Round two of the U.S. National Ultra Endurance (NUE) series picked up in Ohio last weekend with the Mohican 100. The Mohican is a deceptively difficult course, boasting a total of 11,000 feet of climbing even though no single ascent is more than 300’. That is an intimidating fact to wrap one’s head around. It’s the equivalent of someone telling you… ‘Hey, see that steep little hill over there – it’s only 300’ tall, so go climb it 37 times…’ On top of that, the Mohican begins with about 30 miles of twisty technical single-track. The race feels as if it starts with a fast cross country race, then it continues on with 65 more miles. It makes for some great racing, and I was looking forward to this year’s edition, especially since my form seems to really be coming around. Racing with good form on a good course usually makes for good fun.

 
But the weather had other ideas. Rain plagued the area all week, wreaking havoc on the course. The downpours even included a bout of golf-ball sized hail the night before. The hotel where I was staying lost power when the transformer exploded during a passing thunderstorm. So, when I lined up with the 600+ riders on Saturday morning, the Mohican no longer sounded so fun. Then I noticed that my rear rotor lock-ring was loose just a few minutes before the start. Normally I would catch something like that during a pre-ride the day before, but the terrible weather prevented me from doing such. Alas, the gun went off and I calmly hoped that the rotor would hold.

The rain mostly stayed away for the first few hours, but the racing was slow and tedious since the trails felt like soupy molasses. Mike Simonson was the man to watch out for and he was glued to my wheel for the first third of the race. And I knew that I was eventually going to have to fix that rear rotor and would need a nice lead to do so. I also knew that being with Mike during the middle third of the race would be a huge mistake because of the large amount of fast dirt road that allows for drafting. So I went on the attack near the end of the single-track on a few punchy climbs just before the start of the dirt roads, near mile 35. I went into time trial mode as soon as I got a bit of a gap and set about building a lead. The rain steadily picked up and I steadily built a nice lead, as much as 7 minutes by the mid-way mark. Then, at mile 70, my rotor fell off the hub and was jangling around on the axle. I removed it and pressed on without rear brakes. Luckily, I had a nice enough of a lead to deal with the situation until the end of the race. I finished under a torrential downpour amidst cracks of thunder.

 
That marks NUE career win number 10. Wow, I guess I’ve been doing this for awhile now. Appropriately, the victory happened on my first race with the SRAM XX components, the stock spec for the Trek Top Fuel 9.9 this year. I was impressed. The 2x10 XX group is lighter than any other and the shifting held up remarkably well in the horribly muddy conditions. Victory X. SRAM XX. Spear Trophy. Nice.