Capitol Forest 50 on Tap for August 25th

June 18, 2012 on 12:45 pm | In Mountain Biking | No Comments

The Capitol Forest 50 – also known as “Capitol Punishment” – is scheduled for Saturday, August 25th. Bob Horness, Mel, Paul, Juntu, and I are already in and Ryan is close.

Categories include men and women’s open, single-speed, men’s and women’s 40+ and men’s 50+ (Why don’t these guys ever have a category for those of us who are really elderly?). There is also a 100-mile option if anyone wants to maximize the pain.

Cost for the 50 is $125. Who else is dumb enough?

The ride description indicates that 80 to 90 percent of the course will be single-track, which seems like a pretty high portion compared to other endurance races of this type.

If you are interested, complete info is available here. It’s always a lot more fun if you have fellow sufferers to share the pain with, so let me know if you can make it. We can carpool.

Check the elevation profile – How hard can it be?

I’m trying to talk Dave into doing the 50, but he is resistant because of two negative experiences at Capitol Forest in his biking past. As you know, Dave is a bitter individual who is inclined to harbor a grudge.

Many, many years ago, Dave, Lipton and I started from Highway 12 on the south side. I was pretty sure we could connect with single-track a mile or two up the gravel. Sadly, I became confused by bad signage. After climbing for quite a while, we took an unfortunate turn and ended up back down at Highway 12 again. We ended up riding 16 miles of gravel before we got to the trail.

He was starting to get over that incident when we had another tragic situation. This time, I studied the map and was sure I had it nailed. We would be riding a total of 16 miles of single-track, which would allow us plenty of time get to Dick’s to drink a few beers and watch Jack chow three or four prime rib sandwiches.

Again, I will blame bad signage for what happened next. We’d already been out quite a while and then we started doing some serious climbing. I knew we were way off course but I didn’t want to say anything for fear of reprisal so I kept pedaling like I knew where I was going.

By now, we were low on food and fluid and people were beginning to question my leadership. We’d covered 18 miles when we reached a sign that said we were 20 miles from the trailhead. Yep, a mellow 16-miler somehow turned into 38.

We finally limped back to the cars and headed for Dick’s, arriving just as the CLOSED sign went up in the window.

Like Mel says, Dave needs to stop being a bitter bitch and just drive on.