80, 120 and a Belt Buckle.

Every fall the Elgin Eco Association holds an event called The Tour of Elgin aka the toughest mountain bike race in Atlantic Canada. This is a mountain bike marathon race that in the past consisted of a 20km, 40km and 80km course. This year, to make things a tad more interesting, the event organizers have decided to add a 120km distance.


WHAT? A 120KM MOUNTAIN BIKE RACE!!! Why would someone in their right mind ever want to attempt such a thing? Well I can tell you why. It's called A BELT BUCKLE

Yes you read that correctly, a belt buckle. The organizers have decided to give out a pretty sweet belt buckle to the first 25 finishers of the 120km race. What might a person do with such a belt buckle? I have no idea, but a lot of people seem to want one really really bad and here lies the problem.

I'm one of those person. As of right now I'm planning on doing the 80km course which consist of two 40km loops but I haven't pre-registered for the event. In this make belief scenario that I've been having for the last 2 weeks in my mind, I'll show up in Elgin next Saturday morning on a beautiful sunny day that will be perfect for mountain biking and they will only have 24 crazy people registered for the 120km event and they will need 1 more crazy person to make it 25 and for some strange reason I'd end up volunteering for an additional 40km just to make sure they can give away all those belt buckles. We wouldn't want them to go bad before next years event? Right?

I've never done 80km's on a mountain bike in my life, let alone 120km. I've never done the Elgin 80 before, but I've done quite a bit of atving in the Elgin area and have seen some of the hills in the area. Looking at the course map, I see that the course will be traversing a lot of those same hills. Then why on earth would I even think about doing 120km. One reason and one reason only

THE BELT BUCKLE

Stay tune to find out how things go next weekend.

For more information on "The Tour of Elgin"

http://www.fundyflyingsquirrel.com/eea/Pages/events.html

To pre-register for the event visit:

http://www.atlanticchip.ca/events/details.php?show=741

Course Map

Event Sponsors:

Outdoor Elements in Sussex
The Radical Edge in Fredericton
Bikes + Beans in Saint John
Fit Works in Moncton
Giant Tiger in Fredericton
Consolvo Bikes in Moncton
East Coast Wheels in Fredericton
Marysville Place Bike Club in Fredericton