manduro story
In 2013, two LUNATIC Raleigh area bike riders told another casual rider - who just happens to be an adventurist and an event professional - that they had an idea for a bicycle race that included rough riding broken up by stops where you have to chop wood and build stuff. You know, "man" schitt. Thus manduro was born.
It became a part of THE UNDERBELLY OF SOCIETY in 2018. It's alive.
Advice from the manduro pioneers riders:
- What would you recommend for a future manduro racer?
- Be prepared to fail, but embrace that, and enjoy how far you make it
- Have a way to charge and use your phone while moving
- Don't plan to stop for rest if you have any expectations of finishing
- Slow is fast and keep your feet dry
- rubber-side down
- You won’t be able to sleep so prepare for that
- Your phone is paramount. Using it seamlessly while riding is easier with a wearable. It looks like a ribbed dildo protruding from your chest but it improved my bike-phone experience 10 fold
- Be prepared but enjoy the ride, most fun race I’ve done to date
- focus on essential gear, minimize the "nice to have" stuff.. use all info available, pay attention to detail.. don't let mistakes get you down.. just keep grinding it out
- Good luck fools
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What was your favorite location and why?
- Dart throwing to pop the balloon. Not too hard, not too easy. Let's me get back on the bike fast
- Probably digging through the buses off walnut creek trail, it was spooky, and kinda cool
- the one where we had to cross a creek using a fallen tree was fun because i almost died
- enjoyed Oak City Brewing the most. Really liked the beer and shooting the slingshot
- Box near the power tower. Possibly because it took us so long to figure out. Had we spent a little more time figuring it out, we wouldn't have been so disoriented to get there
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What would you do different, from the start of the race?
- minimize gear to carry; try to spend less time at stops
- Waterproof everything, phone mount on bars, compass
- Ziplock bags. More butt butter. Bring a compass
- Slow down. I felt compelled to stay in the pack to make challenges easier when I got there
- Power bank to charge phone on the go
- Secure power banks in bags. Have more power banks. Andnot wait for people
- Have a battery that works and make sure it doesn't get wet. Figure out a way to keep or get feet dry
- Find the next point before going there.. or at least have a good idea about where it is
- take time to read and decide the route to next
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Could you have gone further and why didn't you?
- Yes, but I knew I wasn't going to make it through the night. Rather than waking my wife up at 2 in the morning, I decided to tap out early. My phone had also stopped charging due to water damage, and I didn't want to get stranded
- Yes, lack of working bike
- Yes i had to rely on power, my power banks got rained on
- Yeah. I lost the motivation to keep riding alone. My feet were also in pretty bad shape after so many hours of being damp
- Physically yes. Mentally yes, I think so. With a team of other riders, not so much
- No, we got as far as I could.. maybe if I found box 8, but not much further even then
- Yes but missed the cutoff
- I think so.. interesting question why, have been debating.. will just say too much time not on the bike and a couple wrong moves
- Yes. But was relying on other rider for nav
- No I had a severe rash and would have to alternate between short sprints
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Why did you tap-out?
- 36 freaking hours out there...crazy
- Large time spent wandering to find boxes made it impossible to finish in cap
- I was at the 14 hour mark and could no longer sit on the bike due to gross chafing
- Mental more than physical, the slog through the bean field defeated me mentally
- Bike issues
- External battery wasn't working so I had to separate from other riders to stop and charge. Once I had stopped for an hour the exhaustion hit me and I gave in
- A number of reasons conspired to the tapout
