Race Recap - El Paso Puzzler 2025
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The race started off down a chunky jeep road. As we took a right turn towards the mountains, we were taking on a serious headwind where I found a group of 4-5 riders off of the front group. We turned off into some fun, flow single-track and eventually made our way into some punchy techy, climbing. The group I was in included, Syd, who you know if you’ve followed Syd and Macky. I’d end up hanging on to Syds wheel for about half the race because it felt like a really strong steady effort. We had people kind of yo-yoing around our group and I felt like Syd was a kind of constant beacon for me not to get caught up in that. I think we ended up catching maybe a handful of riders in the first 12 miles.
There were a few tricky spots that had us jumping off the bike to get through on the way up but the first descent down the backside of the mountain range was the most treacherous part of the course. Hair-pin switch backs, off-camber, and super rocky. I had a pretty nasty pedal strike on a rock on the uphill side in this section but luckily just slowed me down for a second.
At the bottom of the descent, I grabbed a fresh bottle at the first aid station and we made our way another 10 miles or so through mostly more climbing. I thought, oh yeah, I should try to eat some food. It felt like a the first time in the race where it was somewhat comfortable to take a hand off the bars to eat and drink.
We went through one more aid station at mile 22 just before the biggest climb up to “Mundy’s Gap”. I grabbed a fresh bottle, stripped off some extra clothing, and headed up the climb that was about 3 miles long. Making my way up the road climb I had a conversation with another rider and we discovered that we were both in the same a.g. category. I’d already planned to hit the upcoming climb hard but this gave me a little more motivation to put in a big effort and put a gap on that rider up the climb, lose sight of me as I made my way down the descent and stop trying to catch me.
Up the climb, there were a couple of super steep, loose sections that had me walking the bike. I hit the climb hard and kept talking to myself in a positive tone on the way up - tip from Mike which is super helpful because I can definitely go negative in these situations. Near the top I got cramps in my quads - I usually cramp in my hamstrings but I’ll take a quad cramp over a hamstring cramp any day. This was the first sign that fatigue was setting in.
I was offered me bacon at the top - said “no thanks”. After I started the descent - my brain came back online and I thought that would have been nice! The descent from Mundy’s was fast and loose but not too tricky. I’d lost Syd’s wheel but continued to get glimpses of her for the rest of the day.
After the descent, the course does a massive tease thinking you’re about to go through the last aid station at the start finish area only to turn away for another 5 miles before actually coming through. At this aid station I downed 2 gels, ate an orange slice, and grabbed 2 fresh bottles.
The last 15 miles snaked around the foothills of the franklin mountains felt VERY long (longer than the first 35 miles). I wanted to conserve some energy in the miles before the last climb. I had built it up in my mind that it would be techy and tricky like the climbing we did at the beginning of the day that was going to require big bursts out of the saddle. But…it ended up being a nice steady smooth climb. I ended up being caught by one other rider here (who ended up being the 10th overall finisher). I like to think if I’d known this beforehand that I’d have conserved less and gone harder up the climb…but who knows - I was also just massively fatigued. After that last climb it was a quick descent back to the finish line.
I checked the results online and was pleasantly surprised to see that I’d finished 11th overall and 1st in the 30-39 age group. Super happy with how the race went. Hats off to all the people that make the Puzzler possible. It was such cool race and a really awesome atmosphere. The start/finish area had a really good vibe Definitely looking forward to being back in El Paso in January next year…