24 Hours of Moab

Every October for the past 6 years, Hans and I head down to Moab for the 24 Hours of Moab relay mountain bike race. Hans loves this event, even though it involves a fair amount of pain and exhaustion, the friends, fun and adventure make up for it. His team consists of him, Jon Chamberlain, Mark Finlayson and Paul Finlayson. They ride a 15 mile course that can take anywhere from 1 hour and 17 minutes, to 2 hours. They ride for the full 24 hours passing the baton all through the night. The weather this year was insane. No clouds, nice amount of sun, but enough wind to blow you away. You couldn't talk without feeling the crunch of sand in your teeth. The guys with contacts were miserable. The start of the race is hilarious...It is called a Le Mons start and it is their way of spreading out the hundreds of riders. You can see the nice wind in this first photo.

This is Hans just going out for his first lap. They rack their bikes and wait in the tent for their teammate to ride in to log into the computer and pass the baton.

Hans out on the course, looking good going down the long sand hill.

We time each lap so we can be ready to cheer on our team when they are coming down the road in front of our camp. When Hans set up our camp he made this jump. Luckily I was able to catch him getting some air (he would laugh). You can see Jon cheering him on. The sun was going down, now the night laps begin.Hans in camp cleaning his bike before his 1:00 am ride. The bikes collect a lot of sand during each lap and usually need a little maintenance.
Hans and I enjoying some time in front of the fire watching the night racers come in.

This year Hans went down on Wednesday to set up camp and I wasn't supposed to come down until Friday afternoon with the rest of the team. Hans has been traveling so much for work that I was missing him like crazy. So I asked Hans' niece Hayley to babysit and went down and surprised him a day early. Luckily he had no idea and I caught him completely off guard. It was so fun just hanging out together in the middle of the desert. It was a great weekend! And lucky for us we came home to most of the kids throwing up...why does this happen when we leave?

PS. My jeans are not on fire...it just shows you the sweet wind!
A HUGE shout out to James & Leigh Anne Lovell, Cathi Finlayson and Brandon Dial who came down to support the riders and have fun with me. It would be no fun at all without you! And Brandon, thanks for taking a couple laps, you rode like an animal and I know the guys appreciated the extra sleep! Here's to next year!