Dawn till Dusk - Gallup, New Mexico
A couple of weekends ago I headed down to Gallup, NM with Brian and Jenna. Brian and I were racing the Dawn till Dusk race. Jenna was cheering and pitting.
Brian and Jenna are the two time defending champions. No one else has won here in the history of the event. Since Jenna wasn’t racing, part of that streak was about to change. I had raced in the first edition, in 2005. That year, I got blown around pretty good, ended up with a 4th place, and vowed not to return. Somehow I had forgotten why, and half a day riding around buff singletrack seemed like a worthy endeavor.
These trails are really fun. If you had only driven through Gallup, that might be hard to believe. But there is a couple of Mesa’s worth of twisty fast singletrack just outside of town. I think the race course is around 13mi.
They start things off at 7:00AM, which is a little early for me to feel ready. Sure enough, I wasn’t. The course climbs steeply right off the bat, and you need to be at the front if you’re racing. Back of that, and you’re sure to be held up behind someone flailing. I tried to run around some of the stalled racers, but other people didn’t seem to be very happy about that technique, so I just settled in.
My first lap was slower than I expected. I knew Brian was somewhere in front. At the front probably. It didn’t seem like the beginning of a successful race for me. At some point in the next lap Dave Harris came up behind me. I was surprised to see him back this far early on. It turned out he had endured some rather comical chain issues, and was working his way back up. Apparently, the chain should not route loops around the bottom bracket upon reassembly!
Most of the day kind of blurs together for me at this point. My laps were pretty consistent tine wise. I was never really racing near the front though. I ended up with 9 laps and 9th place. 3rd through 9th all did 9 laps, I was just slowest. After the race I started to recall the shelled feeling that I had here two years ago. Funny, that. There were some nice folks ready with beer for me, so I did cheer up pretty quickly.
Brian ran into some trouble near the end and conceded 2nd spot to Dave Harris. Brian Bennett from AZ won with 10 laps. Apparently he rode a strong race, but I never saw him out there.
Pic’s courtesy of Jenna Woodbury.
