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Post by aki on Oct 30, 2013 9:51:45 GMT -5
I am leaving town this Sunday to go race in the Pro Ironman class at the Baja 1000. They are promising it to be the hardest loop race ever...so we'll see what happens. So far there are only 7 Ironman riders vs couple of hundred teams. The plan is to start prerunning from Encinada Tuesday morning and ride about 250 miles per day for 4 days and then spend couple of days riding the first and the last 70 miles or so to get them memorized. The race starts on Thursday 15th at about 3 am our time for me and hopefully lasts about 28 hours. My number is 789X and you can follow me on Score International web site through the Spot tracker and there will be a live webcast during the race with before and after the race interviews. There is a map on the web site as well. The start will be probably pretty slow since I start at midnight (pacific time) and at about 80 mile mark I start a climb to about 3000 feet which is really nasty even during the day time. I will race a Yamaha wr 450, prerun Yamaha wr 250 and the Honda XR is a spare prerun and rescue bike. We'll see what happens this time, all I know it'll be wild.
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Post by Admin on Oct 30, 2013 10:03:11 GMT -5
Good luck and safe riding Aki. I'm sure a lot of us will be tuning in to see how it's going.
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Post by aki on Oct 30, 2013 17:30:17 GMT -5
I'm thinking about taking some electric tape this time. Won't hurt as bad when peeled off. My wife was nice enough to buy me some light weight finger splints as well.
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Post by patrickfloyd on Oct 30, 2013 19:40:03 GMT -5
Don't forget the Vaseline!!!!
Patrick
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Post by aki on Nov 10, 2013 13:24:54 GMT -5
Hello everyone,
I got prerun completed last night. It went according to the plans for the most part which is surprising. I am beat up, worn out but no injuries. Here are some highlights: going over the mountain at about 100 mile mark my toolbag came open at some point and I lost most of my tool. I did not notice it until at 190 mile mark when I saw my crew. I had to ride into San Felipe at 230 miles and buy some tools and spend the night. From there to 385 miles went ok, my gas tank in my Yamaha 250 was coming loose at about 300 miles but I got some bolts from another crew. I was suppose to meet my guys at 385 miles for food, gas and water but I was early and they were 3 hours away when I got there so after an hour of waiting I got gas and water from a Quad team and told my guys to stay at 500 miles and I'll meet them there. I hit 30 mile silt beds at about 420 which were a nightmare. I spend an hour digging some kind of modified race buggy from the silt with no luck, and there was a KTM crew out there with bike down who ended up spending the night out there. I ran out of water and rode the last 3 hours in the dark with just my helmet lights, no goggles, dust burned my eyes, to 500 miles where my guys where. I was absolutely frozen to the bone. Next morning I rode from 500 to about 670 through extremely tough multiple mountain crossings, my 3 day old tires in my 250 were totally shredded, I was worried about them. I had a heavy backpack with extra gas and had hard time. My knees and my wrists were swollen from arthiritis. I struggled and I ended up cutting my chain at about 630 miles in the rocks. It took me 2 hours of rock and tool banging to built a chain, I had called for help and Jim was about 10 miles into the race course backwards on the XR coming to help me when I met him. Yesterday I took the XR from 670 to finish because of the tire and other issues with Yamaha and had a good day. Beautiful scenery and finished 1.5 hours early. Only issue was an upset stomach, had to go into desert 4 times. Today the healing starts, with laundry and shopping. My support guys are taking their BMW Gs:s for a 2 or 3 day ride. I will update more later
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Post by bmiller on Nov 10, 2013 20:48:47 GMT -5
Great recap. You have us on the edge of our seat. Good Luck
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Post by patrickfloyd on Nov 12, 2013 21:25:36 GMT -5
I am puzzled about the Vaseline but... will take your word for it!!! A necessary evil in multi day/ long distance rides/races
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Post by Admin on Nov 13, 2013 7:35:48 GMT -5
Here's some quick links to keep up with the Baja 1000. score-international.com/ This is the main Score web site. From here you can see the schedule, watch videos, and for us at RCDR we can track Aki as he rides. Once the race starts, click "Baja 1000 Live Tracking" button on the right, scroll down the list on the right to Ironman and find Aki. As of now, it's 1 day 15 hours and 25 minutes till the race starts. Tune in! Below are a couple screen captures for info. First is the tracking page. Right now you can see the whole route. Next, for all of us Floridians who think the panhandle is hilly, here's the elevation changes Aki will see during the race.
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Post by Admin on Nov 15, 2013 7:42:23 GMT -5
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Post by timr on Nov 16, 2013 7:01:55 GMT -5
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Post by timr on Nov 16, 2013 16:53:44 GMT -5
Just want to update with the latest. Seems there was no booby trap and that the accident happened before sundown.
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Post by timr on Nov 16, 2013 16:53:54 GMT -5
double double post post deleted deleted ;-/
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Post by aki on Nov 17, 2013 20:06:04 GMT -5
Hi guys,
Yes, unfortunately Kurt Caselli passed away. He may have hit a dog at a high speed, that seemed to be the latest. Thinking about what happen to him I can't be very upset about my own issues. I had a good start, a friend of mine showed up at the last minute to give me a "chase" during the race. He pulled in to the race course at about mile one and we rode side by side for the first 110 miles or so. The extra speed he provided me was just awesome and the extra lighting. We created so much dust that I don't think any one got close to us. I passed 2 Ironman class bikes during that time and others. The fog was insane and the smoke from all the fires, it was like driving into a wall at times. I did not experience booby traps, there were fires built on to the race course and I had stuff thrown at me. Once we reached the first mountain crossing I told my friend to go ahead because it was narrow and wait for me on the other side. I got up ok in the dark, at some point coming down I realized I had lost my rear brake pedal. It made it very difficult, I had to kill the engine at times and slide with 1st gear on. There was not a whole lot I could do, I carry a spare shifter and hand controls but no brake pedal. I had to slow down and made it to 192 but I could not face another mountain with no rear brake. My guys were at 385 with the other Yamaha, about 600 miles away by road. I could not have made it to them going slow without being timed out. I got a pedal from some other crew couple of hours later but it was too late, I had to ride the highway 120 miles back to Encinada. I was extremely disappointed and have been second guessing my different decisions since then. It looks like less than 40 percent of teams finished, only one finisher in Ironman class officially (the other one is timed out), Malcom Smith's son, he maybe DQed here in the coming days since he did not stick to the course a lot
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Post by bmiller on Nov 18, 2013 22:21:14 GMT -5
Congrat's Aki. I know its not the result you hoped for, but you have total respect from all of us here. Like they say......There's always next year.....
I look forward to hearing all the stories, when you get back to town.
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Post by DunlopC on Nov 22, 2013 19:31:06 GMT -5
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