Was pretty happy with my setup, was running Rekon Race in back and Aspen in front and switched from 34 to 32 in the front, 10-52 in the back and never ran out of gears.
Only thing I would change is working brakes - I had a bike shop bleed my brakes the day before, but the rotor was rubbing against the housing (not the pad, the actual housing of the pads). When trying to fix this by resetting the pistons I think I messed up and it spilled some brake fluid at the levers. Felt very weak, but still breaking a little so I thought I’m fine.
Started in the 9+h group because I wasn’t looking for a stressful day, but didn’t take long until we rolled up to the next group and it was just a huge conga line without much passing opportunities. Was happy to take it easy in the beginning and only started really overtaking it on the climb up to Aid 1. After that found another guy who was going a similar tempo, so we stayed together for a long time and overtook people one after another. After Aid 2 (around 6:20), I was hoping for a sub 9, so pushed hard up Spiro to go for it.
The rear brakes had been an issue all day - first few descents I could get some stopping power by pumping the brakes a few times. On a long fireroad descent which got scary fast, they stopped working for the most part, but all of a sudden after that were like new - a lot of stopping power, no fussing, so I had a great time descending into Aid 2. How fun was it to have a berm/jump line in the middle of this race? Damn!
At the top of Spiro, I noticed how they didn’t work at all anymore and together with the hard effort that broke me and I gave up on the 9h. Kept pedaling, going fast on downhills were I could see far, but spent some time at the Oasis (what a great group of people) and then probably set the slowest time down the final downhill. I pulled over whenever I heard someone behind me, and in general was very slow - off camber, rocky switchbacks are just not fun without a rear brake.
Got in under 9:50, but despite the partially very frustrating experience, this is a great race! I loved the trails in Park City (managed to preride most of the course earlier in the week) and with a working break would’ve had an even greater day.
Props to everyone who finished, this was definitely a hard one, especially with the heat later in the day!