Rattlesnake 50

AWESOME RACE!! This one was well worth the 45 dollar entry fee.
Nolan and I met at the Blue Ridge School at 5 am to head the 3 hours to Davis, West Virginia. Bikes loaded and lacking coffee we stopped in H-burg for the mandatory fill up of us and the Suburban. We made great time to West Virginia and on arriving there were a bit astounded that it was only 41 degrees. We both hoped for a quick warming of the air prior to the 10 am start time.
For the race start they closed Main Street in Davis, WV. We all lined up across the two lanes of the road way, and on a shout from the promoter, we were off. No one hit it really hard from the start and we were rolling down the paved road at about 25 mph. Across a bridge and a sharp right onto an old railroad grade. The pace was upped at this point as people started jockeying for position in the 4x4 tracks on the trail. That combined with the puddles of muddy WV. liquid and all of the sudden we are all surging forward trying to find clear ground to ride. I finally settled into a position behind Sue Haywood and we were rolling along strong. After the Railroad grade it was a sharp right onto a short section of pavement, and then the single track started. The best way I can describe this place is Pisgah, NC. Soaked in water.....and i do mean soaked. The rock gardens were great for riding, some of them had well established lines through the moss beds that were easily seen, others had no lines, and were a pure, "pull the front wheel up and hope you ride it out" sort of thing. Many of the local racers were on all mountain style bike, even Sue was on a Fuel EX with a Pike front fork and 2.3 Jones tires.....I felt undergunned at first on my Top Fuel with 2.0 Revolt Super X's. After about 6 miles of epic single track with some great technical sections and some awesome rooty climbs, we were back on pavement for a short time, more railroad grade followed, and then a long road climb of about 4 miles at about 6% or so....nothing killer, unless you had just blown too much energy in the previous rocky stuff. Off the pavement we were straight onto a killer descent. The type of descent that all of us wish we could have in our back yard. Large rocks to dodge, small logs to jump, big drops that when approached at 20 mph, become mandatory hucks. Several stream crossings and I was climbing back out in front of a group on some gnarly single track rock and root garden. Things were feeling great. Then I got that familiar "hiss" from the back tire combined with Stan's spraying everywhere. I had taken something through the tread of the tire and even dear old Stan could not heal this one. I stopped to fix it, placed a tube in, and discovered that my Big Air was empty and I had forgotten my hand pump for the day. So running I went for about 2 miles. Finally a passing racer had a 12 gram CO2 he could spare, I hit the tire with it, and was riding again. But 12 grams won't fill a MTB tube to where it doesn't pinch flat in West Virginia, and soon enough that happened. Now, out of cartridges and with out a pump or additional tube, I was running again. A little over 3 miles later I came out onto the road way and found the check station. My drop bag was there with a tube and some CO2 cylinders. I fixed my flat and was off. By this point I had dropped from 3rd or 4th in the overall and 2nd in my field to about 10th-12th place. The trails only got wetter from here: boggy, West Virginia swamp trail yielded to short sections of burly rock garden and then back again.......awesome stuff to try and ride. Average pace to this point only 7 mph!!!!
I managed to recover a bit from my running through the woods episode and got a good second wind on the bike which allowed me to pull back to a final placing of 7th. I am really pleased with this one. I know that without my mechanical stuff and the three wrong turns that gave me an extra five miles on the day, I would have placed much higher. My legs felt great, I climbed well, and the bike rode great....proof that a Top Fuel can out do most All Mountain Style bikes.
Total Damage for the day:
3 tubes
1 tire
5 CO2 cartridges
one Seat -broke the right rail at about 30 miles or so....made it less comfortable than I like
one set of shoes- I shattered the bottom of the left one into about 3 pieces of carbon. Was still able to pedal, but they are done now.

Nolan's race ended much earlier when he broke BOTH of his Egg Beater Pedals. We gotta get that guy on some mallet down hill pedals or something.

Planning the next Season

So it is that time of year when we all have to look back on what we did this year and what we want to do next year. Coaches want goals and plans and ideas of what to do for the next year.
My ideas:
1-Race more events close to home
2-Get in more quality training time.
3-Don't taper for so many races next season
4-In stark contrast to number 1 above- Race the Crocodile Trophy.
This is an epic race across Australia- 13 stages total.

http://www.crocodile-trophy.com/crocodiletrophy/en/index_en.htm

Events on the local front for this week:
Wednesday- Brownie Crit on our farm.
Thursday will see some trail work on the farm.
Saturday is a 50 mile race in West Virginia
Sunday is a 100 mile Road Century.

This is looking like a great weekend.

BTW- Bike Factory is having a big blowout sale on Forks. All sorts of stuff at killer prices. If ya need something, you should go look.

-Shawn

Paranormal Preview Crit

What a great Brownie Crit that one turned out to be. The course is the same that will be used for the Paranormal race on October 20th with just one tiny reroute. We had a huge turn out, and everyone was psyched by how great the trails were. Times are listed below, this was roughly a 6.5 mile loop----I think. I flagged the single speeders that I knew of as well.

Place Name Time
1 Jeremy S. 29:52 (ss)
2 Mike W. 30:15
3 Shawn T. 31:29
4 Dave T. 31:46
5 Matt H. 33:33 (ss)
6 Jeff 35:33 (ss)
7 Al I. 36:08
8 Scott R. 37:08
9 Tim H 38:13
10 Paul 38:21
11 David P. 38:23
12 James G. 39:56
13 Matt H. 40:10
14 Dennis 41:20
15 Carl 43:23 (in shoes 3 sizes too small)
16 Caleb 47:09
17 Isaac 49:03
18 Mark 53:50
19 Anna 54:48
20 Dave W. 65:04

A big thanks to Denelle for timing us and cheering loudly as we finished.....hope she feels better soon.


-Shawn

Weekend

What a weekend, driving 20 hours out of 32 between Friday afternoon and Saturday night was pretty trying though. I got in a good ride in the Poconos while I was out there. I stopped at a shop called Cedar Bike on the eastern side of Scranton, PA. They gave me great directions and even drew a map of a nice road loop with about 1800 feet of climbing in the first 8 miles. Made for a good solid warm up. Of course the ride down in 50 degree rain was not as pleasant.
Sunday was a longish ride, 70 miles ending right at dark, always nice to be chased in by darkness falling, adds that little extra kick to the finishing stretch. This week is a bunch of shifts at work, people are out of town for a conference, so I am covering extra stuff. Wednesday will be a brownie Crit on the Farm, so that will be fun.

Off to do some homework.

-Shawn

Brownie Crit Results 9/13

Last nights crit went great. Not a huge turn-out, but a group that was on the gas pretty strong. Here are a few pictures and the results from it. The pictures are sure not of "Buffalo-2-Step" Bill quality, but they are what I can do....at least with this camera. Speaking of that guy, Man are we gonna miss him in this area.
www.buffalo2step.com



Place Name Lap 1 Lap2 Total
1 Dave 12:39 12:42 25:21
2 Mike 13:00 12:54 25:54
3 Kyle 13:15 13:38 26:53
4 Scott 15:24 15:15 30:39
5 Denelle 17:29 17:39 35:08
6 Michele 18:05 17:48 35:53
DNF Jason 16:56 -----------



-Shawn

First Ever TevenDu

Do you ever take pictures that make you realize you really need a better camera?


Tonight was the first ever Duathlon on the farm. A Run-Ride-Run moment of zen for all involved. With late notice we only had three runner-rider-runners, but they seemed to have fun anyway. Mostly I just rode around and heckled the three participants with a camera. Dave had a "you-aint-mountain-bikin-if-you-aint-breakin-stuff" moment and snapped his chain----three times. We gotta get that boy on a maintanence plan or something.
Tomorrow is a Brownie Crit here on the farm. I am gonna take the day off the mtn bike, I gotta a road workout to do, and my shoulder is actualy more uncomfortable now than it was five days ago.....I think I have tried to push it too hard too early.

-Shawn

Day of Ease

Today was a day of ease before I fire back into full on training tomorrow. I rode for an hour easy, that was it. I also had a massage therapy appointment with Danielle at Body Revolutions today. What a difference this is making with my legs. It used to be that my IT bands would get tight and painful towards the end of a big ride, but after just a few sessions, things are much smoother, I have noticed less back pain on the bike, less ITB pain, and less fatigue in general on the long rides. I kinda doubted this would make such a big difference, but it really has
I also visited a few potential sponsors today, it seems like the ad line I should really give is, "For the cost of a single ad in the C'ville weekly, you get our jerseys and trailer for a year." But how do you make that sound smooth......good thing I don't work in sales.
On another interesting note, I managed to take the deraileur hanger off of the new EX 8 last night through a moment of shear stupidity, and guess what.....it's non standard. Thankfully Bike Factory had the answer, all will be well soon.
Some new pics will be up on the website tomorrow AM as well. Shannon (our photo queen) emailed me a bunch from different events this past year. Some darn good ones too. I had forgotten about some of the ones in Sedona that she took, you will have to check those out....

-Shawn

Road Riding

I got out on the Trek Madone for a bit today. I always forget how much fun that bike is to ride. Man what a great time. I got in 45 miles with with some good short hill efforts thrown in as well. The legs are feeling strong and the shoulder has come around nicely. We got another sponor on board this past week for the team. SixSixOne stepped up and took us under their wing. They make some really great gloves for cross country riding, so I am psyched by this one. This week will see a big jump in my training. I have a feeling that Adnan (my coach at TrainingPeaks) has some special abuse in store for me. I kinda hope so actually as I need to get some serious work done, mostly for my mental sanity.

There are a number of local to semi local events this weekend that look like fun.
The Cheat Mtn 100 (I think it is up on Active.com)
The Barry Saunders Off-Road Duathlon (http://www.bikereg.com/events/register.asp?eventid=4915)

Back in the Saddle

I got back out for my first ride since hitting a tree at the SM-100. It was a short night ride at Walnut Creek Park. I rode solid and I felt good on the bike, at least the legs did. My shoulder let me know about every bump on the way though. I kept thinking I had accidently locked out my Fork on the bike......and that thing is set up soft. Things are going well for the team right now. We have managed to get bikes for almost everyone so far, and new labels went on the trailer the other night as well. It is looking pretty killer. Tonight will be a Brownie Crit on the family farm at 6pm. Look for those results up here soon.

-Shawn

SM-100

Floyd came, Floyd saw, Floyd was beaten. Jeff Schalk, Trek-VW East Coast Regional Rider took him out by a huge margin. Jeff was on a new Fuel EX....infact one of the proto-types that He and Chris Eatough used to win the BC race a month ago. Jeff set a new course record at 7:06. Blisteringly fast, reports were that he was through the 5th rest station at 5 minutes BEFORE noon....incredible.
The local Charlottesville Riders did an incredible job, most hit their goal times or very close. I think every local rider other than myself finished the race.
I managed to separate my left shoulder on a tree at about mile 60 or so. I tried to continue on, but could not grasp the bar and safely climb or descend....so my SM-100 ended at the 75 mile aid station. Needless to say I am down about this one. Some races are just your season standard; They define your performance, your training, and your entire seasonal success .....the Sm-100 is this for me. To take a DNF is devastating. I will have to work through it, but first I gotta get this shoulder better.

On a positive note, My father helped me get things together a bit more in the new Team Trailer. This thing is really coming together, now we just gotta find an event to haul it to....that and a few more sponsors for the group as well.

-Shawn