24 Hours of Enchantment

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For our first trip down to the 24 hours in the Enchanted Forest, Nick and I had a great time. We hung out with The Back Of the Pack, enjoying the lights and the living room they provided. It was nice to meet the Foxy Mamas and the rest of the Back of the Pack family. The environment at 24EF was awesome - so much more like a camping trip with a mountain bike race in the middle then a mountain bike race in the middle of no where! And even with the last minute Forest Service ordered venue relocation, the site was good. It was spread out, but we were right on the track and got to people watch the entire weekend (when we weren't riding our bikes!) Nick and I did really well, turning 18 laps before noon on Sunday to win the Co-ed duo. We also beat the Men's duo winners and the Single Speed Duo winners! I'll get the full race report written this week.

Some notes from the weekend:
* Tedd from Back of the Pack has his dogs very well trained! Nick went to get a drink from their cooler, and the dogs went crazy! They even broke the tree branch they were leashed to off. Protect the beer - that's the motto of the mutts.
Maybell - the guardian of the cooler (and the rest of the camp!)

*On Thursday, while sitting and relaxing in the shade, we got to watch some fellow racers attempting to set up a really fancy tent. It took them three hours to get the pole figured out and another two to get the tent set up... We could have offered to help, but watching was so much more fun.

* The chair forest sprouted up Thursday. Everyone had a camp chair and as the shade moved, so did the chairs. All shapes and sizes, colors and styles of chairs. I didn't get a photo but there were about 20 chairs around camp - not including the living room couches!

*Nick and I had our bikes hidden behind the Turtle the whole weekend. We didn't want to contaminate the Back of the Pack fleet with our suspension, geared and one 26" bike! And until the race started, no one noticed that we were back there...

* A very family friendly event, with lots of activities for kids including arts and crafts, the normal 24 minutes kids races and the longer Enchanted Land race that used part of the 24 hour race course. Tedd raced with his family in the Enchanted Land and it looked like he had fun. There were also things for non-racers to enjoy, like wine tasting, a live band and a movie after dark.

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