Race pre-ride

This May 6, 2007 is the 2nd running of the Men's Health All Terrain Race, so race director King took Vic, Jovan, JM and myself up to pre-ride the course. We also hooked up with Team All Terra's Vince and his girlfriend Pam (on her first dirt ride). Jingo, Noel, Gigi and Pat caught up with us and pre-rode the course as well.

The route uses part of last year's course (Roxas trail), but extends into a section called Boy/Girl—a long, sketchy descent on loose soil, and passes behind the chapel via a section that has some steps cut into the dirt and some whoop-de-dos for good measure. After which is a longish grind uphill via a dirt road, back to the main trail of Maarat, then turns left to head back down to the Start/Finish area. Around 12km, but it's an intense and quite technical course. Vic, JM and myself did another loop of Roxas for good measure. Here's a Google Earth view of the trail. Details courtesy of Vic and King. Click to enlarge.



The race itself should be quite interesting, and we expect the first racers to come in at around 30 or 40 minutes. Hopefully all racers will be in before 11 (take off is estimated at 9 or 930am). The sun has been absolutely brutal the past week. We did have some rain Friday night, which helped moisten the trail, giving more traction to knobbies. Plus, they've graded the trails along Roxas, so the nasty ruts are gone. Darn. :-(

Hope to see you on race day!