After the Victory at the Clasica Coyote in Mexico, my buddy Alfredo and I spent a few days in Chiapas touring around before it was time to get out of the country before our 7-day free visas expired. Alfredo took the excess luggage and 5 busses back home to Xela, while I loaded up my Apidura bike packing bags and rode 255 km to HueHuetenango in Guatemala. The following day I pedalled the Hei Hei up a big offroad climb to the Cuchutamane mountains to spend a few days in the high altitude at 10,800 feet. This time was spent on a Llama farm with the local family, biking up to the highest non-volcanic point in Central America, La Torre Peak (12,450 feet), and resting up for the next race, “King of the Machines” back down in HueHue on Sunday.
Race day for the 30 km “King of the Machines” started early at 5:15 am with a coffee with the Llama farmer before descending 4500 vertical feet, 28km to race start. Making good time I opted to detour to explore some trails before reaching the start at 7:20 to meet my buddy Giovanni. Gio had brought my race gear from Xela. I ditched the Apidura bags, checked the pressure in my Maxxis Aspen and Rekon tires, put on my 7Mesh race kit, and toed the line with 200+ other riders from across Guatemala.
It was a fast start with riders sprinting off the gun. Being a shorter 30km race, I had to be careful not to hang back too much but tried to conserve energy until the opening 10-minute climb. Here I geared down, passing rider by rider, eventually catching the leader Julio at the top.
Julio is in his twenties and one of Guatemala’s top young guns. We had a great back-and-forth battle all race, being evenly matched on both the climbs and descents. The rolling course was all on dirt roads with some great vistas of the surrounding agricultural land with Volcano Tajumulco (4203m), Central Americas highest point, looming in the distance.
Having pre-ridden the course with my friend Adiel on Friday, I knew the finish and attacked on a downhill with 4 km to go. Having watched Julio descend throughout the race I figured I had an ever so slight advantage. Hitting a couple of tight switchbacks on the limit, nearly washing out myself, I came out with a gap which was extended on the final little climb and flat 1km stretch to the finish line. It was nice to take a 3rd straight victory after a couple of heavy 26-28 hour training weeks across Mexico and Guatemala. The race was harder than expected, and the body needed some convincing this was the last hard effort for a while before some rest, digging pretty deep.
After the race, we toured around historic city of HueHue, attended the awards, then loaded up in Gios pickup for the 1.5hr drive back to home base in Xela. It will be nice to settle in for a few rest days before the next solid training block here in the highlands.
