Lunar Quarry 12 Hour

The Lunar Quarry 12 at Pine Hill Park went down this past weekend. 6pm to 6am with a 7ish mile lap and some decent gain to go with it. Prefect riding weather, great event hosts, and a glorious trail network = excellent time.

The venue, an old abandoned rock quarry, was awesome and the event staff put on a solid event. They had movies projected, live music including a band called “Dank and the Funk Sticks,” food for sale, and a superbly marked and marshaled course. They even had a pancake breakfast with some awesome Vermont syrup in the morning. Nothing beats a platter of real maple syrup with a side of pancake after racing through the night.

Calvin “broke his collar bone” (one of these days he’s probably going to just clock me in the nose for giving him so much crap about it, especially since I’ve dubbed him “collar boner Calvin”) so I ended up going solo. 

It was a pretty fun time and a little different than traditional racing. They only counted laps completed before 6am so it made for a speedy exit although different from any endurance race I’ve ever done, and it had a cool target shooting component to it at the end of each completed lap. The four man teams and the solo riders were pitted against each other for it…not really fair since any decent four man team would have more opportunities to shoot then a solo (not that I was even in contention…just pointing It out). They had wood fired pizza but it was near impossible for a solo rider to snag a piece since they only put out one pizza at a time and there were always people waiting when they put it out to gobble it up. Cool idea though and they looked and smelled like some pretty decent pies but man was it a mental torture fest to have to smell them with each transition.

I had been laying down some consistent back to back sub 40 laps with my Misfit SS 29er running 32x21 gearing while pre riding in the weeks prior so I decided to go for the first lap/fastest lap just for the heck of it. It’s just insane what that rig can do. We lined up for the start and they had a sweet explosive laden wooden Lunar moth that flew down the quarry into the bonfire pit to send us off. When we initially lined up the guys up front said they were going to be taking a hot lap so when the moth exploded I hammered out the hole shot and up the first climb, but no one was really giving chase so I dialed it back a little as to not trash my legs and just enjoyed the trails i’ve come to adore these past few months. Seriously-PHP rocks (resort quality network) and to get to do a race in there was awesome. Other than a couple of burners the course was pretty much all flow and pumps with a sweet rock garden about half way through. Some jumps and drops, a few table tops, and some cool bridge crossings throughout. They even had jackolanterns scattered about the course that filled the air with the sweet aroma of pumpkin pie. My only real complaint is that it really stunk to have to inhale the teaki-torch smoke at the end of each lap as they were lining the trail that went around the quarry site. My throat is still burning.

I came in from my first lap and headed out quickly, only to have a catastrophic mechanical at the beginning of the second lap which would eventually dwindle my lead away. My brake lever’s master cylinder linkage assembly failed (disappeared), and I found this out after landing what some would call stupid air off of a double roller, and with just one brake I tried but could not avoid the trees I then pinged off of. One big one finally caught me and tossed me to rest on a pile of rocks after snapping my ring finger like a twig. I finished out the lap and then Calvin and I spent about 20 minutes trying to fix it only to realize our efforts were useless so luckily he had his Enduro/light DH rig there, and I then got the pleasure of spinning the remaining hours of an xc endurance race on it. Don’t get me wrong…it’s an insanely nice rig, about as nice as it gets, but exactly the opposite of what was needed for that course and my body lol. With a 50ish-mm stem, Talas 36, crazy 26in. knobby tires, and a super wide bar (inches wider than mine), it made for quite an adventure. I would like to hit some stuff on it though…the thing was like riding a couch on the downs and a few times I found myself pushing my limits a little too much on it due to the confidence it instilled while bombing the descents. If only I’d brought my spare brake set (duh). What an epic waste of time though trying to fix the shot lever in the dark and then we had to set his rig up to kind of fit me which ticked away more time, and I knew that the other solo riders were gaining on me every second so I was pretty intense at that point. The other solo riders were just too strong and smart to not capitalize on my mess.

Photo credit - Rutland Herald

The rest of the race would go somewhat smoothly until my 8^th lap when the prototype chain guide/bash guard/roller combo he was testing on his rig came a little loose and I then had to back track and hunt down two chain ring bolts in the middle of the night. Yeah…lots of fun. Luckily I heard and felt them fall out so I had a pretty good idea of where to look. Then in a bit of a dazed rush I tightened my glove into the chain ring bolt by mistake. I went to stand up not knowing the preceding which sent the bar into my eye and me falling down entangled in the rig. Epic follies. Then it loosened again but this time luckily right in front of an aid station run by some really cool guys that put as much energy into pumping up the riders all night as the riders put into spinning their pedals. While I was fixing it they topped off my water and sent me on my way. That was really nice of them and I was stoked to be treated so well-as were all the racers.

Photo credit - Rutland Herald

I did 10 laps in about 10 hours, and at that point decided I’d probably not be able to bridge the 20min gap the first place rider had on me and called it a night. He was hammering out his laps at that point and I knew between his experience and fitness he wasn’t going to just give away 20 minutes. It was pretty close the whole race until I had to go hunting for chain ring bolts in the woods, and it was a pretty big surprise to me how fresh my legs were throughout. I had prepared myself for a mental and physical suffer fest but it turned out to not be too bad at all. It was definitely strange being all alone in the woods for the entire race except for a half lap I shredded with a cool guy from Jersey. One thing’s certain-I’d have been up the creak had Calvin not offered up his rig so I’m pretty thankful. It would have been such a bummer to have to quit after two laps, but running some of those descents at race pace with just a front brake can get pretty sketchy unless you go silly slow and that’s no fun.

All in all it was a great weekend and a pretty successful first 12 solo for me. If you ever have the chance hit Pine Hill Park, and the Lunar 12 is definitely worth checking out if you’re into that sort of thing. I suspect/hope that Shimano will probably warranty my lever because I’ve never before seen that happen, and they’re usually beyond excellent to deal with. The old skule XT 4 pistons and classic levers are my favorite of all time, but it’s getting harder and harder to track them down these days.

The end. (I'll put some pics up when I have time...like that ever happens)