Driving into Bishop you're greeted with a ring of mountains that soar to incredible heights, seemingly insurmountable. After the race and driving away, they seem a bit smaller.

For those that don't know about the race, its a two-day stage timed race that starts and finishes in the Owens valley, and each day you climb up to the top of three different mountain summits (two of which are over 10,000') and descend back to the start. Day 1 is about 15,000' of climbing and 102 miles of riding. Day 2 is only 13,000', but you cram that all within 65 miles.

There's not much to share about either day, the first day I cracked spectacularly with 10km to go, climbing highway 168 up a 5000' monster to south lake. This is where your competition challenges you, digging within yourself to find the motivation to continue on and finish the stage. The field of 25 starters came apart on the first climb to Mosquito Flat, and I was caught somewhere in the middle, so I ended up riding the majority of the stage alone. The next 5 hours I only saw one other Pro12 rider, and caught all of the Cat4/5s and women (they started about 45 minutes in front of us). At 10k to go (only 2000' more climbing!), cramps, then some pretty serious fatigue and bonk unlike any other. Almost stopped the bike and chucked it over the side of the 3000' sheer cliff. Slammed the remainder of my gels and soldiered on thru the thunderstorm and fatigue and finished 12th on the stage, about 30 minutes back from the leader.

Day two went much better, the first climb of the day I felt was the most difficult of all, 10 miles at 8% up to a freakin' glacier (the Palisades Glacier, one of the last ones remaining in the Sierras). A smaller group of 8 got in front of me on this one, but I connected with a few other guys and actually had some company. Got dropped on the 60mph descent back to the valley but caught them on the second climb, the easy 2600' grinder at only 4%. Caught a few that cracked from the lead group, and started up the final 6200' beast to the Bristle Cone Forest. Dropped my companions and practically soared up this one, and rolled across the line in 6th or 7th place on the day. Unfortunately not enough time was made up to move up much in GC, I think i jumped two spots for 10th overall.

My time for day 2 would have been the 3rd fastest ever if I was in the Masters 35+ (a 4:38 effort), but amongst the little tiny P12 climbers I was pretty happy with this one. My main companion for the day was a big tall Reno guy (Mike Taylor) rocking a sweet mullet, we leapfrogged the last two climbs and he finally pulled away from me in the last mile.

While sitting at 10,100' with the boys, cheering on the finishers and enjoying the view, i realized that I'll be back next year...I love this race.