Chico's Spring Epic 8, Mansfield

What could be better than spending an entire day with the extended mountain bike racing family, hanging out with friends in good weather, and riding real fast once in awhile? That's why 8s are so much fun. when you're out on the trails, and you get passed, the passing person always says "good job, keep going!". Even if you do the passing, you get cheered for. Compare to Ocups where the commentary usually is more along the lines of "Move bitch, get out tha way!"

And Chico plays poppy music all day in the transition area. At one point, he promised an Epic 8 of Nickelback, so I'm looking foward to that. I just love Nickelback. They're so handsome and well put together. I just love a clean cut guy. Especially ones with such angelic voices.

He also promised an Epic 8 of Avril Lavigne. but I actually think that would be awesome.

Anyway, the weather looked threatening a couple times but held up beautifully. It would have been alright with me if it did rain a little bit though. It was really dusty and for awhile I was afraid I was having a relapse. hack hack hack. But then I realized everyone around me was doing the same thing so it was probably just a matter of rolling with the punches.

For those of you curious about what exactly an "epic 8" is, I will try to fill you in. An epic 8 begins at 10am and ends at 6pm. You and your team have the mission to try and complete more laps than the other teams in your category. There is a transition zone where you keep track of the laps and switch up riders. Categories are separated by how many are on your team, age and gender. So I raced in the 3-4 person, mixed category, combined age under 120. The other Sweet Pete's team was in the all male group, 3-4 person. There are also solo categories, and tag teams. All different ages and abilities come out to challenge themselves.

www.chicoracing.com has all the info.

The best part of the day was actually winning the thing, so here's us on the podium, as well as the other Sweet Pete's team, who also got on the top shelf. Tons of shots on facebook as well but by other owners. I, as usual, left my camera in my bag for most of the day. duh.

Sweet Pete's 2 - Chris, Trevor and Kristen - #1!

Sweet Pete's 1 - Graham, Evan, Derek, Mark - #1!

Angry Spiders (8 legs, get it?!) - Bradley, Jerome and friends - #3! Look how cute Toby is. Angry Spiders had a rough start to the day with two broken chains. They came back from 30th place to take 3rd. Wow.

Here's my team, Trevor, Chris and Liz who rode up for the day to cheer and help Tanya, who did the whole 8 hours on her own. And I thought I was tough ...