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25 Hours of Frog Hollow
Report by Jake Weber, photos from Joel Quinn
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The 25 Hours of Frog Hollow was a locally organized event held for the first
time this year. Set on a bluff overlooking Virgin and Hurricane, the scenery was
ideal and iconic of the trails in the area. Arriving on Friday morning we were
suprised to see we were the very first competitors there. We quickly set up camp
and headed off for our pre-ride. The first two miles of the course are all
fireroad and riverbed road riding. It then moves into some dusty singletrack and
then back to fireroad. |
| The entire first 5.3 miles are considered the
"uphill" section. Nothing too bad, climbing around 700 feet. After the
uphill, the course takes a quick right onto some excellent downhill singletrack.
Very flowy and and smooth, except of course for the few areas that aren't. A few
drop offs here and there and of course the "mandatory dismount
section". There was even a course marshall here during the race to make
sure all racers were dismounting. At the bottom the smooth singletrack
continued. |
| This section was a blast. If it has been awhile since riding made you
feel like a kid, you need to ride this trail. A couple sections of fireroad
interspersed with more singletrack, a few technical rock sections and you are
back at the finish. Our pre-ride took us an hour and 7 minutes. We never took it
too easy but we didn't push it either. Our hopes were high. At this point, the
wind started in. Wow, it took every rope we had to keep things in place. We
began to worry that race day would be more of the same. |
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Race day began with a team meeting and some quick clarification of the rules. I
had the dubious honor of starting for our team which meant I got to do the
LeMans start. We placed our bikes in the racks and then hiked back down the road
for about 400 yards, up and over a hill. I've watched these starts many times
but never participated, I was glad when no one sprinted off the line. The pace
was still quick though. I tried my best to hang on to the 10th spot over the
course and was very happy when the first lap was over. |
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The transitions went
smooth and it was nice to have a big digital clock hanging over the finish. With
only 4 people on a team and with everyone putting in 1 hour lap times, it is
amazing how quickly your turn to ride comes around again. We still didn't know
how many teams were in our class but we had figured out that the team camped
closest to us was definitely a team to beat. Their first rider was a pro and
they had driven all the way from Driggs, Idaho for the race. The first lap,
their pro had beat my time by over 6 minutes. |
| As a I started my second lap I
knew we had actually caught and passed them on time but that the pro would be
coming up behind me quickly. I made a goal out of beating him to the top of the
climb and to the singletrack where I might be able to hold him off. He passed me
after the mandatory dismount and it was all I could do to hang with him through
the rest of the lap. I was suprised to see him dismount over many of the
technical sections which helped me hang with him. I crossed the finish line only
20 seconds behind him and met my goal of a sub one hour lap. |
| That was the last
time we had to worry about that team as we slowly gained ground on them over the
rest of the race. Unfortuneately they weren't the only other 4 man team out
there. The top team was made up of several Icup pros and a few other pros from
another series. They had over a lap on everyone by the 6 hour mark. My team set
our sights on second place, who were only an hour ahead of us. My team held on
well and put in some great efforts. |
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Night time came and it quickly became very
cold, so cold in fact that I actually stopped at one of the course workers fires
for a minute to warm up my hands which were so cold I couldn't feel my fingers
anymore.
- Jake Weber |
Race results from Joel Quinn:
Joel's team took 1st place in the Corporate category by finishing 20 laps for a total of 260 miles on a 13 mile
course, beating the 2nd place team by 2 laps. Joel did 5 laps. His best lap time was
59:15. |
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