Adventure Racing

The idea sounds interesting for me, but I don't have a mountain bike, and rather than investing in a decent one I would buy upgrades for my current bike... I have a friend who wants to get me into this, but the closest I could get to adventure racing would be the SOS race in the Gunks. For this, I have to get qualifying times at my HIM and win their admission lottery.<br><br>
Stitch, there are adventure races that take 6 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours... or days. Probably you wouldn't start with the multi-days one. My friend did one that took him 24 hours and several times fell asleep on the side of the road, involuntarily. Once, he says he even fell asleep upright on his bike, leaning against a tall vertical cliffside.

Jim brings up an interesting issue... the AR culture. I got th general feeling that, like roadies, they're a bit full of themselves, and arrogant towards the other.<br><br>
For example, I was with a friend in Washington for the MCM Marathon, and he met a few AR friends of his... and they were like "wtf, are you gonna waste your time (and money!!??) running 26 miles on a road?".<br><br>
I figured that the AR guys measure everything in $/hour. Paying $100 for 4h is insane to them, since they can pay $500 for 24h, and a trail $1 is worth triple a road $1.

RandMart, I meant it the other way around... meaning a road $1 is worthless compared to a trail $1.