I’m on the road driving to the Berryman Epic MTB race. It is around 60 miles long and is in the Mark Twain National Forest, south of St. Louis an hour. It’s the start of the Ozarks, so the terrain is undulating and the scenery is great.

Yesterday was not user friendly for me. I have two MTB bikes, but both are questionable for this race. This race is mainly on rocky singletrack. Horse rocky singletrack. I’ve race the race twice before and have flatted a total of 5 times, maybe more, in two races. As soon as you put a tube in a tire here, you are done. You have to be riding tubeless with lots of sealant.

Andy Caron from Sram hooked me up with a Sid. I had to wait around all morning before it showed. It was supposed to be here yesterday, but the UPS plane broke down in St. Louis. Go figure. So, this morning, I was scrambling trying to put the new fork on, only partially successful. I’m about ready to do some wrenching in the back of the van now.

I was mounting two beefier Specialized tires on my 29’r last night. One had two holes in the sidewall. I’m not sure if it was from shipping or a manufacturing error. I tried to get them to seal with latex, but that didn’t work. So I took it off and patched it. That was a hassle.

I stripped the bolt in my rear derailleur on the 26 inch MTB. What else? My disc brake is a side mount and the RockShox is a front mount, so I had to come up with an adapter. It seemed like everything that could have went wrong did.

All this on top of catching 3 kittens, washing them and throwing them into the back bathroom. Again.

Okay, it is a nice drive, through Columbia MO and then diagonal down to Cuba and Steelville. Hopefully we’ll get there early enough to get beat up a little.

These were bigger than pin holes.

New RockShox Sid, sort of installed.

Cuba, Missouri, 7am. It is really cold here. Around freezing. But, it’s supposed to warm up to nearly 70 sometime later this afternoon. Hopefully I’ll be done riding and drinking some beer by then. The race takes around 4:15 + or – 15 minutes for the 60 miles. There is a $500 bonus to beat last years time of 4:14:41. That is possible for sure.

Bill and I rode the first 1/2 hour of the race before it got dark. It seems pretty quick. The race starts straight up a loose gravel climb, that is washboard for a long while. It doesn’t go into the singletrack for 3 miles or so. The first singletrack is just plain fun. Not so rocky, but technical none the less. The course seems to be marked better than the last couple years. We’ll see. I guess Ryan didn’t make it to the event, so Scott had to take up all the promoter duties.

I felt pretty good yesterday evening riding. The new RockShox Sid fork helped a ton. I put more air into it tonight to make it way stiffer. I think that will much better fit my riding style.

I think I”m going to start slow and see how I get going later. Maybe follow whoever is leading. I think Bill will have a much better chance of hanging with me if I don’t throttle it from the start. And Bill is always way better the longer races go, so towards the end he usually comes on strong.

Okay, 8:30 CST start. Done by 1 unless something goes bad.

Historically, I've flatted a ton here. But, I have much beefier tires on this time. But, I'm carrying a lot of extra stuff just in case.

Breakfast at the Huddle House. Greasy food, everyone smoking at 6:15 am when eating, while listening to the Rolling Stones. It's Missouri.

They sent a bunch of stickers with the RockShox Sid. I especially like the colored rabbits.

The drive through Columbia, Jefferson City and then down to Cuba is scenic for sure.

The race starts and finishes at the Bass River Resort. They have a bunch of cozy cabins that nearly all the competitors stay at for the race.

This truck is outside our hotel room. It is full of fish. They have oxygen tanks areating the fish. I've never seen a fish delivery truck before.

I took this photo in downtown Lawrence last Saturday night. I thought it was great.