Bike 5:35:00 [3] 30.0 mi (5.4 mph)
shoes: Era
Time to reverse down the ATV trail back to the TA. At this point, everyone's feet were trashed from being wet so long. I should have relubed. Didn't. My feet hurt so bad it was hard to stand up and pedal, and my butt etc were so bruised/chafed I could barely sit down. Hurt so good. I now have a staph infection from saddle sores. TMI? Good. It got better once we passed the TA and got on roads. We chose to skip CP38 on the other side of the range at the bottom. I had traveled to that bridge in 2012 for a CP, and it was a 45min/1200' climb on fresh legs. We traded places with No Boundaries for a bit on the way to the well-traveled Veach Gap. Trekked to CP41 from the bottom of Veach in bike shoes. Then up and over. We hiked the majority of it then bombed down the other side. Chris and I stripped off layers before the road ride to the low water bridge. After we hit the end of the downhill road section, Chris realized he didn't have the E-punch. He took it off when he changed shirts. Back up to the Veach gate. Once retrieved, we made it to the finish, just under 2 hours before the cutoff. We had 4 CPs left in the park. Piece of cake right? This is where the wheels fell off. After the river CP, we climbed Allen's Mountain instead of going to the loop further north. We had to bushwack down/up/down/up to the CP we missed. Less than an hour and still 2 CPs to go. From Allen's Mtn, we needed to bikewack over to the final CP. Nav had fallen apart, and we were in trouble. Things got desperate, and we had to bail, wack to the road, and sprint the gravel to the finish, crossing with 9min to spare. We missed 2 CPs total, while NYARA and No Boundaries left 3. Rev3 FTW! Dramatic finish for sure. I pushed Fritz super hard to get us to the finish from that missed CP, and he answered. My teammates are awesome. No more Epic for me. With all the hike a bike, Epic was definitely the more challenging race. I'm less sore after this one but more worn out immediately after. Could just be residual fatigue from back-to-backs :)