Wild and wonderful West Virginia did not disappoint last weekend as Granny Gear Productions hosted the Suzuki 24 Hours of Big Bear in Hazelton. The Dirt Rag posse was there, spreading the World Tour love and racing with about 600 others.

Once again the Dirt Rag booth was a hotbed of excitement where we sold officially licensed Dirt Rag gear at killer discount prices and new and renewing subscribers could get Platypus Big Zip bladders, Microflate Nano CO2 inflators from Genuine Innovations, SealLine Urban Totes, or WTB Moto Raptor tires. Thanks to everyone who stopped by the booth to say hi, give us a hard time, and drink our keg of Troegenator–kindly provided by Troegs Brewing.

Despite temperatures in the lower 90’s–even low temps never dropped below 70–everyone seemed to enjoy the festivities, and manage to stay hydrated. Dirt Rag racers put up a good showing with sponsored rider, Carol Clemmons taking 1st in the Women’s Solo class and our own editor, Karen Brooks and Partnership guy Eric McKeegan taking 2nd in the Pro Duo class. Andy and Justin managed to step away from the booth long to put in a few just-for-fun laps with our friends at Princeton Tec.

The 12-mile course had a little bit of everything – mud, rocks, roots, climbing and some beautiful swoopy, twisty singletrack. At the end of the day, 609 racers completed 1855 laps, covering a total distance of 23,744 miles and a total elevation gain of 3,023,650 feet (or 572.66. miles).

Granny Gear events offer festivities for the whole family, including the 24 Minutes of Big Bear for the kiddies, and a tough trials competition organized by Vaughn Micciche of trialsin.com.

This was the 17th year Granny Gear hosted a West Virginia 24 hour race. Previous incarnations of this race were held in Snowshoe and Canaan.

Check out our photo gallery here. See race results here.
Words by Andy Bruno and Justin Steiner, Photos by Justin Steiner.