I think there are a plethora of reasons why I had to go back to the Mountain Cat 100 for the third time. There are still so many mysteries to unravel. How is it possible that this event has so much rider support for only $30? Why are so many people amped up for it, and given then amount of amperage, why do so few folks finish? How do people ride 108 miles in denim in the heat and humidity of Richmond, VA in June? How is there this much interconnected dirt, gravel, and whatnot in such an urban setting? What's wrong inside my head that allows me to think "of course I'm going to always come back until I physically can't?"
I headed back up to Richmond with Watts, but also to meet up with Dr Mike. I would say we were much better behaved the night before the "race" than we were in 2023, but mebbe we came a little more off the rails than we did in 2024. If I had to pin the blame on anything, I guess it would be the fact that we got an email letting us know that if any of the strong rains that were predicted were to fall, we were expected to be good trail stewards and abandon our quest for a dirty 108 miles. There were slim to slightly chubby odds that we would be denied our finish. It also didn't help that we were a one minute walk from so many beer taps.
Late night squeezings...
Up at 4:00am regardless of the potential for sadness and out the door after some expired-date donut sticks and coffee.
This year, we were given an interesting scenario. Instead of getting the GPS route sent to us with plenty of time to deep dive the squiggly lines and contemplate our fates, we were only getting "half" the course up front. Once we hit the check point at mile 66.6, we would then be able to download the second "half," assuming you studied up on how to make your phone talk to your data acquisition device without having access to Wi-Fi. I've done a fair job letting myself down with electronicals in the past, but I did a few practice runs at the Trans-Sylvania Epic, and mebbe I got it dialed... because twice I had the route loaded backwards? Yeth, I got this.
The first "half" is quite the slog, and other than being stuck behind multiple families of geese that are enjoying the single track experience on the Poop Loop, we move through it at a pleasant pace.
We only stop for occasional navigational head scratching and some eating and drinking of all that the land had to offer.
Both Dr Mike and I have a guess about the second half of the course that we agree on (admittedly, Watts hasn't give it too much thought). We agree that the math doesn't suss out to get the 26 mile round trip to the extensive trail network at Pocahontas State Park and enough riding down there to make it worth going that far south like in previous years.
Twenty six miles of sweet, mostly flat, spinning glory takes a fair chunk outta the hundie.
I gleaned my suspicions from the pre-race email we got earlier in the week.
“One thing about us: our trails are open to all and multidirectional. A curse, a blessing.”
We both guessed we'd be turning this thing around in some form or another. "Form" TBD.
When we se some fasties coming right back at us at Forest Hill Park at about mile 52, we're pretty sure we figured correctly. This is somehow the mental blow that I'm guessing was intended.
We get to Larus Park and the checkpoint with the second half deets... but we have to complete the trails there before we can get at them. All three of us struggle to get the arrows on our devices to point in some agreed upon direction (or show up at all), so we hop on some wheels and get to 66.6 miles (and then some) back to the aid station.
Deviled eggs?
Might be a mistake, but I have five. And a few other things I probably shouldn't eat as well. YOLO and all.
Sigh. The route is basically reversed.
Not my art but art worth appreciating.
Dr Mike's Garmin is choking on the upload, but Watts and mine own Wahoo data acquisition devices pick it up seamlessly (or so it seems). That doesn't stop us from compounding a problem that we don't anticipate.
I eat all the wrong things and also add Nuun tablets to my bottles which now contain a combination of Carborocket, water, Gatorade... who knows what at this point? We leave the aid station with 42 something miles to go, but we've already spent eight hours on course? Dr Mike cramps and difficult discussions are had amongst the stupid single speeders. He still doesn't have the route loaded, but we've always known that gears and squishy riding VS 32 X 16 and rigid might make it hard to spend the whole day together. As the way of the Mountain Cat is, you get used to making frands and then just losing them to the unknown ahead or behind. As easily as the bond was forged, it is also sacrificed in the name of forward progress. After reaffirming Dr Mike had finally got the route loaded, we lose him to the abyss that is the Mountain Cat around mile 75.
After that and mebbe around the 80 mile mark (if I had to guess), the wheels quietly fall off the bus, but in the most private of manners. It's not audibly communicated between us, but Watts and I have spent enough time in the woods together to just know. The longer climbs are demoralizing, the heat and humidity are oppressive, the act of holding on to the handlebars feels like something I don't want to do anymore, and the deep-fried pickle and ham/egg/cheese biscuit I washed down with a Modelo decides to stick sideways in my lower left gut. Steep stairs up and down, scrambles up an impossibly steep hillside under an overpass but still in the direct sun, familiar hobo paths from earlier, freshly mown "paths" through an overgrown field... and eventually to trails that we rode eleven hours ago?
Oof. How?
Knock out the trails behind the cemetery, back out to the aid station... and PBR me ASAP.
Four miles of road and two miles of gnarly burger trail left and then we done. Woohoo.
Hmmm.
Of note...
We were out there over thirteen hours... totally unaware there was a cutoff'ish at fourteen hours. We probably wouldn't have mucked about so much had we known we might not finish. Also, there was a cutoff to get to the Larus Park just to get the second half of the course data. Many had missed the cut, while others got the "good news" from riders coming back at them and threw in the towel right there. Suffice to say, the attrition rate was
higher than many of the participants.
That was, and I mean it, hard.
Dr Mike ended up coming in shortly after we did, zero cramps the rest of the day and stoked to be one of the few, the proud, the Mountain Catters of 2025.
Apparently, it takes 10,000 calories to move a four apple tall man and his sorta mountain bike this far.
Watts literally walking a woman to a church service in a movie theatre Sunday morning... because... Richmond.
New Mountain Cat 100 patch acquired and painstakingly sewn into my stupid old PAC Designs messenger bag that will one day be hanging on a hook back in my bike room when my kids tell the dozers to take down my house because I'm finally ded not like single speed and 26" wheels and me after Mountain Cat but more like Abraham Lincoln and Ronnie James Dio.