18 Hours of Fruita

By Eddie Clark  

Binion claims repeat solo victory and Team Street Swell Longboards sets high mark of 36 laps for the men’s duo win.

(May 7, 2011) FRUITA, Colo.—18 Hours of Fruita ran for the second year in a row with splendid spring weather and plenty of fun singletrack around Highline Lake State Park.  “We’ve got perfect weather, perfect trail conditions, and a perfect time out here.  The course is so much fun, it’s just like a party all the way around”, chimed race director Troy Rarick of Over The Edge Sports.

While being a cross country race at its core, fun is the modus operandi of this non-typical endurance event which is limited to 100 teams.  Teams are lumped into solo (with their much needed support crew), duo, 4 person, and 6-8 person male, female, or coed team divisions with bragging rights and some sweet schwagg going to the team who completes the most laps in under 18 hours.   

For 2011, the 6 mile course received some minor tweaking but largely was unchanged from the previous year.  The biggest change was that the new singletrack sections from the prior year were a lot more buff as was much of the course for that matter.  Top racers clocked their fastest lap times at just less than thirty minutes.

Also in a departure from previous years, this year’s start skipped the Le Mans style run and instead commenced with a neutral parade lap led by race director Rarick starting at midnite.  Once Rarick pulled off, Skyler Trujillo was quickest to the front and hammered a pace that had the field strung out leading into the dark windy singletrack around Highline Lake.

Men’s solo veteran Darin Binion completed 28 laps in 17:51 on his fully rigid Niner 29’er singlespeed to claim his second victory in as many years while Women’s solo champion Annie Fox completed 25 laps in 17:35.

Taking the cake for most laps ridden were the duo men’s team Street Swell Longboards made up of Jake Wells and Paul Gorbold who together completed 36 laps in 17:53.  “Paul and I were trading off every lap except we each did a double pull around 6am and 12pm to grab some breakfast, lunch and a little extra rest.  We were able to average just under 30 min/lap so we each did 18 laps” said Wells.

“A lot of us brought our families and just made it a great weekend of riding, racing, and enjoying the sun. We had some great support and some great results, but mostly I think everyone was just psyched to be out on their bikes in the warm Fruita weather. It's been a long winter up in the high country.”