Iron City Bikes Racing

This weekend I found myself headed east to French Creek State Park, to race the 6 hour endurance version of On the rocks at French Creek, part of the Mid Atlantic Super Series.

As the name of the race suggests, the majority of the trails were pretty rocky! It was a nice surprise to do a long race that wasn’t on a ton of gravel and double track. With the exception of the first climb, the entire race consisted of fun, technical trails. Well, the downhills were fun at least, but after every downhill comes an uphill. Most of the climbs were just about as rocky as the downhills were! Fun stuff.

Going into the race, I had set a goal for myself to do 6 laps. Looking at the results from last year, I noticed that only 1 person managed to get the sixth lap in, and I thought that it would be fun to try and do it on my singlespeed.

Despite the 20 minutes or so of heavy rain just before the race, and the few scattered showers in the morning, the trails were holding up pretty well. At least I thought so, until I started my second lap. After about 50 people had ridden the trails, there sure were some slippery sections on some of the climbs. There also were additional races starting just about every hour, so that added another challenge to maintaining my pace.

I kept my pit stops short, just spending enough time to grab a fresh bottle every lap, and a mouthfull of food every other lap, and it seemed to work out perfectly.

In the end, I got 6 laps in about 6:50, and finished in first place in singlespeed, and second overall. There were only 3 of us that managed to get 6 laps in, and I feel really good about the outcome of this race.

Next up, I think I’m going to attempt my first 12 hour race, at the 12 Hours of Tsali, near Bryson City, NC in 2 weeks. This should be interesting.

Over the weekend, I went out for my first mountain bike race of the season. I figured that I would jump right into the season by doing a little race called The Cohutta 100 in Ducktown, TN. As the name implies, this one is a hundred miler! Awesome.

By reading the course description, I was able to find out that the race was basically a singletrack sandwich, with about 35 total miles of trails, divided between the beginning and end of the race. The remainder of the race would be on gravel fire roads in between.

My only real worry for the day was the weather forecast. They were calling for an 80% chance of thunderstorms all day, some of which could be severe. We were told at the start line that they may cut the race short due to weather, and would let us know on the course. Luckily the rain had stopped just in time for the start, so we didn’t have to stand around in the rain just before the race.

Time to go! The race started with a very fast pavement climb on Highway 74, and I was giving it my all on the singlespeed. I couldn’t quite go fast enough to keep up with the lead group of 30 or so racers, and watched them slip away. Crest the hill, downhill for a bit, then turn into singletrack. Stuck in a line, no sense of trying to pass, there isn’t anywhere to go. I kept hoping for a place to pass, but stuck for a while. No big deal, I’ll be able to make it up later. Managed to not hit the turtle that was stopped in the middle of the trail. Too bad most other people hit the little guy.

Pop out onto a screaming fire road descent down to the river, along the river for a while, back to the start, long climb up the mountain, wash, rinse, repeat… For most of the race, I was riding by myself, which I am sure cost me some time. About 30 miles in, I kinda zoned out, and was taking it way too easy. I finally got caught by a couple of people, and remembered that I was supposed to be racing. Game on…

About 50 miles in, the rain started. It had been quite windy for an hour or so, and I was able to see storm clouds in the distance, but it seemed that we were riding in a little pocket in the storm keeping us dry. That was about to change.

About 50 miles into the race, after about an hour of pretty intense wind, the sky finally opened up. I had been riding with glasses on, but for the most part it was impossible to see while going about 30 mph on some of the fire road downhills, so I thought that I would try to take them off for a bit. I very quickly realized that it was much better not being able to see because of fogged up glasses, than having eyes full of mud and sand. Thankfully, there weren’t too many obstacles in my way.

Rolling into checkpoint 4, with a newly clean bike, I refilled my bottles, and headed out for another long grind on some back roads. There was a hard rain for about an hour, and then it cleared up for the most part, which ended up being bad in a way, because the bike started accumulating mud. The last 10 miles or so of the race happened to be on some pretty fun and fast singletrack, that really wasn’t too bad as long as I was able to keep my speed in check.

I was starting to get a bit hungry, and a little worried, as my garmin was telling me that I had 10 miles to go, when all of a sudden I popped out onto the road into the last stretch through the parking lot. I guess all of the heavy tree cover really does have an affect on it…

A great race, and I met my goal of 8 hours and 30 minutes, with a finishing time of 8:17. Looking forward to the next long race, a 6 hour enduro version of On the Rocks at French Creek.

Marilla Cyclocross: Photo by Michael Wendell

Marilla cross happened last weekend, and while this isn’t a complete race report, I had to say a few things.

I don’t think that I have ever had as much fun at a race! I decided at the last minute to do 2 races, and it turned out to be a good decision.

The B race started out ok, the conditions weren’t too muddy yet, but that would change quickly, with the light rain that started shortly after the start of our race. Starting the first lap, I was probably in 5th, did a good job on the run up, passing people who were crashed in the mud, and found myself in first. Stayed out front for a few laps, until course conditions deteriorated, when Duncan Oliver, and his wise choice of a mountain bike, managed to maintain traction through the sloppy mud better than I could on my cross bike. I guess it might help that was able to bunny hop the barriers. Finished the race with a strong second place.

After an hour break, I attempted to race the A race. At this point, the course was a real mess. My only goal was to finish and have fun doing it!! After an epic battle back and forth with mid-90′s Gunnar (Nate Annon) I lost out at the end, coming in at 14th out of 24 starters. A fantastic weekend of racing!