NW Epic 50/100 Pre ride

I decide to take advantage of a free weekend before the NW Epic final race at Capital Forest to pre ride the 50 mile lap and see what I was getting myself into. I already signed up for the 100 and so far, only 6 others are in the men's under 45 open but lots of entries for the 50. 

With the gpx file loaded on my Garmin and a water filter in my camelback, I was ready for 5-6 hours of solo exploration. The rout is 50 miles and 5,500 vertical feet, basically all singletrack. Sounds hard! Turns out, it is. 

Most of the trails are in good shape and quite fast and about 70% of the rout is shaded deep forest; these trails are killer. 

My Garmin 510 proved far for reliable out there so I was constantly dropping and re-linking with the rout. I missed a turn and ended up nearly back at the start. Oops. I back tracked to the rout up the small intro climb. 

Back on rout I was having a lot of fun on the flowing singletrack. The course is well suited for my 29er hardtail. 

Finally the big climb started and the child's play came to an end. Due to poor trail conditions/maintenance, a lot of the climb was hike a bike. Man, this is getting real!

Up and up to the top of the highest hill around. The trail became very rough and unforgiving. Some parts rideable, some parts, not at all. I was pouring sweat, and that's not typical for me. 

Above is an exam of one of the semi-ridable sections. It's hard to keep a rhythm on a long steep climb with all this on and off but it does end about an hour after it starts and the payback begins. Put down some solid food such as a clif bar well ahead of this climb. It's very very hard!

 Some very fun descending on the way back. I was running out of daylight and therefore hauling ass to race the sun but still couldn't help but stop for a picture or two. 

Next week will be fun! I think 11 hours will be my time target. 14 hours is the cutoff!