Macky Franklin Blog: Breck Epic Final Stage

First things first, I won! I am now officially the 2012 Single Speed Stage Race World Champion! And in true World Champion style I will be wearing something with rainbow stripes on it for any single speed stage races I do in the next year (hopefully there will be at least one).

Today's stage started out nice and slow due to Dax Massey, two other single speeders and myself creating a wall at the front of the pack to keep the neutral start that way. But shortly before we turned off the pavement, Brady Kappius attacked and put a solid gap on me that took me 15 minutes to close. At that point I decided to launch a counter-attack since I was worried he might do it again towards the end if we rode together. And it was successful. I don't know what the final time was, but I rolled into the finish first, clenching the overall win!

This is my third time racing Breck Epic and it was the best year yet! The race went smoothly and the people who attended were even cooler than the usual Breck-Epic-attending crowd. I met a bunch of new people and saw a bunch of old friends. One of the highlights was having such a close race with Brady and getting to spend so much time riding (and walking) with him.

Last (but definitely not least), the REEB was AWESOME! Especially paired with the Gates Carbon Drive. It climbed well, handled the descents well and dealt with mud better than any bike I've ever ridden. It was nice and quiet, strong, and had great engagement. I quickly learned to just ignore it and was able to focus on cranking up the climbs instead of worrying about mis-shifting or my chain breaking. Single speeding is FUN!

Pre-race thoughts

Post-race thoughts