• How do you train for a 24 hour race? [62 messages]
• How do you organize your support crew? [11 messages]
• What items would you include on "The Best List of Supplies" for a 24 hour event? [20 messages]
• Night riding tips and strategies [21 messages]
• What's the best strategy to determine a team's riding order? [17 messages]
• Are 2-way radios a good idea? [21 messages]
• Which is the hardest course and why? Snowshoe, Canaan, Tahoe, Donner or Moab? [31 messages]
• If you had only one choice between a head lamp or bike mount which would you choose? [33 messages]
• What discussion topics would you like to see? [12 messages]
• What camping gear would you pack for a 24 Hour event? What essential items would you bring? [12 messages]
• What tires would be suitable for riding slick, wet roots? [24 messages]
• What type of bike would you choose to ride at Snowshoe? Hardtail, Full Suspension, Single Speed, Fixed Gear or Other? [28 messages]
• Is the comfort of a suspension seatpost worth the weight? [15 messages]
• It's about the ride....... [2 messages]

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This topic is: Which is the hardest course and why? Snowshoe, Canaan, Tahoe, Donner or Moab?

Thoughts in this topic

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Name: David Hewes
Email: supernurse@comcast.net
Date: Wed, Apr 15, 2009, 10:11:06
Message:
By far and away Snowshoe. Not your typical x country course, more like cyclocross with an attitude.

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Name: Tim
Email: tcasari@hotmail.com
Date: Fri, Sep 29, 2006, 19:36:58
Message:
Snowshoe 2001 was no picnic either! The rain stopped for the race, but the course was trashed. 4" mud through the woods; Mmm, good fun.

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Name: R Down
Email: radown2@hotmail.com
Date: Sat, Jul 01, 2006, 02:03:35
Message:
Any description of the course for Moab? How technical, how much singletrack vs. wide-track, etc.? If anybody has links to various photos of the course that would be appreciated. You could either email me or post here. Thanks...

Yes indeed, bring back Tahoe/Northstar- that course was wicked fun. Temecula is also a blast... some long, fast rollercoaster downhills.

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Name: king woody
Email: brfra@yahoo.com
Date: Wed, Mar 08, 2006, 19:20:54
Message:
The toughest course I have ridden was hands down Tahoe (Northstar). I have done all the course except Snowshoe, which I had teammates that did the course and said Northstar was not as technical, but overall much more demanding physcially. Starting elevation almost 8000' with over 2000' climbing per lap. No rest in the downhills, really technical and rooty/rocky, last 2 miles is in a ravine full of rocks, bridge crossings, and tree branches!! PLEASE BRING IT BACK!!!!!!!

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Name: cole baldwin
Email: coleslaw_wetjet@hotmail.com
Date: Fri, Oct 07, 2005, 00:42:58
Message:
I sure hope it is the moab course because it was hard as helllllll!

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Name: greg leschisin
Email: travelswithgreg@hotmail.com
Date: Thu, Sep 22, 2005, 15:43:41
Message:
Moab course -please pass on description if you're knowledgeble about the course. Is it Technical? Wide? Tight? Hilly? Thanks!

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Name: mtnmanin2fun
Email: scottspayroll@msn.com
Date: Wed, Sep 07, 2005, 23:23:29
Message:
Whats the camping situation like ie can you easily pull a small 17' trailer "casita" and find some space?

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Name: dave
Email: david5616@hotmail.com
Date: Sat, Jun 04, 2005, 22:24:14
Message:
the toughest by far: Snowshoe 2000

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Name: HEATHER WILLIAMS
Email: WILLIAMSH@M.OGDEN.K12.UT.US
Date: Tue, Apr 26, 2005, 15:56:35
Message:
HOW DO YOU TRAIN FOR THE 24HOURS OF MOAB (TEAM)?

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Name: B_TeamMom
Email: b@bferraro.com
Date: Tue, Mar 15, 2005, 09:47:41
Message:
Hardest course on the planet by far is Snowshoe 2000. Fastest course ever is Moab. Most fun course was the original Davis. Every lap should start and finish with a river crossing!

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Name: jay
Email: jr@teamheat.us
Date: Sun, Jan 02, 2005, 00:34:18
Message:
HEY SARA THE TEMECULA COURSE IS FAST ROCKY AND FULL OF HILLS. BECAUSE OF THE FIRES THEIR STILL ISNT MUCH VEGETATION. THE INITIAL CLIMB IS TOUGH AND THE DOWNHILLS ARE TECHNICAL. OVERALL A VERY FUN COURSE AND DEFINATELY CHALLENGING

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Name: SARA
Email: swildes@aol.com
Date: Wed, Nov 10, 2004, 13:45:17
Message:
Can anyone describe the Temecula course? I'm eyeing it up for my 2005 solo debut. Thanks

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Name: Mark
Email: mlscheetz@msn.com
Date: Sun, Apr 18, 2004, 19:41:29
Message:
Hey aussie football legend - you gave my brother much needed water today, thanks. I hope a skinned know wont keep you off the course next week. Come on out and play with the tough guys. You're the Australian Rules football legend, this just a little bike ride. Nice chatting with you.

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Name: aussie football legend
Email: dusting@sbcglobal.net
Date: Sun, Apr 18, 2004, 18:31:02
Message:
I just started mountain biking when I was told at age 41 my aussie football career was over, due to a disturbing lack of carteledge(sic). So I het a mtb bike and ride for years around the easy Rose Canyon area in SD. Today I preride the Temecula course, and I think you're all nuts! Being 43 with no other skill other than being a mailman, one fall and I lose my house! THAT'S TOUGH!

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Name: Mike W.
Email: mcwarn1122@aol.com
Date: Wed, Mar 05, 2003, 20:19:45
Message:
All races in West Virginia. Yeh, I was weaned on WV racing but I've
also lived in Colorado the last six years and no, nothing out here
compares to WV. Sure the high alltidude training can't be beat.
I've raced on all three courses of the 24HoursofCanaan/Snowshoe
series. From the 1992 inaugural in Davis, to Timberline, to the first
in Snowshoe in 2000. 9 in a row.
Davis had the thigh high river crossings; lunar landscapes that suck
in front wheels; road width puddles that could be anywhere from 3"
deep to a foot and half (no telling in the dark); the unkown: first
generation lighting systems, untested strategies, 33 teams - rarely
seeing another rider on a lap. Spooky.
Timberline 1995 or '96. The year it rained. It actually rained the whole
night before and right when the cannon went off. The rest of the time
it was just nasty tacky mud. Lucky for me on one of my laps it DID
rain and it washed the mud off the bike. People still ask me about that
year. Yes, there were people "pulling" their mud laden bikes DOWN hill.
One sat in the mud next to her bike in the dark and said, "Oh I'm fine.
I'm just gonna wait a couple of hours till the sun comes up." Lighting
systems gave out because the lap times just took too long.
Snowshoe 1999. It was a new course with newly made singletrack.
Clear away tree branches through a dense woods and you're riding
over thick decomposing leaves. Have thousands of mountain bikers
ride over this many, many times and now you've got very a fine wet
compost of leaves with roots poking through. Repeat over and over
and the roots seem to rise out of the ground and what was once leaves
is now a fine slippery paste.
I've also raced in Northern Cali, and Moab. (not 24Hours, my team
was based back East.) Any 24 hour race is challenging. But, I'll never
forget the NORBA National held in Davis, WV in 1988 and all the big
pros were there. Racers were just starting to use toe clips then. The
grumblings we "locals" heard from some of our "western" mountain
bike heroes were things like, "I can't belive how much you've got to
get off the bike." And, "What about all these ***ing river crossings."
Slog on mateys.

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Name: Douglas Few
Email: dfew@irobot.com
Date: Thu, Jun 20, 2002, 11:07:05
Message:
The toughtest course in the east has to be the course in Davis, WV. The second year in Davis the high temp for the day was about 40 degrees, It rained a little, snowed a little, the course was grueling, you had to cross that damn river 4 times per lap, your tent and a roach coach where the only accomodations.

Timberline was not technical.

I am waiting for favorible weather to pass judgement on Snowshoe. DEspite the weather the facility and parking stink.

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Name: steven
Email: steve5555@yahoo.com
Date: Wed, Jun 19, 2002, 22:39:28
Message:
Snowshoe 2000, hands down- nasty nasty nasty

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Name: Joel Gwadz/of GWADZILLA
Email: jjgwadz@bellatlantic.net
Date: Wed, May 22, 2002, 21:52:38
Message:
Which was the hardest course?
Answering which year offered the hardest race or which year did mother nature make the course the knarliest well...these are all different questions.
The answer should be a multiple choice answer.
But it is not that easy.
I have raced several years at Canaan, once at Moab, once at Donner, and each year at Snowshoe. Each race was a life altering event in its own, Moab was one week before my marriage while last year's Snowshoe was a week before the birth of my son. Do these external factor change how I measure which is the hardest course? No. Then why am I telling you this? Because the race is not always just that weekend, the race is the months of riding (or not riding), the sacrifies made, and the experiences gained. Oh and which course is the hardest? That would be the one that you are on at 3:30 in the morning when one of your lights are dying and your choice to sleep more and eat less is starting to backfire. YOU JUST BONKED! That would be the hardest course.

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Name: Canaan Lover
Email: giant@aol.com
Date: Wed, Mar 06, 2002, 13:52:26
Message:
Canaan 1995!!! Was the absolute hardest ever hands down! If you weren't there then you've really never been truely tortured. Never stopped raining. You couldn't ride because the mud would clog between your seat stays, fork and wheels. It was amazing as all of the Canaan races were. Too bad they moved to Snowshoe and attendance is down. Snowshoe is just not any fun compared to the freak show camping at Canaan. I miss it so much. West Coast is nice and dry and smooth, not very challenging.

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Name: CC
Email: Not Available
Date: Wed, Feb 27, 2002, 20:54:48
Message:
If you can't ride, run...If you can't run,walk...If you can't walk, crawl...But by almeans keep moving. No matter which coarse your on keep this mindset. It makes them all equal.

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Name: dave
Email: dave3456@yahoo.com
Date: Mon, Feb 11, 2002, 20:39:01
Message:
if you have to ask...

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Name: caleb enright
Email: freeagent00726146@yahoo.com
Date: Fri, Feb 01, 2002, 06:59:57
Message:
24hrs of Snow Shoe was the most awsome riding ive ever seen although i didnt get to race it, we tried to register to late. i did ride it w/ a friend of mine the entire course. it was verrry technical wich my friend and i were quite used to we like the more trials type riding and some parts of the track could of passed for a trials course. im going to trie to race it this year so i hope they havent changed to much

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Name: Rich K
Email: kendallrw3@yahoo.com
Date: Fri, Oct 19, 2001, 21:03:00
Message:
Canaan was the hardest as it required all around skills (climbs, big ring roads, cold showers, no ATM's, BIG JOHN's pizza, and by far the funnest downhill!! No downhill is how to end a race!! Oh yeah,, THE PARKING WAS BETTER!!
See you in Snowshoe 02.

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Name: Steve Johanson
Email: sjohanson@yahoo.com
Date: Wed, Jun 20, 2001, 10:13:15
Message:
Its too bad 2001 Snowshoe was so technical that most of it was faster to run than bike. I heard that one triathalete team hadn't been on their mountain bikes all year and they finished very well.

My best lap time was 1:36 and I never rode any singletrack. Kinda sad.

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Name: Old Fashion
Email: no@no.sorry
Date: Fri, Jun 08, 2001, 11:47:32
Message:
I liked Cannan because it introduced the world to 24hour racing. It's a shame that Cannan couldn't equate Showshoes offers. Perhaps it is just going to take me a while to get used to saying "24 hours of Showshoe" over "24 hours of Cannan," but there is definately a place in all past-racers hearts for the begning of it all!

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Name: d
Email: dstewart@pkgconsult.com
Date: Mon, Jun 04, 2001, 08:36:48
Message:
Snowshoe 2000 was the most difficult mountainbike race course I have ever seen. Not just for a 24 hr course, for ANY race course. It truly was a test of your technical skills and your ability to keep a cool head while you and your bike scream down (ok, most guys walked) the ugliest sigletrack I have ever seen. Ive ridden Sedona, AZ, California, West Va, Va, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, New York , PA, maryland, Indiana. Snowshoe was UGLY.

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Name: Monkeyboy
Email: earthy@earthlink.net
Date: Fri, Jun 01, 2001, 13:02:24
Message:
I ran Cannan in 99 and Snowshoe in 00. Cannan was a racer's course with short technical areas fast flats, a long climb and the finest screaming technical downhill finist ever. Snowshoe is a mental marathon requiring constant concentration to manage the nearly unridable wet roots and rocks. Snowshoe is harder and risker.

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Name: MF
Email: Not Available
Date: Thu, Apr 26, 2001, 13:47:25
Message:
Haven't done any of the courses except Snowshoe. Last year I first crashed at the part just after the long fire road where you turn right into the woods (about 2 miles or so in). Cracked my helmet but, thankfully, didn't damage my lights. Crashed again about a half-hour later on a wet rock. Decided from then on to walk the really technical sections whereupon I understood Laird's pre-race email calling the race "more of an adventure race than a mountain bike race". I overheard one guy describing the course as "like taking all the furniture out of your living room, throwing it in a pile and spraying it with a hose, then riding over it". 'Bout sums it up.

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Name: Kev- Mountain Trail Builders of Nevada
Email: trails@bigplanet.com
Date: Mon, Apr 16, 2001, 21:36:16
Message:
The Sierra-

• if you're a flat-lander, allow for altitude adjustment.
• bring plenty of layers, 40 degree temp changes are not uncommon.
• it can snow here every month of the year.
• the black bears prefer honey/oat power bars.
• ... have fun!

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Name: Josh Frick
Email: cj7forme@hotmail.com
Date: Fri, Mar 02, 2001, 14:52:18
Message:
It doesnt matter they're all fun.Snowshoe is what mountain biking is about.If you want to cry about roots, rocks and mud get a razor scooter and stay in the driveway.

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Name: Doug Hoch
Email: dhoch@gsinet.net
Date: Mon, Feb 12, 2001, 12:21:22
Message:
Snowshoe was the hardest course ever known to mankind. Wet roots, rocks, people standing on the course in a daze at night,mud,and did I mention, wet roots.