White Mtn, ugh, in the bag!
http://app.strava.com/activities/23636429 (Garmin date issue, rode it 9/29)
We were on the trail at 4:30, with a bit of lighting. The day before we dropped 3 SAGs across the mountain so were rolling pretty light and fast.
The first up is 6k of climbing, about half of it unrideable. We finished that a little before 9.
Once we had regrouped, we knew we had to really get moving, we were way behind schedule. The next section had some climbing, but was mainly just wide open fireroad, so I started going about as fast as I figured I could maintain.
A little before noon I regrouped again with Danno (our other member Marcus had turned back). It was clear to me that he, Danno, wasn't feeling well, having eaten about 1/10 the calories he needed. But, we kept pressing on and made it to our 3rd SAG without issue. We watered up and headed for Barcroft, which is at 12.5k.
I kept the pace up, figuring Danno would be pushing hard and fast if he could, and if he couldn't (stomach issues) there wasn't anything I could do. We lost contact soon after. I last saw him at 13.2k.
White Mtn is immensely vast, and there is no way to describe how daunting it is. I looked across at it from 6 or so miles out and felt like it was on a different planet. Plus, I was walking, barely, due to the air being so thin, and due to the steeps.
Across one hill, then some rolling stuff, then dropped a long chunky section (pretty much a worthless down, since I still had 1k of climbing to go).
Finally I was to the switchbacks: (attached, the shack is a dot at the top).
It took well over an hour to crawl my way up them. I stumbled around at the top, very light headed, tried to get on the roof of the shack up there, but thought better. Fell asleep, it got past 3pm (our turnaround time), so had some caffeine and headed out.
After the second switch back, or so, slashed my rear tire bad enough the Stans wouldn't seal it, tried CO2, no luck. Had to tube it. At this point I was in a very chunky section and had a long way to go, White Mtn is deserted, and the guys were way way off.
With no pump, half a CO2, and a ripped tire I had to ride as gingerly as I could. At our 2nd SAG there was another tube, once I got that I went as fast as I could for the next ten miles and found Danno at the top of the final drop, Silver Cyn.
We ripped that off as fast as we could until the brakes overheated and then had to back off a bit. It was getting dark though so we kept on at a good clip, blasting through water crossings.
Once we were a little ways away from the mountain the moon was on us, we could see our shadows and the white of the road, and that was it, done.
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