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.