This years Furnace Creek 508 is done and results posted. Mountain bike legend Tinker "Mexican Wolf" Juarez had a great ride in his first ultra road race breaking the course record. But duathlete extraordinare Kenny "Fast Truck Gecko" Souza was 14 minutes faster to take the win. Both riders are now RAAM qualified. The 508 is a RAAM style event where follow vehicles are mandatory. Instead of race numbers, every entrant is assigned an animal "totem" that is theirs for life, as long as they actually START the event. I've always thought that it was a cool race and dream of attempting it some day. Trying to get a support vehicle and crew out there would be the biggest difficulty, aside from 508 very hot miles and 35,000 feet of climbing. Photo and logo credit - Chris Kostman.

Nevertheless its nice to see some crossover from MTB to road in these ultra endurance events. I can't help but think that Tinker would've made up those 14 minutes if he had aerobars and a haircut!

This year two entrants actually rode fixed gear bikes (they were turning 70 inch gears) which is TOTALLY beyond my comprehension. They both finished. 35,000 feet of climbing on a fixey? I thought I was nuts.

The rain/wet roads kept everyone in this AM for the 7:15 ride so I did it solo. 3 others turned out for the 8AM Contes ride. Art went retro in running shoes and old toeclips while shifting on the downtube. He still beat me up the bridge. :-(