LBL Adventure Challenge – 24 Hours

Tecnu Win LBL Adventure Challenge

Garret Bean / 30.03.2012

Tecnu Adventure Racing arrived in Nashville at 11:00pm on Thursday night for the Bonk Hard Race Series - 24 Hour LBL Adventure Challenge. The team consisted of Kyle Peters and Garret Bean from northern California, Ryan Ognibene from Boulder, CO, and Mindy Fernando from Michigan. This was to be the first time these four had EVER raced together before.  It was the the first race of the 2012 season for Tecnu's new domestic squad, and expectations were high.

On Friday afternoon, after another quick stop at the Waffle House, the boys met up with Mindy, the new Queen of the Machine,at the Paris Landing Inn. The stage was set in a room overlooking the lakes and it was time to unpack and get the gear ready. The bikes came out of the bike boxes and after a quick rebuild it was evident that the airport had done damage and the pulley on my derailleur was broken in transit and Kyle’s brakes that were recently serviced weren’t grabbing like they should. Rather than risk broken parts on the trail and losing control on the bike, it was time to do some shopping. I headed into town and found a bike shop that got me a pulley and worked on Kyle’s brakes for about 2.5 hours. Meantime the rest of the team was assembling gear, sleeping, and eating.

We reconvened at 7 PM that night, got our gear wrapped up, and headed to the pre-race briefing. As expected, everyone there knew Kyle from his two years at the helm as Captain of Tecnu. Mindy, Ryan, and I were relatively unknowns and some thought we were brought over from the Tough Mudder series. It was great seeing the teams that we knew about, the ones that we have raced against in the past and a lot of new faces for some of us. The course had been set; it was a trek, to bike, to paddle, to orienteering course, to bike, to paddle, to trek, to bike. A lot of transitions that would make organization and planning a key part in the race. Earring Doug Judson, Tecnu Team Manager, was tracking all of this from Nor-Cal and relaying the briefings to the friends and sponsors of team Tecnu.

At 7:25 am Saturday morning, there were 120 adventure racers singing the national anthem, although I’m sure the campers in the nearby State Park were not appreciative of our early morning revelry. We lined up at the gate and bolted out at the proverbial gun, some racers yelled go. The teams were off and Tecnu bolted to the front. We went up and a little off trail and down a mountain. Within the first five minutes we had lost our passport … whoops. Well so much for the blistering start. We doubled back and went searching, contemplating whether or not to get a new one from headquarters. After some searching on the hillside, we found it; the passport was never put in the cursed pocket again.