Josh Tostado

Endurance Mountain Bike Athlete

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True Grit Epic – 2013

March 20, 2013

This year I am starting my race season a little earlier in anticipation of 24 Hour Nationals in June, so when the True Grit Epic became the season opener for the NUE series, I jumped on the opportunity. Getting ready for a race by the middle of March is not the easiest thing to do when you live in the mountains of Colorado, but I did what I could and luckily made a couple trips to the desert for some much needed training.

The weather was perfect in St. George, Utah with sunny skies and temps forecasted to be in the 80’s. I wasn’t sure how my fitness would stack up with the strong group of racers I was about to do battle with. From the start I jumped to the front to see how my pace would stack up and it seemed to be fast enough for everyone because nobody made any moves around me. After a bit of pace making I pealed off and let some other guys do some work and still the pace seamed slow. I jumped back to the front and before long it was Alex Grant and myself. We rode together for a bit then he started to pull away and I realized I had better chill out because there was a long, hard race to come.

I rode most of the first lap alone before Cary Smith, who looked to be riding really strong, joined me. I stayed with Cary for the beginning of the 2nd lap where we saw a desert tortoise wandering along the course! I started to feel fatigued and Cary slowly slipped away. I still had a good 2 hours of racing left and I needed to give it my all because I had Evan Plews and Jonathan Davis coming up behind me. I ended up holding on to 3rd place which I am very happy with given the amount of riding I had done up to this point and the strength off my competitors.

The True Grit Epic was a really fun race lots of challenging trail riding and beautiful scenery, I will definitely try to make it back next year for another go!

true grit 2013 podium

Filed Under: Race Reports

2020 Race Schedule

February 15-16th – 24 Hours Of Old Pueblo, AZ
March 14th – True Grit Epic, UT
March 28-30th – Moab Rocks Stage Race, UT – POV Filming
April 16-19th – Sea Otter Classic, CA – Working For Infinit
April 24th-26th – Whiskey 50, AZ
May 9th – 12 Hours Of Mesa Verde Duo, CO
May 16th – Royal Gorge 12 Hour, CO
June 6th – 12 Hours Of E-Rock, CO
June 20th – Baily 100, CO
June  23rd-25th – Outdoor Retailer, CO – Working For Infinit
July 25th – Butte 100, MT
July 30th-Aug 2nd – Downieville Classic, CA
August 16-21st – Breck Epic, CO – POV Filming
September 18th-20th – 12 Hours of Albuquerque, NM
October 22nd – AZT 300, AZ

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