Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally

The inaugural 300-mile Red Ass and 150-Mile Half Ass took place this weekend. Congratulation to all those to took part.

Results Here.

Pictures Here.

Mental Health Check-up Here

J-Man Tells All:

Hey All, I survived, as I thought I would but in much better shape than I thought.

Other than agreeing that the name of the race is very accurate I am feeling pretty good. Legs don't exactly give me a hop in my step and the mind/head is tired and a bit foggy but that's about it.

The race started off great at LaRiviere at noon. It was sunny, clear and even a little too warm, about plus 25C or so. I was feeling pretty good and tried to keep up with the 2 leaders but they soon got into a rhythm on their cross bikes and dropped me. Luckily Danny caught up and off we were. A quick detour through a valley near St Leon then weaving through the St Leon wind farm. This was my first up close windmill sighting. They look big on TV and from afar, but make sure to get up close as they are massive. We continued past Birch and through Roseisle, St Claude up to Portage where we came to the first checkpoint. By now we were in a good groove peddling but our saddles weren't so comfy anymore. I had almost bonked about 30 min before Portage so the rest and home cooked food was a blessing. After an hour at the checkpoint, about 30 min longer than I had planned, we were off north to Lake Manitoba. We crossed the Portage diversion spillway (see pic) and doubled back to continue with the push to Winnipeg. About 3 hours into the second leg of the race we found an error in the instructions, and being the 3rd and 4th racers to the is point there weren't enough tracks to follow. Luckily Danny had ridden the last half or the course last week and knew where we had to get to. We wound our way from Poplar Point to St Eustache, past some bicycle eating dogs and Finally finishing in Headingly at 12:40AM on Sunday, 12hours 45min of race time and 10 hours 57 min or riding time. I am incredibly pleased with the race, tying for 3rd with Danny. I had a new bike and only put 350km or riding on this spring training for the event with my longest training ride being 80km. Needless to say I didn't ride to work this morning and will likely take a couple days before getting reacquainted with my bike's saddle again.

They are already planning a better event for next year so start riding.

BTW the winner of the long event rode 480km in 20.5 hours, that's the equivalent of riding across Manitoba east to west. For his efforts he won a bike. I won a hat and bike light.

J-man

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Another race report here by Dave L

Another race report here by Team Johnny

And here

And here

And here