Whiskey Off Road

This weekend Matt and I took a little road trip to Prescott, AZ for Matt to ride the Whiskey Off Road (50 mile) Mountain Bike Race.  This would be the equivalent of running a marathon--sure, you want to do well and make your time, but your ultimate goal is to just finish!!! I guess this is a pretty intense ride.  The top riders do it just over 3 hours and then it rages on down clear into the 7 hour range! My hat go offs to anyone who manages to stay out riding for over 7 hours!  Because of the setup I didn't get to go out and see much of the course but I've seen pictures and I definitely saw the battle would coming in! Matt rode with his best friend Mike and a few others from the team.  They all finished!!! 

Prescott is such a fun little town it was a great little getaway.  The race starts and ends in the downtown prescott area where the courthouse and all the cute little shops are.  My favorite was finding the old fashioned candy store where they sold Salt Water Taffy (MY FAVORITE) in all different flavors--including candy corn!!! yummy yummy!!! 

Matt lined up for the race. 

Matt ended up coming in racing another biker.  Of course the crowd LOVED it when 2 biker came in together and would cheer them on to go faster.  As you can see from the pictures below it looks like these two were taking this corner a little to fast!!  We weren't quite sure they were going to make it! :)  The race starts and finishes in the middle of downtown Prescott.  

Breaking away to beat the racer! Go MATT!!  I think Matt finished 95th out of 300 in his category!  I was just glad he finished.  It looked brutal out there and to go for 50 miles! WoW!!  It took him 4 hours and 20 minutes ish!!  

Mike coming in at the finish. 

This was a fraction of the riders lined up.  600 went out at this time.   When he lined up with all these riders I suddenly got so nervous for him.  I wasn't sure how they were all going to make it up/down these trails without running into each other....and of course they didn't.  Matt got swiped by someone and it sent him flying over his handle bars.  Luckily he got away with just a bruised knee and shoulder! 

Getting started.