AR Militia Wins Open Point Series

We competed in the 12 hour Turkey Burn race over the weekend in Sorrento, Fl. Despite placing 5th at the race, we still came out on top in the Open Division for the year. Write up on the race coming soon. The trophy is badass!

Pangea Takes First At Coast To Coast

AR Militia went out to work on the support crew team for Pangea Adventure Racing's push across the state of Florida in the 2010 Coast to Coast race. Pangea ended up taking first place going 55 hours and 11 minutes (give or take) without sleep. The sleep monsters definitely got to them out but we'll let you tell them about all the strange things that they saw and did.

They left it all out there in what we hear was a very frustrating course because of the check point placement. Congratulations Greg, Mark, Allen and Katie.

Here are some pics and video of the race.











Coming in off the last 12 mile paddle before the 7 mile beach run to the finish



Coming in at the finish

Build a Bike Repair Stand

Here is a bit of documentation on how to build your own bike repair stand. These things go for 130-200 bucks in bike shops, mine was about $60. This thing is also expandable to hold more bikes if you change the base. Adding the second bike on the back requires a bit more hardware but is pretty easy.

Here's a supply list for one bike with a clamp:

1 Pony 3/4 inch pipe clamp
1 48" piece(s) of 3/4 inch galvanized pipe
2 24" piece(s) of 3/4 inch galvanized pipe
1 12" piece(s) of 3/4 inch galvanized pipe
2 1" piece(s) of 3/4 inch galvanized pipe
2 "T" 3/4 inch fittings
2 45 degree 3/4 inch elbow fittings
2 3/4" end-caps

Here are some picture of the build.

Militia Goes Training - Brian Wipes Out

Went training at Santos in Ocala this morning. Brian had a nice wipeout at the 1:20 mark. We made it to the landbridge that crosses I-75. The landbridge might be where they cross on this year's 10 year anniversary Coast to Coast race later this year. We ran in to Team GreenPaw at the end of the day who were out there training (read: scouting). We are all looking forward to the Superhero race in a month.

A Luminescent Adventure

The folks at Pangea Adventure Racing hosted the Luminescent AR this past weekend, and since we could not compete in it as a team (due to scheduling conflicts), I decided to do the next best thing and volunteer myself to staff the race. The Luminescent was a night race, called so because of the unicellular plankton in the Indian River Lagoon that luminesce when the water is disturbed by boats, paddles or fish, which makes for a really cool paddle at night. The elite race started at 9pm, the sport race started at 1am and both ended at 5am.

Navigating the course at night, through freshly soaked terrain proved to be a fantastic challenging as no elite or sport teams were able to clear either the 8hr or 4hr courses within the allotted time. The course may have beaten the races, but that didn’t stop them from thoroughly enjoying the race. After the race, Pangea directors/staff heard lots of comments from racers about how much fun they had and how cool the bioluminescence was while paddling the waterway. Many racers, especially elite racers, expressed how much they enjoyed the challenge of the course.

After the awards presentation, just before dawn, Ron Eaglin and I paddled the sport and elite courses to retrieve the buoys and CP markers. We were able to catch a few minutes of the bioluminescence before dawn, also for the majority of our paddle in the main Indian River waterway; we were constantly surrounded by pods of dolphins. We think they may have been playing with the race buoys, as we were unable to locate and retrieve one, even with the assistance of GPS.

We missed out this year, but the Luminescent will definitely be on AR Militia’s race schedule next year.

AR Militia Takes First Place At The Nocturnal

AR Militia took first place in the 18-Hour adventure race known as the Nocturnal Challenge in St. Cloud, Fl over the weekend. Completed the course in 15 hours and 39 minutes. The top three teams were separated by a mere 10 minutes. Team Super Frogs and Team Fl Extreme took second and third places respectively. We hear they had quite a battle on the last trek and sprinted the last two miles down a sandly road for the finish. Congrats guys (and girls) and to all the other racers who came out there and battled the night.

Here's a picture of our split times:

Here's some video from our race. This was shot on the HD Hero Cam which shoots 1080p and is waterproof to 180'. It's a pretty baddass little device.

Orlando Mountain Bike Park Underway

Our team headed out this past Saturday to help with clearing the landed that is going to become Orlando's first (and only) mountain bike park. We were there for about 3 hours in the sweltering heat clearing vegetation. There was a tremendous turnout with well over 75 people, congratulations to the promoter for making this such a great event. In September the course designer is going to lay out the course. We hear that initially it will consist of a long yellow loop (easy) with off-shoots on to harder tracks. The second phase will expand the project so that the trails will actually run through the old military barracks and some dirt pump tracks.

Here's a link to the facebook page for more information.

Pics of the clean-up: