The Bikes n Beers crew

On Saturday (May 7^th) Bikes n Beers rode in the Ft. Yargo Mountain Bike 6/9 hour race hosted by Dirty Spokes Productions Inc.  The race is part of the Chain Busters Mountain Bike Race Series presented by Maxxis Tires and consists of 6 races all over the southeast. This is the second year we have ridden this race and as always we had a great time.  The race attracts over 500 racers from all over the southeast.    We finished as we normally do, towards the bottom but got some great race footage and had some tasty beers to finish.

The topography at Ft. Yargo is fairly flat which makes for a fun fast-paced flowing ride.

The GPS track of the race course (Click to Zoom)

The course is primarily a hard pack single track with gradual climbs and fast flowing downhills.  The course was an 11 mile loop around the lake and has 1,147 feet of combined elevation.  The conditions were nearly perfect with weather in the 70’s and a modest humidity.  The first lap is a bit of a cluster since the entire field is set off together and skips the first 2 miles of single track as they run you down the asphalt road.  This creates a bottleneck as everyone flies to the single track where the novice riders will definitely slow you down.  Usually by mile 4 you can get past those folks and then the rest of the day is fairly clear.  The first five miles of the course is composed of rolling hills and has a few downhills with jump sections the will

Throttle and his magic zoom juice

definitely raise the adrenaline and give you some Yee Haw moments.  Somewhere around mile 5 is the only real sustained climb of the course but if fairly modest in nature.  Following that the course goes back to rolling hills and a few down/up features that a just a hoot.  The last miles of the course is a very fast downhill which brings you back the main area.  The main area is a fun atmosphere with families and support crew littering the landscape with canopies, BBQ’s, and a few vendors.

Following the race we had a good time listening to Scarlet Stitch and knocking back a few

Alex punching himself in the head.....

cold ones.  As always Bikes n Beers has video documented the race and experience.  You can check out this video here.

Me enjoying the post race recovery drink - Special Formula, hence the fuzziness