This past weekend I went racing. Kim (my G.F.) and I took a long weekend, pointed the car south, and enjoyed the time in Canaan Valley West Virginia.
What a wonderful place to have a mini-vacation. The picture of us is on the top of Seneca Rocks, just south of Canaan. We also visited Smoke Hole Caverns down the road about 12 miles or so from that. Also a very interesting tourist attraction.
Matt Marcus and company put on a wonderful race that ran from Timberline Ski Resort, up into the Dolly Sods Wilderness area, across route 32 into Canaan Valley State Park, and finally up Canaan Mountain into the Blackwater Falls area, ending in Davis. In total the race was about 36.5 miles. Reletively flat aside from the climb at the beginning and the big climb out of Canaan Valley to Blackwater falls. It rained all weekend so it made it interesting in the trees. I started with the tactic of finding out who was going to be going fast, ride with them if I could, and see how I felt at mile 25 or so. I hadn’t raced any of the attending rockstars for about two seasons, I retired, so I didn’t know what to expect. By the top of the climb, a 1000′ or so ascent, “the group” formed off the front. Fortunately, I was in it. Benji Klimas (Bianchi), Jason Cyr and Andy Weidrich (Cannondale, WV) also attended the race-party. The mess of us stuck together thru half of the Sods section, then we kicked Andrew off.
This is where I do my job of plugging the HiFi 29er I’m piloting. Using the full-suspesion and the 29″ wheel, I was able to conserve energy on all of the little climbs by going a little slower, and get that time lost right back. Downhills I used for resting. I climbed more comfortably, descended faster, cruised effortlessly in the rocks, kept my heartrate very low, and just relaxed while the group did it’s share of fast, slow, fast. The bike just works better, at everything. It makes rocky S#$t easier, faster, smoother, better.
Benji, Jason, and I stuck together until the 25 or so mile mark. Somewhere in there I decided to see what I could do in the last 10 miles. I felt fresh, very fresh. It was the first time all season where it felt like I had control of the race and at any given time I posessed the ability to explode off of the front. At somepoint between mile 25 and 26 I decided to try doing just that, move away. It was about that time that I realized It was fun. Fun to Race. Fun to Ride. Fun to challenge.
The challenge I had in mind was finish in under 4:15. Matt mentioned earlier in the week over the phone that if we did it under that, he would be very surprised. The challenge was made. SO, I attacked. Little response from Jason and Benji. Game over. I stomped the pedals like I felt like I should have been able to all season. Better than I have all season. I opened up a gap of about two minutes by the top of the climb to the next aid station. I stopped, shed the hydrapak, grabbed some Hammer Gel from Kim, released 5psi from my really warm suspension, and took off again. The bike was dangerous in the mostly flat, rocky, Blackwater Falls trail system. My balls grew to a size they shouldn’t have been. Only downhillers should of rode this crap like I was. Wrecking I think would have yielded a near-death experience.
I continued to plug away, building a lead close to 10minutes, until I hit the closing stretch of dirt path. I knew where I was. I thought I knew how far I had left. I thought I knew where the finish was. I didn’t. Long before this point, at the riders meeting, I was missing details that Matt was reviewing, such as where the finish was, while catching up with old race buddies. So, I missed the important details on “where” the race finished. About 5 minutes after passing the turn off to the finish, which was about 30 yards away, I ended up at the bridge near the end of town. This is the location of where we usually end, but not this time. I pedaled around town a bit looking for the finish. There was a big festival taking place, tents everywhere, so surely one of them would be the finish or someone would know where the finish was. Not really. I wandered around for awhile and finally ended up at the other end of town and peaked down over a hill and located the “finishing” tent. After some “fake” finishing photos and some harrassment about missing the finished I hiked back up the bank into the tent and officially finished. Happy.
Thanks to the guys at Blackwater bikes once again for a fantastic event. Good beer and great food was shared by all the event participants back at the bike shop and we all danced off into the sunset. :-)
We’ll all miss Dolly Sods Wilderness area. This was the last event to be held there. 
