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Pre-race Stories

Just over an hour into the 2008 Suzuki 24 Hours of Moab, the first rider from the Venus de Miles Coed team pulled in. Andrew Miller posted an impressive time of 1:16 to put the team in second place in the 5-person open division.

An hour and 45 minutes later, Miller and teammates were still waiting for racer Shannon Goddard to come in. That wasn't causing them any stress.

"We're here to have fun," team member Diana Porter said. "We're all hardcore, mountain bikers, and we're going to do our best, especially with the class we're in."

That class is the 5-Person Coed class, one of the anchors of 24 Hour racing. Along with Men's Sport, these totally amateur teams comprise more than a third of the total racers. In many ways they set the tone for the event, valuing the whole experience as much as the race.

Andrew Miller is a return racer, having participated in the second and third annual 24 Hours of Moab races, always in the 5-person coed category, placing in the top ten. Miller said the races have changed since the mid-'90s, but not much.

"It's got a little more professional presence that it did, but it's still a good time," he said.

The Venus de Miles teammates were upbeat as they watched their lead dwindle, and by the time Goddard crossed the line they were down to 12th place. If they don't regain their place, they won't be disappointed. The team was originally a women’s team, but when two of the women dropped out they picked up a couple of male riders.

That meant they could only qualify for the coed category, which requires at least one woman per team. Usually teams limit themselves to one woman for the perceived advantage, but Venus de Miles racers are unfazed by the challenge. "You never know; anything can happen," Porter said.

Given the makeup of Venus de Miles, it seems that the class may be living up to the hopes of promoter Laird Knight. "I created the coed to get more women involved in the sport there are plenty of women who usually go out riding with guys, and I wanted to find a way to rope them in."

As the riders for the 2008 Suzuki 24 Hours of Moab head out for their final laps, many of the racers are sorted out enough that many are crowding the RealTime Scoring tent to see if they may have already won. If a team is far enough ahead that they can't be caught, even by a competitor leaving just before the staging area closes at noon, they can call it 'beer time'.

However, the riders on the Women's Sport teams Vagina Power and Creekside Café will be digging deep right until the end. The two teams had been close throughout the race, but at the exchange after lap 11, Vagina Power dug deep to pull ahead by 4 minutes.

Now announcer Bruce Hildenbrand is digging deep into his thesaurus to find ways to announce the winner without blushing.