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Today some friends (who are also team mates) and I made a four-person go at Fun Promotions’ 8 Hours of Bloomer race, another one of the Michigan Cup Endurance Racing series which also included the 6 & 12 Hours of Stony Creek race from back in May. Our team ended up placing second out of a pool of two, coming in only a couple minutes behind the winning team. I started out the race, then Erik followed, with Marty and then Nick taking their turns. All of us got in four laps, save for Nick who only ended up with three due to rain starting up just before Marty’s final lap and the cutoff time for leaving on a final lap being pushed back half an hour.
This was my first long ride at Bloomer, and I found this route to be rather enjoyable. I’d previously visited the park, but didn’t like it either of those times. One time was with an MMBA group, and the riding of a (very eroded) trail along the upper part of a very steep ridge (photo) scared me so much that I stopped tens of feet into it. The second time was with Derek, the guy currently responsible for overseeing trail maintenance at the park, and the route he took us on was very difficult and simply not much fun. This time the route was a bit shorter, but quite enjoyable. It also included the chute / switchbacks mentioned here (that photo doesn’t do it justice) which were a bit intimidating at first, but were much better after a few goes.
In the end with my four laps I racked up 23.15 miles over 2:00:32, for an average speed of 11.52 MPH. At some point I hit a max of 21.95 MPH, which isn’t particularly quick. Also, that total mileage is easily eclipsed by what Joe, Kelly, and Bill did during their solo races, with Joe approaching 100 miles, Kelly at 80-some, and Bill with a bit less than that.