Long ride

After a tough race earlier in the week, Allison Sauder decided to take it easy by mountain biking for 10 hours in support of the Arthritis Society.

The 18-year-old participated in the inaugural Cen10ial mountain bike event at Centennial Park on Saturday. Around 50 bicyclists participated in the lengthy event, which had cyclists see how far they could ride within 10 hours.

Sauder decided to do the event after taking first place in the XC#5 mountain bike race for Female Advanced 16-20, which was held on Wednesday. Although it left her legs feeling a little hurt, she said she enjoys biking and likes helping out a good cause.

“There are lots of hills,” she said. “The hills use your muscles like crazy. There’s some pretty steep ones. My legs are already starting to hurt became I’m only on a two person team so I’m riding half the time.”

Sauder wasn’t the only one feeling the burn.

Aaron Arndt, a long time bicyclists, stopped mountain biking for a time but decided to take the sport up again. The 33-year-old said an injury took him away from his main sport and that’s when he decided to try mountain biking again. 

In order to prepare for the lengthy event, Arndt ate a big breakfast and triple checked all of his equipment. He said if the equipment doesn’t work then that could affect how an athlete performs.

“There’s a little bit more solitude,” he said comparing mountain biking to other forms of bicycling.

“There’s a little bit more green space. It’s a super friendly community. There’s competition but it is mutual respect competition.”

Josh Gillingham, who organized the event, said the city has missed having an ultra-endurance event and it was time to bring it back to the community. Gillingham said they didn’t set a goal for how much they wanted to raise but simply want to raise more awareness about the issue.

“This is the first year we’ve put on the event but there used to be a 24-hour mountain bike race,” he said. “We have a very strong biking community. There’s so many different events happening that just to convince them to come to our event was one of the biggest hurdles that we faced.”

The race is expected to wrap up around 7 p.m.