Kirkland leads local charge on 24 Hours in Moab

Sets new course record and world record

It was a trail of broken bikes, broken collarbones and broken records for Gunnison Valley riders at the 24 Hours of Moab USA Cycling 24-Hour National Championships last weekend.

Hopes were high heading into the event, with the Brick Oven/Crested Butte Builders (BO/CBB) riders forming a stout four-person singlespeed team for a shot at the title. Team Alpine Orthopaedics (AO) rallied together some of the top racers in the valley for their bid and AO soloist Jari Kirkland returned for her shot at a fourth Moab title.
When the dust cleared, things didn’t quite fall into place for the two men’s teams as BO/CBB dropped out with a broken collarbone and broken bike and the AO four-man team fell short of their goal. Meanwhile, Kirkland had some issues of her own but battled through to take the women’s solo title—her fourth 24 Hours of Moab title—set a new course record of 15 laps, and become the 2010 women’s solo 24-hour national champion.
It was a fitting close to the 2010 riding season for Kirkland, who opened it back in April by taking the 12 Hours of Mesa Verde solo women’s title.
She followed that effort with an extensive and “fairly successful” stint riding in the mountain states cup race series, ultimately finishing in sixth place in the overall points standings.
Meanwhile, she also took the 2010 Breckenridge 100 women’s title.
In addition, she joined a team from Sweden to win the Costa Rica Adventure Race in August, one of five stops on the adventure race world series.
“I just wanted to have a real good season all year,” says Kirkland.
It was a bit of redemption for Kirkland, who crashed on the second lap of the race last year and was forced out.
“I knew I was in shape enough to do well and I had my goals in mind,” says Kirkland.
Her goals were not only to win, but also ride 15 laps for a new course record.
She started out even with another rider on the first lap but soon took over in front during the second lap.
It wasn’t until 1:30 a.m. when things took a turn for Kirkland. After plowing through a bowl of oatmeal, she headed back out on course. During that lap, the oatmeal turned against Kirkland and when she came back through transition, she emptied her stomach.
“At the next transition I proceeded to projectile vomit everything up,” says Kirkland. “I basically took the next three laps to recover. I just cranked it out.”
Fortunately, her lead was large enough that the title was relatively secure, but 15 laps still hung in the balance until daybreak.
“Once the sun comes up, your world changes and things start to look brighter,” explains Kirkland.
She turned in three laps in a row at a pace of one hour, 45 minutes to reach her final goal of 15 laps.
“I had plenty of time to ride 15, so why not?” says Kirkland.
Furthermore, the race venue was designated as a world record site, so Kirkland is now the women’s world record holder for miles ridden in 24 hours, finishing with a total of 223.5 miles on her bike.
The four-person AO pro team of Travis Scheefer, Jon Brown, Dave Ochs and Ethan Passant came into Moab hot with big plans. Unfortunately, the plans fell apart as the race wore on.
“Expectations were high, however legs just dictated otherwise,” says Ochs.
The AO team was in third place early on but as night hit, the lead teams kept building the gap on the rest of the field. Once morning broke, the leaders were still pounding out lightning-fast laps as AO hung on for a fifth-place finish with 21 laps.
“They turned in a couple sub-hour laps,” says Ochs. “Everything went well for us—we just didn’t have that top end.”
Things started off good for the BO/CBB squad of Ben Preston, Dan Loftus, Aaron Huckstep and Tim Kugler. Each rider on the team picked an inflatable toy to join them for each lap on their bikes but that didn’t hold them up. Rather, it was slight confusion with the rules. Event rules stipulated that singlespeed category was also rigid, as in no suspension. While the BO/CBB team rode rigid singlespeeds, the rest of the teams apparently got the late message that suspension was permitted and lined up with suspension on their singlespeeds.
They came out charging, battling for the lead during the first day but fell apart during the night.
“During the daylight we were able to hang,” says Preston. “Then night hit and we realized the rigid singlespeed was the scariest thing ever.”
Things started unraveling during a night lap for Huckstep when the race announcer called out to the team for a ghost rider. Thinking Huckstep was helping another rider, the team sent out Loftus to take over. Loftus texted Preston informing him that he was out.
“We all had cell phones with us in case all hell broke loose,” says Preston. “I called Dan and he said, ‘I’m hurt pretty bad and my handlebars broke.’”
At that point Preston found out that Huckstep was not assisting anyone but in need of assistance himself as a crash had broken his collarbone. Down two riders, the BO/CBB team opted to bow out rather than push their luck any further.
“Needless to say, we quickly lost time on our competitors,” says Preston. “We decided to console our comrades rather than try to be heroes. The inflatable doll may have saved Dan’s life.”