Tears, Fears, and plenty of Beers in Eastern NV

Last weekend was the 2012 edition of the Fears, Tears, and Beers Enduro in the little Eastern Nevada town of Ely. This would be my second time racing here, and I was definitely pumped, as last year was a ton of fun. Check out last years story here.The race is super tough, 34 miles with 5400' of climbing, all above 6500 feet elevation, with 6 timed super D type stages that are added up for your final time.

We headed out from Reno on Friday morning across the loneliest highway in America, US 50. It's not too bad of a drive, with some good sights along the way, including Sand Mountain, a popular spot for dune buggies, and drunk hillbillies.

We were able to sneak in a little ride Friday evening, and check out a couple of the stages before the race. We shuttled to the top to save the legs for the next day. Trails were already marked, and easy to follow.

My trusty Felt Virtue LTD!

Don loving the shuttle ride

 We headed back to town, and got a room at the Jailhouse casino, which was giving crazy deals for the weekend, and they put up $2000 for the pro class! Sweet! The next morning, we all met up at the park downtown to get organized, and head up the hill, but not before riding right through the casinos downtown!

 The first big climb starts off gradual, but gets steeper as you get above the treeline, approaching the first timed stage.

There are locals volunteering at all 12 of the checkpoints, and they all had cold water for tired racers, which was great. The singletrack is all amazing, hard to believe that a place out here in the middle of nowhere would have such good riding.

But on to the racing! Cannondale/WTB Enduro badass Ben Cruz and X-Fusion marketing manager/all around ripper John Hauer made the trek from the Bay Area to add some serious talent to the pro class. The 3 of us rode together all day, and the times were so tight, we actually tied on many of the stages. After 4 stages, we were all within 5 seconds of each other!

Stage 5 is pretty flat, and had a nasty headwind. I was able to dig deep and take a little time out of John and Ben on this one. I headed up the last climb in the lead, but unfortunately, a couple big mistakes, combined with amazing times by both John and Ben put me in 3rd. They ended up only 1 second apart, after 38 minutes of racing! Full results, along with stage times can be found here.

On Sunday we checked out the Cave Lake trails just south of Ely. The trails out there are amazing! No braking bumps, or ruts, because these trails don't get overused like many of the big famous places, but they're just as good as anything I've ever ridden, hands down.

If you like big rides, and racing on your trail bike, you absolutely have to make it to this event next year. I'll be there again for sure. Check out more info at the Great Basin Trails Alliance website. And here's my strava file from the race, because if it isn't on Strava, it didn't happen...

Thanks to Felt Bicycles, Formula brakes, E thirteen components, WTB, and X fusion suspension for all the support! Next up is stop 2 on the Oregon Enduro series in Ashland. See you there!