Sunday, September 14, 2008
Good ol' Michaux Riding
Now this is something I haven't done in a while. Went for a solid 2hr ride w/ Matt today. I gave him the grand tour of half of the Pine Grove SP area. Rode from the Furnace Stacks, up Creek Trails, to Michaux rd, then up to Brett's where we played on his rock and hit Derailleur Trail up. When we got out of the singletrack onto the road I almost ran over a 5+ft long black snake. Friggin huge it was! Unfortunately as soon as Matt got his camera out it scurried off into some hidey-hole and we couldn't find it despite poking around for a few minutes. We then headed up Ridge and Woodrow to Deer Bingo. We were followed for a bit by the tree sanctuary guy. I don't think he liked us on his road. Then it was onto Rattlesnake v.1, where I rode like a girl, and Rattlesnake v.2, where I rode like a girl and crashed on the hardest switchback (those of you who have ridden know). I have an ouchie on my forearm and a bigger ouchie on my leg. Ouchie. Then went down corkscrew, and down trail to nowhere to the bottom of woodrow. Then up the logsled connector, up logsled and down community to home. We proclaimed it a good ride and so it was. Next time Matt gets a tour of the Piney Mountain Ridge stuff...
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Doing my best Roadie Imitation
I did my best roadie imitation today, kitting up in the most Euro looking thing I could find and hitting the road with the good ol' Scott Slowster. It's actually the speedster, but it's a tank of a road bike. I like passing real roadies on their expensive carbon rigs with. Especially wearing my mtn shoes. Anyway, went out over Waggoner's Gap, then around and back over Doubling Gap, which I have never done before. On 944 on the way back I got mauled by a veritable horde of gnats or maggots or some small bug that I absolutely killed as I rode through their masses. It felt like getting hit by tiny pebbles. For 10 miles. All this after last nights crazy highliter party... oh yeah...
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Shenandoah 100
So, as you can probably tell from my lack of significant postings in the last few weeks, school has started. Which means I have work. Which means I don't have time to sit around on the interwebz. Yet here I am. Anwyay...
Labor Day weekend found me headed south of good ol' Carlizle and into the mountains of George Washington National Forest in Stokesville, VA. Yes, the Shenandoah Mountain 100, the final major race of my 08 season. I was super excited because I had heard so many good things about this race. Long, hard climbs, then miles and miles of sweet singletrack descent. Well let me tell you, it lived up to it's expectations. The race started at 6:30 and a mass of humanity on bikes (450 people !!!!) left the camp and bottlenecked their way down the road. I tried to line up behind the fast guys, but forgot that the start went to the right and not straight out of the campground. Plan foiled. Found myself somewhere in the middle. Rode the first climb with some Henry's guys and a C3-solay guy that I regularly race against in MASS XC races We picked a lot of people off on the climb. Then I was met with the inability of anyone from PA, or the area where the trails are found, to ride technical singletrack. the first singletrack had a few short technical uphills and there was a line walking up each one of them. It was a sad day. Once I got past the walkers, I flew down the ensueing descent catching and passing more riders. What a good feeling that is.
Sunday Morning roll out 6:30AM
After that there was more climbing on the road, as well as some more sweet singletrack, including a long singletrack climb that I walked up because there was a huge line of people walking up it. After Aid #2, I headed up the hardest climb of the day Dowell's Draft. To put Dowell's in perspective: it is far from the longest climb of the course, and it is not the steepest either. What makes it hard is the fact that there are 4 or 5 false summits, and the road gets steeper after each one. It was a mentally and physically demoralizing climb, and I ended up walking some of it. I can honestly say that it was the only time I have wished to have that 22t granny ring on my bike. But, the pain was all forgiven on the descent. A 6 mile technical bench cut singletrack raceway where pushing speeds of insanity was not uncommon even for me. I latched onto two other riders and we absolutly flew down, passing numerous large groups of people who promptly moved when they turned and saw our lightning-quick approach.
The next section passed without event, another climb, this time up some cool singletrack whose beginning was marked by a super steep (read: unridable) rocky stair case section. And yet things kept getting better. The descent into Aid 4 was absolute magic. I didn't think the descents could get any better, but they did. This one was long, smooth, fast, and flowy. I caught and dropped (like it was my job) the C3-solay guy. I dropped all the people I had ridden the climb with. After Aid #4 was the big climb of the day. And I do actually mean big. it was 18mi uphill to Aid #5, then another 6mi to the top of the climb. Big. I latched onto a group of 2 other guys and we pace-lined up the early slopes of the climb. Then I set out on my own in the ultimate test of survival. I had never spend 2hrs climbing before so I had no idea how it would be. It was long, and mentally draining.
The rest of the race went as planned, and I picked up the pace after Aid #6 for the last 13mi to the finish, which by the way included climbing 1/3 of the way back up Dowell's. Final finishing time was 11:13, which is in the range of what I expected to get. It was probably the most fun race I have ever done. Yeah for fun races. Yeah for long singletrack descents. Yeah for bikes.
And done...
Labor Day weekend found me headed south of good ol' Carlizle and into the mountains of George Washington National Forest in Stokesville, VA. Yes, the Shenandoah Mountain 100, the final major race of my 08 season. I was super excited because I had heard so many good things about this race. Long, hard climbs, then miles and miles of sweet singletrack descent. Well let me tell you, it lived up to it's expectations. The race started at 6:30 and a mass of humanity on bikes (450 people !!!!) left the camp and bottlenecked their way down the road. I tried to line up behind the fast guys, but forgot that the start went to the right and not straight out of the campground. Plan foiled. Found myself somewhere in the middle. Rode the first climb with some Henry's guys and a C3-solay guy that I regularly race against in MASS XC races We picked a lot of people off on the climb. Then I was met with the inability of anyone from PA, or the area where the trails are found, to ride technical singletrack. the first singletrack had a few short technical uphills and there was a line walking up each one of them. It was a sad day. Once I got past the walkers, I flew down the ensueing descent catching and passing more riders. What a good feeling that is.
Sunday Morning roll out 6:30AM
After that there was more climbing on the road, as well as some more sweet singletrack, including a long singletrack climb that I walked up because there was a huge line of people walking up it. After Aid #2, I headed up the hardest climb of the day Dowell's Draft. To put Dowell's in perspective: it is far from the longest climb of the course, and it is not the steepest either. What makes it hard is the fact that there are 4 or 5 false summits, and the road gets steeper after each one. It was a mentally and physically demoralizing climb, and I ended up walking some of it. I can honestly say that it was the only time I have wished to have that 22t granny ring on my bike. But, the pain was all forgiven on the descent. A 6 mile technical bench cut singletrack raceway where pushing speeds of insanity was not uncommon even for me. I latched onto two other riders and we absolutly flew down, passing numerous large groups of people who promptly moved when they turned and saw our lightning-quick approach.
The next section passed without event, another climb, this time up some cool singletrack whose beginning was marked by a super steep (read: unridable) rocky stair case section. And yet things kept getting better. The descent into Aid 4 was absolute magic. I didn't think the descents could get any better, but they did. This one was long, smooth, fast, and flowy. I caught and dropped (like it was my job) the C3-solay guy. I dropped all the people I had ridden the climb with. After Aid #4 was the big climb of the day. And I do actually mean big. it was 18mi uphill to Aid #5, then another 6mi to the top of the climb. Big. I latched onto a group of 2 other guys and we pace-lined up the early slopes of the climb. Then I set out on my own in the ultimate test of survival. I had never spend 2hrs climbing before so I had no idea how it would be. It was long, and mentally draining.
The rest of the race went as planned, and I picked up the pace after Aid #6 for the last 13mi to the finish, which by the way included climbing 1/3 of the way back up Dowell's. Final finishing time was 11:13, which is in the range of what I expected to get. It was probably the most fun race I have ever done. Yeah for fun races. Yeah for long singletrack descents. Yeah for bikes.
And done...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)