We had the kids and no sitter so we split the weekend. I had just gotten a dropper post and was really excited to ride and and Kris hadn't quit gotten his Mojo SLR dialed in. So he road XC and I the Enduro( and what fun it was). There wasn't much said about the Enduro prior to the race except it would be 35 miles long with 3 decents. Well final stats looks something like this. 43 total min of descending and 3hrs 20min of climbing. I was so excited to be riding and be on the Mojo SLR. We climbed to the first decent, which I had crashed pretty hard the prior week and was a little on the cautious side for the first decent. It was AWESOME!!! Some technical areas thrown in with a few sweet switch backs. They ran us 30 seconds apart, I was so stoked to not get passed by any guys. I wasn't totally use to the dropper post yet so I had some trouble figuring out where the lever was on my handle bar and getting the seat in the right spot. There were a few steep ups in which one I ended up running, because I was in the big ring with the seat down. All in all I had an alright run. Then we climbed for I think an hour, Erika and I actually thought we had missed something and were just off in the middle of nowhere. We finally came up on it, I let Erika go first this time. As much as I liked being chased, I love to chase other riders down. There wasn't much technical about this decent, just fast super fun single track. I worked hard to try and catch Erika. I was starting to feel a little better about descending and less worried about being thrown down again. The Mojo SLR was again AWESOME, I swear the faster you ride that bike, the smoother she rides. We climbed again for another hour, this time it was brutal. It was almost the same climb, but it was now mid day and sooooo hot. We got to the final decent. This was my favorite, just enough technical to be tricky but still fun. I launched the Mojo SLR through 2 creeks, I almost didn't make one of them. So happy for the dropper post or I would have been taking a bath. There was some tricky rock sections. I let Erika go behind me this time I was racing my little heart out. It was no longer a matter of looking ahead and wondering if something was ride able, but how fast can I get thru it. I am not a Downhiller by nature and I usually am not thinking that way. Well about half way down I lost my chain ( I have broken my chain 2 times in the past month or so)so I was a little worried about trying to ride it back on. So I stopped and got it back on, at that point I was sure Erika would come up on me. When she didn't I hopped back on the bike and all I remember thinking was.. Go, Go, Go, Go over and over in my head. It was fun, the best part about it was when we weren't being timed, we could all ride together, something that doesn't happen in a race. I managed a 2nd in the Open Pro Women so I was pretty happy with myself. I think there might be a few more in my future, however I need to get my hands on a Mojo HDR 650b. Thanks to Vanderkitten and Ibis!!!