Santa Cruz Off-Road Metric Century

Today the VeloNerds hosted the inaugural annual Santa Cruz Off-Road Metric Century. Never mind that the acronym for that is horrible, we're just never going to shorten it. The name of an event should match the event and this ride was LOOOOOONG!
Eight brave folks started at 8AM and five completed the planned route 12 hours, 115 kilometers, over 3,000 meters of ascent later. This year there was a special offer with 15% extra free! That's 72 miles and 10,000ft of ascent for those that can't deal with new fangled scientific units.

The goal was to ride 100 kilometers on all single track and never ride the same trial twice in the same direction. We came pretty close, only re-riding a few key connector trails and managed to ride every single one of our favorite trails (except Hillbilly).

At the end of the ride the people who completed it got a frickin' laser etched stem cap for their troubles and as with all great events there was a raffle! Nicole grabbed as much tat lying around her apartment that she didn't want and fobbed it off on the poor suckers who were too tired to realize they were being bamboozled! She still couldn't find anyone to take the huge package of Heed (heave!) she has though.

It was, by far. the best experience I've ever had on a bike, so much fun to be riding with friends and having a great time pushing out bodies riding hard. I can't believe I know 4 other people who can ride that long and hard and I get to ride with them several times a week, life is good!

There a few more pictures over in the gallery.