Outrigger Hotels Tour O' Hawaii MTB Races

The Outrigger Hotels Mountain Tour O' Hawaii is a series of stage races held on March 26-30, 1997. The events consisted of a prologue event, (pros only) a time trial through Aloha Tower Market Place (a shopping mall) in Honolulu, times trials, downhill, cross country and criterium events. The stage races were open to amateur racers as well. There were soooo many contests, I will show pix of some of the best mountain bikers and the events they were in. They will be sponsoring other major sports events too. The 98 Tour O' Hawaii will be held on March 12-15. But first, a look at the cross country course, the event I participated in.

Open single track with the Koolau Mountains in the background. (the site for the movie Jurasic Park)

Greg, from Oahu and Matt, from Maui, pause while checking out the course.

Matt contemplating this muddy rooty section.

Just out of view here the hill gets STEEP. I crashed hard here at the last race. I wanted to practice this run and get it down right. Anyways, on race day, after a couple days of showers, the course was so muddy and slick, I gave up counting the number of times I went down including several spills on this hill. Maybe next time.

Here I am "on the lawn".

Oh my poor Cannondale! The mud was the most I've ever been in. About 2 miles from the finish line, my rear Kore "Elite" skewer broke causing the dropout to break. The derailleur pretzel-ed into the spokes and the hub on the Crossland wheel set broke. With the rear wheel jammed, I ran, carried and dragged the bike to the finish line. Despite this, I made it to the podium taking second place in my category. When Thomas Frishknecht looked at the sorry state of my steed, he commented, "awesome man".

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