Specialized : Riders Club

jason emmanuel's Journal

2008 BMA Sufferfest

posted by FSRcrazy at 12:04 AM on September 19, 2008

This was the first annual Boulder Mountain Bike Alliance Sufferfest. The ride was a combination of techy single track and 4x4 roads all linked up to create the perfect fall adventure. The organizers had never ridden the trails in one shot, so mileage and ride time were unknown. To add to the adventure, starting temperature was 37 degrees with a forecasted high of 70 making clothing a challenge when you are already loading your camelback with water, PB&J, vanilla wafers, yogurt pretzels, RedBull, and a headlamp for an unknown day of riding. The icing on the cake is that the most technical trails are near the end of the ride, and would be ridden in the last hours of the ride. Camping gear was shuttled in along with a chef so all riders would have a full belly at nights end.

The day started with a shuttle to the start of the ride about 30 minutes west of BOulder. As usual i was running late and had to do this without coffee....crappy. As my riding buddy Paul and i waited for others to show we did our best to stay warm.
Before we knew it 62 riders had showed and we finally started riding at about 9am.
The Trails: Hobbit loops to FS505 4x4 to Caribou, Caribou to Sourdough, Sourdough north to Brainard Lake, continue north on a more remote tech y singletrack to Beaver Res, ride past the camp at Beaver Res and descend to Camp Dick, climb Middle Saint Vrain 4wd road and descend Buchanan Pass trail then finally climb back up to Beaver Res to the campsite.

Nothing too crazy happened on the ride other than Paul and his non-Specialized tires flatted 2 times and lost knobs too. We made good time all along and made it to camp at 5:45 about an hour before dark. We ate and tried to be social with the other riders at camp but we had to ride back to Boulder Sunday so we both got to our tents pretty early.

Turns out Paul and I were 2 of the 4 riders (out of 62 total) that completed the ride, most got to camp and skipped the last technical 2-3 hours. Their loss, the final loop is badass and truly made the ride super fun.

Not many chances for pics since we had so much mileage to cover, but here are a few. Paul flatted 2 more times on the ride back to town Sunday so i had a bit more time for pics.

The last pic of my computer shows most of the ride, but is missing about 5.2 more miles and another hour of ride time.

Hopefully we can do it all over again in fall 09!

categories: General , Photos