Mohican 100

Watch more video of Mohican 100 2012 on thom.cyclingdirt.org

Over the past few years the Mohican 100 has always treated me well. I almost always seem to feel fresh going into the Mohican and the course itself plays to some of my advantages beginning with a long stretch of singletrack in the beginning and ending with redundant steep short climbs. After settling into my pace a few minutes after the start of this year's event I expected to have my best Mohican yet. As soon as we hit the first section of dirt I found myself at the front driving the pace, but at the same time being careful to not go too hard too early. Once the trail funneled into the singletrack of the Mohican Wilderness Christian pushed towards the front to take control of the pace. At first I had thought that this would be the perfect opportunity for the two of us to work together and blow apart the front of the race, but when Christian's pace had not dropped after the first 10 - 15 miles I decided it would be safest to back off a bit and save my legs for later on. I finished out the rest of the first 25 miles of trail riding with Rob Spreng who has really stepped up his game this year and is killing it at every race. So we rode together and traded some pulls until we were caught on a gravel road around mile 30, just before aid station #2. Our chase group now included some other top NUE contenders including Mike Simonson, Chris Peariso, and Jordan Wakely. I thought we would be catching up to Christian for sure. After aid station #2 we powered on and quickly reached aid #3, but to my surprise the gap to Christian had not shrunk. It was mind blowing to imagine how hard he must have been pushing it off the front by himself and taking on a steady headwind without losing a seconds time. After aid #3 I noticed that I was beginning to fade and started to be even more conservative, but somewhere before reaching aid #4 I was forced to drop off the pace and recover a little more. Once I felt a little better it was back to hammering, but this time alone. I was kicking myself for not sticking with the chase group, but at the same time felt it was a good decision as my race could have been ruined by a heavy bonk. I kept the gap to the chase group manageable until the final aid station where it had grown to 9 minutes. With only one section of 1 track left I enjoyed the final miles of the race satisfied with my 6 place finish with a time of around 6:55:00, which was my best time yet for this event! Check out some more of the great footage from Thom at cyclingdirt.org on the 2012 Mohican 100.