• Race Report: 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo

    24 Hrs Old PuebloIt was good to get back to Tucson, AZ for the 24 Hours of the Old Pueblo.  The weather was perfect.....except for a stiff wind on Sunday AM.  The masses gathered on Saturday morning for the pre-race meeting.  Team Topeak-Ergon was made up of 5 riders:  Dave Wiens, Yuki Saito, Sonya Looney, Rebecca Tomaszewski from Niner-Ergon and on a SS, and myself.  Yuki got things started for us by being the 3rd person back after lap 1.  That gave us a good placing to start churning out laps.

    24 Hrs Old PuebloNothing special with bike setup this year.  Chose to run the FS bike as it was ready to go.  I added the Continental Race King 2.2 Supersonic tires set up tubeless with Stan's. Dave was the only one on a HT...and he was rock'n the new SRAM XX.  Rebecca's SS Niner was also a HT.

    Jeff Kerkove, 24 Hr Old PuebloMy laps were pretty un-eventful with no major mechanical issues or tangles with the local flora.  Basically stick it in the big ring from start to finish and pound out the course while dodging slower riders and cactus.  Image above is from my final lap at 8 AM.  Worst thing in the entire race was the stiff 20 mph head wind on the south side of the course on Sunday AM.  The wind was a good kick in the teeth after racing for 20 hours.

    Photo by Dennis GrayAlthough day time temps were in the 70F's. The AM and night laps were a bit chilly....as seen here at around 8 AM on Sunday.

    24 Hrs Old PuebloOur biggest competition was the Stan's team which was made up of Niner-Ergon riders as well as other Ergon sponsored riders.  We yo-yo'd with them all race....we catch up....then loose some minutes to them.  This eventually added up. We walked out of the desert with a 2nd place.  All of us were more than happy with that result.  From the looks of the lap times, it appears the training is right on schedule for 2010.  Below is the team's lap times.

    24HOP lap times 2010