A recap of the havoc that was the Five-O.

Well, I did it. I finished the Dakota Five-O having mostly fun and I am not nearly as beat up as last year. As a matter of fact, I am going for a ride this afternoon, so that should say something. Perry Jewett and crew put on quite the event in Spearfish every year. Very impressive and it shows in the numbers, as there were over 400 entrants this year, up over 100 from last year!

As I mentioned, I had "mostly fun". In a 50 mile race, it is inevitable that a person will question why the hell they got themselves into this mess. And for sure, there were some moments when I was questioning my sanity. I mean, really, who in their right mind gets on a bike with 400 of their closest friends and try to beat each other to the finish line on some seriously rocky, gnarly terrain, with almost 7000' of climbing thrown in? Well, I guess 400 of us crazy bastards do it.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I did crash twice on the Citadel Slide, which had NOTHING to do with the PBR I chugged about 1/2 mile prior. A few scrapes on my leg were all the damage to report. In addition, good friends the Princess and her husband, B, (the Prince?) did the race too, and finished strong. As an added bonus, B sent me a beautiful picture of his scraped up ass from his crash, making him look like some sort of a baboon in heat. Nice.

Last thing on the race was probably my most proud moment of the whole day. As is tradition, sometime after the race is mostly over (except for the people out touring and not participating in the whole race thing) there is a kids race. My son waffled about whether he was going to race or not, finally deciding just before it started that he was going to. As an addendum to the plot of this, he just learned to ride his bike about a month ago. He entered into the 7-12 year old group. He was probably the only one in the pack on a 16" wheeled bike. Most of the rest of the field were riding 20" and 24" wheels. Two laps around the park and they were off! After the dust settled, the kids all did 3 laps and my son ripped around each lap in 4th place (of about 20 or so kids)! He did great, especially considering the disadvantage he had with the smaller wheels. There were no "awards" for the kids, but I was (as was every other parent) keeping track of where he was in the pack and how he finished.

So, while that took you about 4 minutes to read, it took all of 10 hours or so to do. You're welcome...