For 5 years in a row now the El Paso Puzzler has had stellar weather.  This year was one of the best.  Not the warmest, but perfect racing weather that didn’t cook those from colder regions or freeze our amigos south of the border.  175 racers lined up for racing with 102 in the 50 mile race.  Only 25 didn’t finish!  That’s a record low number as we usually sit at about a 35% attrition rate.  This year’s event was sponsored by our Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and they stepped up our PR just a little.  They didn’t come on board until December, so we were lucky to get what we got.  Great swag bags for all entrants were filled with goodies from ProGold, Stan’s, lip balm from the CVB, and even cooler, the El Paso Visitor’s Guide spring edition with yours truly on the front cover.  I’m also inside with a full 2 page spread posing with my buddy Brent and Steve Ainsa, a local engineer helping us with our Redd Rd. parking lot.  I actually got a bit of compensation for that with free tickets to the Shrek broadway show at the Plaza Theater as well as a gift card to Cattleman‘s.

Finishers of this year’s Puzzler 50 took home a hoodie for their efforts.  Jen won the women’s race….handily.  She took home $400 cash, a set of Stan’s rims, a can of Okole Stuff and some of the new Lehe Stuff.  I asked her what she would want if she won, and that’s the stuff she wanted.

I did my best to manage Connor while I did some announcing, course management, and meeting/greeting of VIP’s.  He was a champ and really enjoyed a weehoo ride to do some sign checking.  We rode ALL of Lazy Cow back to the venue.  He didn’t like getting swiped by various plants, but hooted a few times when we went through some rolling dips and turns.  Eventually he realized I couldn’t pay much attention to him so he spent a lot of time on his Strider. He didn’t want anything to do with someone who planned to help out with him so I had to just keep an eye on him while he roamed around the venue and sat on the camper stairs giving me the stink eye.

Since the event went so well, we are meeting with the CVB tomorrow to discuss what we can do now for next year.  Some ideas I’m tossing around are:

  • A bounty for a certain time or for an SS to take an overall win
  • A relay (we have 3 laps….one 7, one 27, one 15)
  • A free trip to marathon nationals

Those are just a few.  What do you think would get people to visit sunny El Paso during the winter to do a hard mountain bike race.

Almost half of our competitors were from out of the area this year.