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| Starting the ride with prayer |
The
High Pass Challenge is one of those epic rides that happens at the latter part of the cycling season, when most riders are conditioned by big-crowd rides like the STP and RSVP. It's a ride that takes them through Gifford Pinchot National Forest, including the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, climbing up a total of 7,500 feet over 57 miles and 3 mountain peaks. Then they have to make it back for a total of 114 miles.
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| At the starting gate. |
They changed the rules for the gold this year - instead of getting a gold based on your time for the whole trip, it's based only on the trip to the halfway point. Hopefully this will prevent riders from taking too much risks on the descents on the way back just to meet the time cutoff.
The good news is that most of the Mangers did get gold. Whereas last year, only 3 of them even rode the event, this year,
September 7, saw record participation from Team Mang with 11 riders. Each one had his or her own story about which part of the course they struggled with the most. It wasn't exactly a walk in the park. But they all still managed to have fun and take lots of pictures along the way.
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| Mangers, Alings and the support crew (1) at the top of the mountain - Harry V took the picture. |
Kudos to Aling Virna who provided support and Mang Harry Vejano for photo-documenting the event (pics are in Facebook).
