Coal Mining at the Hilly Billy

Hilly Billy Roubaix.  

72 miles on pavement, dirt and gravel roads.  About 8,000 feet of climbing. 

Well, that's another crazy one in the books.

         The weird patterning of scratches on my legs and arms (particularly the right leg and arm) is unique this time around.

         Ruthless Sherman and I regretted missing our team's feature event of the year, the Corning Circuit Race.  But LiLynn and Ruth had committed to racing as many of the Great American Ultracross Series races as they could, and while I couldn't quite say I'd try doing every one, I wanted to do those I could because these races really give you something else entirely from your typical road/mountain/cyclocross event.  

         LiLynn passed on this one due to a nasty case of Lyme disease.  Ruth and I really missed her. Ruth had returned from a trip to the Phillippines only the day before we left for West Virginia, and suffered from jet lag and lack of riding her bike for weeks.

I'll never forget the race itself.
         In the staging area I met some of my Lower Eagle friends from the Transylvania Mountain Bike Epic, and how great to see some familiar faces!  Libbey Sheldon told me she had actually separated her shoulder when she crashed on the queen stage at TSE, and that she had ridden THE ENTIRE LAST STAGE with a Grade 2 separation, the same injury I had last year.  "I wondered why I was crying so much," she said. "It really hurt."  Her husband Chris would be racing Hilly Billy.  I also got to see Bruce Dickman of ProGold again, another great character I first met at TSE.  Of course he made fun of me when I told him I'd been using the BikeWash almost undiluted to clean my bike and shoes...

          By start time at 10:00am Saturday temperatures were probably already in the 80s.  I say probably because I don't know for sure.  But heat would beat the fight out of a good many racers that day.  I heard the number of DNFs was remarkable.

We massed up together at the race venue--Mylan Horse Park, about 15 minutes outside of Morgantown, WV.  After preliminary announcements we rolled out of the park in a neutral start, and after a brief stop at end of the park driveway they blew an airhorn and turned us loose.  

The first three or four miles got interesting.  The rolling pavement hills gave way to gravel roads.  Gravel can mean a lot.  It can mean small chippy gravel, medium triangle driveway gravel, giant elephant railroad bed gravel.  I think we got all three types in the first few miles.  We passed houses and farms and at one point a huge black bull bellowed at us behind an electrified fence just a few feet from the road. When we started to climb, the fight for traction began.  Riders stringing out in double lines scrapped over the clearer foot-wide tire lanes between the elephant gravel.  Tires skidded and rocks kicked up and pinged off pedals and crank.  A piece of smaller gravel stung my face.  People tried too hard to put power to the pedals and pass where they could.  But you had to find the happy medium between pedaling too hard and skidding the back wheel out or losing momentum and stalling out. I only passed where I felt in danger of losing momentum or getting trapped behind someone faltering on the gravel.  I did move up a few spots where a little grassy road shoulder gave solid traction under the tires, but mostly kept grinding along dodging the riders who spun out and had to unclip trying to pass, and then couldn't get into the moving traffic flowing along.

        Clouds of dust rose and hung in the air.
I started a bit conservatively.  The distance, the climbing, and the heat made me wary of redlining this early on.  

          Still, I worked my way forward.  We crested the first hill and headed down the first descent.  I didn't know this course and couldn't see much in the swirling dust and shade but the gravel stayed loose.  Play it safe, I thought.

     Too many bodies obscured the view when the road curved down on the first descent.  I kept a lid on the speed with so many other riders around me in various degrees of control.  Brakes screamed.  Mine joined in.  The pitch of the hill steepened radically.  My back wheel locked and the bike fishtailed as too late I saw the corner marshal and the hard 90-degree turn right below me.  No chance of making the corner, I had a split second to let go of the bars, ball up and shut my eyes.  My front wheel hit, the bike flipped and whee!  I was flying!  I landed halfway down a dark and wet ravine, stopped by a tangle of branches and thorny briars. 

          I got up and saw a flash of yellow below me in the trickling stream in the bottom of the ravine.  My EpiPens and med kit.  Below that, my PocketRocket pump, and farther down my cell phone, still double-wrapped in sealed plastic bags.  Yard sale!  I scrambled deeper down into the briars cleaning up my bits and pieces while hoping I hadn't broken my phone.

The corner marshal called down at me.  

"Are you OK?"

"Yes, just getting all my stuff.  Thanks!"

I crawled out of the stream, retrieved my bike and dragged it up out of the brush thanking whatever patron saint protects idiots, drunks, and bicycle racers.  Meanwhile more racers hurtled past me.  Time to go.  Completely unhurt except for a few bleeding scratches, I started pedaling and glanced down at my Garmin.

We had raced 4.38 miles.

68ish miles to go.  

More descending on loose gravel threatened my shaken brain.

I caught back up to Ruth.  "Vanessa!  I thought you were ahead of me!"

I filled her in on my detour, which was pretty funny actually.  

       I rode for some time with Ruth and a few men including fellow Transylvanian Chris Merriam, who was riding strong, and a woman in a green Pathfinder jersey.  I don't clearly remember but at some point I hit my tempo for the race and settled in, and Chris came with me and some time after that I looked back and we had lost most of the others.
We kept working down a dirt road with massive puddles or rather small ponds and the choices of lines around them became more and more limited. Sometimes you had a nice packed hard (if narrow) line around the puddles, sometimes you didn't.  Sometimes you got deep mud as your only choice of line.  At times riders in front of me plowed through some of the puddles.  Some were shallow.  Some were NOT.
         I followed too close at one point and slammed into a pothole by mistake when the rider in front of me dodged and I didn't, and a loud "chung" noise came from my front wheel.  Luckily no broken spoke.
          Then I plowed into a deep water hole that was NOT SHALLOW NOT SHALLOW!   The bike abruptly stopped.  I dismounted and nearly fell when my feet sank into 3-inch heavy muck below the water, which was knee-high.  I yanked hard on the handlebars but the bike didn't budge.  I yanked again.  Was that mud or quicksand at the bottom?  The third time the bike came loose with a sucking sound and I sloshed out of the muddy water.  A photographer captured everything.  This was stupid and funny and ridiculous but time to keep riding.  I ran, remounted, and started pedaling, but now with some squelching that continued with every pedal stroke for the next 40ish miles.  The back wheel had kicked up wet mud all over my back pockets.
I wondered how my cell phone was holding up.

WRONG way! WRONG way!  (photo courtesy Mike Briggs)

Dragging my bike out, sort of laughing.  (photo courtesy Mike Briggs)

Life got thirsty a mile or two down the road and I reached for my water bottle, put my lips over the muddy spout,  swished and spat the grit with some of the bottle contents and then gulped.  Not as gross as you might think.   Luckily.  The bottle had had the cap locked down before getting submerged in the "puddle."

          I settled more into the pace and kind of locked my brain down.  Life got boiled down to a few very simple things for the next few hours.   Pedal hard enough but not too hard.  Drink, DRINK.  Most of my calories came from mixed Perpetuem bottles in the drop bags, since solid food usually causes nausea for me in the heat.

           At the first checkpoint a volunteer retrieved my first drop bag.  For some races, you may leave drop bags in large bins at the start since in a long race you can't carry all the calories and drink you'll need.   You mark them with your name and race number and put them into the appropriate bin for the checkpoint where you want to pick them up.  The volunteers at this race were AWESOME.  The woman who brought me my first bag also brought a gallon jug of cold water and yes, she said it was okay if I poured a little on myself instead of just drinking.  I wouldn't do it without asking but she said, "Go for it, we're not going to run out of water."
I took my Perpetuem bottle (which also had extra electrolytes), refilled my plain water bottle, drank half of the cold stuff right away, poured a little through my helmet vents over my head and down my neck and chest.  I refilled the bottle completely and stashed it in my back jersey pocket.
"You're first woman," she said.  "So just keep that in mind."  I just said, "Oh we'll see.  Thank you so much!" and took off.
I assumed someone else had slipped by already.

       At the second checkpoint I repeated my bottle swapping, cold-water chugging and rinsing.  Again another kind volunteer took care of me and said, "You're the first woman to come through."  Again I  disregarded that.   I left that checkpoint and continued on riding with a few men here and there.  I made some good friends during this race.  I had one guy on my wheel hitting one of the longer gravel descents of the day, and when I nearly overdid it again on a downhill curve, I unclipped my foot and hung it out instead of braking and he yelled "Awesome!"  When he caught back up to me, he said "That was awesome.  It's never too early in the season for a drive-by!"   I didn't know there was a word for that.

        The race punched us repeatedly with hill after hill.  Steep grinders you took sitting down to keep that back wheel engaged on the loose gravel.  I wanted to go harder on many of the climbs but the heat really worried me.  Heatstroke doesn't care whether you're well hydrated or not.  When the unshaded sun hit on some climbs it devastated me.  If my body had a "check engine" light it would have blinked the whole race.
My bike began showing signs of stress. On the road sections I felt a wub in the back wheel and wondered about the beating it had taken so early in the race on those crazy dirt road sections.  If the number of people I saw with flats and mechanicals meant anything, this course practically ate bikes.

        At the third checkpoint, the arch of my right foot cramped painfully as I unclipped it from my pedal, and I only got it under control by forcing myself to stand on it while the next volunteer brought me my drop bag and more water.  A few miles later, a muscle in my right arm started fluttering spastically and when I took my hand off the bars to flex it for a minute while coasting downhill, my hand wanted to curl itself into a claw.  I tried to straighten my fingers out and stretch it using my handlebars but it resisted.  Ugh.  It creeped me out to see "the claw" so I just put my hand back on the handlebar hood and kept pedaling.

         The course took us uphill past a huge power plant with coal trucks driving in and out.  A set of automatic sprayers hosed the trucks with water as they left the plant.  Climbing the scorching pavement toward the plant in the sun, I locked in on the water sprayers.  A course marshal stood directing us to turn left just before the sprayers.  I wanted to ride through that water so badly.  Please, I thought, please just point to the water and let me go through.
No.  He pointed left up another gravel wall of a hill.  Come on, why not?  Just a little shower?  This heat will kill us all, I thought.  I didn't say anything other than thank you to the marshal, though I resented him pretty badly just then.

        Late in the race more cramps began.  With maybe ten miles to go? I turned a near-180 degree corner and faced straight up a steep brown dirt road that looked like an ATV track and a rough one at that.   A pain shocked me in my right leg. I'd never experienced hamstring cramping like that.  I made a weird noise between a growl and a gargle as that dirt wall stared me, thinking that might be it for this race...but kept going.  Then as the slope of the hill took over the pain stopped and a weird fluttering feeling took over in the muscle, then passed.  Praying it would stay away, I kept pedaling and found I could still ride just fine.  But now it had gotten into my head.  It could come back any time.  I forced down a gel and some warm drink.  The left side of my lower back hurt when I climbed, probably from crashing.

         Most of the race, I had done a good job of ignoring what all the checkpoint volunteers and even some corner marshals kept telling me, though they told me over and over I was first woman.  I didn't think much about it because it didn't matter.  Regardless of where any other women were in relation to me, I HAD to keep up the pace and ride my own race.  I could only ride as fast as my body would let me. I kept my brain on a tight leash to focus very, very hard on consistent pace and on drinking enough--doubly critical for me in the heat.  Solid food won't sit well with me in that heat, so all my calories had to be liquid, hence the Perpetuem mix.  I feared most of the race I wasn't drinking enough, since I didn't completely drain my bottles between checkpoints.  In retrospect, I DID drink enough.  Since I rode faster than I expected to, the race took less time.
Still, the last 10 miles seemed endless.  With just a few miles left I thought I saw a woman behind me on one of the climbs. Finally I think the possibility of being first had worked into my mind somehow, because I stopped trying to conserve any energy at all, stopped being careful about the heat.  Race brain took over completely.  Four or five miles left?  When I finally saw the race venue and the flags in the distance somehow I went even harder.  Only two or three men straggled far behind me when I looked back.  The last mile or so was sharply cut grass climbing huge hills overlooking the race venue.  Then a steep grass descent that threatened to rattle the bars out of my hands.  I just let the bike go.  A turn onto the final piece of road:  the driveway up to the park.  One more climb.  Follow the arrows.  A chute marked with tape that crossed the horse arena.  Water, I thought, there will be water here.  Music, announcer.   Through the horse arena.  Finish tent.  I wanted cold, cold water.  I wasn't finished, I was DONE.  I put the bike down and somebody handed me a Mason jar with a Hilly Billy sticker.  I put everything down and started looking for cold water.  Someone gave me a cup of ice water and for a while I stared at my cup and reflected deeply on water and coldness.  After two full cups I graduated to advanced studies in cold liquids with an iced Coke.  Finally I started looking around and didn't see too many racers there.  Where was everybody?  I asked someone who seemed official how many other women had come in.  "Nobody.  You're it."  He asked one of the men working on results, and got my final answer.  I'd won.
          I celebrated by going into the women's bathroom and taking a sink shower.  I wondered how Ruth was faring out there and soon she came in, suffering from heat.  She'd cramped completely, had to walk several climbs because she couldn't put any power into the pedals and just had had a really really tough time.  But because she's Ruth and is amazing, she finished fifth.  I think everyone had a rough time.  This race is HARD.  Add in heat, and hoo boy you're in for good times!  Chris Merriam told me later he'd thrown up a few times later in the race after I lost him.

Water.  Please.  Water.  (photo by Mike Briggs)

         The post-race party began as more and more racers rolled in.  Three kegs of beer sat on ice waiting for them.  A giant pan of bacon.  Tons of cookies, chips, crackers, pretzels, pizza.  The water was really really good.
         Awards followed.  Both Ruth and I stood on the podium (barrels surrounded by straw) and Stephanie Swan helped me with my "champagne" bottle since I didn't  know what to do with it, not being real experienced in the champagne-popping-on-podiums department.  I got myself a real big chunk of coal bolted to a board.  Normally I am not a big fan of trophies.  This one...rocks.  I also won some Toasted Head Chardonnay and a whole big Mason jar of moonshine, half of which ProGold Bruce begged off me.  I filled a Hilly Billy jar for him. 

          I got to meet Hilly Billy promoter J.R. Petsko, who asked what I thought of the race. I told him it was really hard, and that it truly lived up to all of its hype. 

I'm still recovering.


Results:
http://www.iplayoutside.com/donparks/2013/06/22o.html

Video interview where I babble:
http://www.viddler.com/v/b348e5f2

Now THIS is a trophy.

A Hilly Billy hillbilly...yes the volunteers had a costume contest.  This is a winner right here!

Garth Prosser and another Toasted Head fan.

Sunday morning coffee served up Hilly Billy style.

Trans-Sylvania Mountain Bike Epic: The Thank-You Post

I have to thank SO MANY people for getting me to and through these seven days of racing and Pennsyltucky adventure.

Bob Nunnink, my patient and loyal boyfriend, for first giving me the idea to actually sign up for this race months ago, and for helping me think through details and logistics of the race, as well as planning for possible mechanicals,  and identifying what tools and pieces of equipment to bring on the trail and put on the bike.  He also brought me to and from camp, and drove seven hours round trip after a long day at work to bring my teammate LiLynn's bike after Katie's hardtail beat up my body on the rocks, and my 26-inch bike needed work.  He earned me a free and badly needed massage by giving Buck a hand and doing a couple favors (which he would have done anyway just because he's Bob and he's like that). And he believed that I could do it even when I questioned myself.  He also helped a couple of other racers while he was on site.

Margaret Thompson, my teammate and coach, for helping me make the most of the extremely limited time I had to get ready for this, while working around my full-time job, for advising me on off-road racing logistics and for also assuring me that I could physically and technically handle this race-since I had doubts galore.

The Corning/NoTubes Race Team for all of their continued support and for helping me with a "scholarship" to cover part of the cost of the race.  I felt proud to represent Corning at this race!

Katie Nunnink, Bob's 15-year-old daughter, for lending me her KHS 650B hardtail.  Sure it's a frame size too big and the lack of rear suspension felt pretty tough on my body in the rock gardens, but the bike certainly handled the rocks and roots of the first 3 stages with aplomb that belied its lower-end componentry and bargain price point.  It was my body that couldn't endure 7 days of rocks on a hardtail.

My amazing teammate LiLynn Graves for lending me her brand-new Gary Fisher Edition Trek Superfly full carbon, full-suspension race bike (the bike's name is Matilda).  Matilda safely escorted me through four stages of racing while eating up the rocks and smoothing the bumps along the way, suffering only a small sidewall cut to her rear tire on the first enduro segment of Day 4.

LiLynn gives me a good luck smooch before the Wildcat Epic 100. 

Justin and Jonas of Freeze Thaw Cycles, the race mechanics who helped diagnose my 26-inch bike's ailments, and who helped adjust LiLynn's bike to fit me slightly better.  They also tubelessly mounted a set of new tires in half the time it took to eat dinner.

Richie O'Neil and Cindy Koziatek of Stan's NoTubes and all of the Stan's NoTubes Elite Women who raced Trans-Sylvania:  Amanda Carey, Sarah Kaufmann, Vicki Barclay and Sue Haywood.  Everyone showed real friendliness and encouragement and it seemed like almost every day Sue asked me at dinner, "How did it go today?"  Richie helped set up the Contour camera for Stage 4 and advised me on tire pressure.  He also came to the rescue with a pair of Kenda Kommandos when Matilda needed sidewall protection from the Pennsylvania rocks and cheered me on through the checkpoints.  

Bruce Dickman of ProGold Lubricants.  I've been using ProGold, especially ProLink, to lube my chain for years, but Bruce supplied me with a whole suite of new products by way of introduction:  BikeWash, ProTowels, Foaming Citrus Degreaser, Blast Off Degreaser, more ProLink and ProLink Extreme.  For one, I found it a HUGE relief using the BikeWash to blast off Stage 3's mud and grit from Katie's bike.  Tired after that long wet day of racing, spending extra time on my feet cleaning the bike was the last thing I wanted to do.  My chain hadn't accumulated half the crud I expected, because I'd used the ProGold Extreme on it that morning.  I even used the BikeWash to clean my mountain bike shoes-I'd used an older, dark-colored pair because of the mud, and even right now still look cleaner and newer than they have in a long time.  Later I polished both Katie's and LiLynn's bikes with BikeShine before returning them to their owners.



Dicky and [Bruce] Dickman, hamming it up.

Racers queuing up at the PROGOLD bike wash.

Buck Reich the massage therapist, who worked on my neck, hamstrings, and lower back after the first three days tied me up in knots, and who tuned me up more later in the race when the soreness in my quads peaked to a level that I'd before never experienced in my life.

Dr. Todd, the race medical director, for taking care of my hands.  They had blistered and split open after three days of rattling over the rocks on Katie's bike with less-than-ideal grips.  So for the last few stages Dr. Todd taped over the blisters each morning.  They still hurt and I had to clean dirt and sweat out of them every day but at least they didn't get any worse.


Abe Landes and A.E. Landes Photography for the wonderful imagery each stage.  Abe, you made everybody look great and captured the adventure for us to remember.

Kenda Tires, for providing the Kommandos that fended off further sidewall cuts and kept me rolling through the last four stages of the race. 

All the Eagle Lodge residents, but ESPECIALLY the occupants of Lower Eagle. The lodge may have been full but never felt crowded.  We had Kaarin and Lawrence, Chris and Libbey and their son, Alex and Alan, John, Madonna,  Matt, Anthony and their sidekick Christian (hey guys thanks for reminding me of my brothers and for the comic relief).  Matt:  thanks for lending me the Podium Legs.  Those things MAY be "like crack" as Anthony said (how WOULD you know, Anthony?).  Kaarin and Lawrence, and Chris and Libbey:  two duo teams who dueled all week long but did nothing but support each other on and off the bike.  Alan Avis:  the one other mountain biker I met besides myself who didn't drink beer:  thanks for sharing your drink of choice and your views on the deep philosophical question, "can you be a mountain biker if you don't drink beer?"
People shared everything with each other.  Matt shared his Podium Legs.  Kaarin borrowed my pressure gauge (and my Pocket Rocket pump once on the trail when she couldn't get her own pump off her bike).  I lent Matt a spare CO2 valve and some of my DZNutz Bliss For Her chamois cream.  [I warned him it was GIRL chamois cream but he claimed to like it better than men's DZNuts and said he wasn't going to buy the men's stuff anymore.]  Everyone shared everything:  beer, cookies, crackers, cheese, chips.   I was offered a spare shock and an extra derailleur hanger.  I shared NUUN tablets and occasionally played barista for people with my Tonx coffee travel kit. 
Yes, all you Eagle Lodgers made it great.  Thanks for the memories, everybody.  If I forgot any names here, please FRIEND ME ON FACEBOOK and then yell at me when you read this and I will of course put you back in.  I remember so much of this great experience but as time goes by some of the details fade. So help me get the details!  Thanks, ALL OF YOU.

Click the link for more straight up race info, stage and GC results, and videos from the Trans-Sylvania Mountain Bike Epic.

Here is some good reading below about TSE:  blogs from other racers.  I will keep adding to this as I find more around the web.



Sonya Looney, "The Far Ride"
http://bicycling.com/blogs/thefarride/2013/06/13/remembering-the-rocks/#.Ubo9rwC3UQE.facebook

Brian Matter, "B-Matter"

http://b-matter.blogspot.com/2013/05/transylvania-epic-old-schoool-mtbn.html

"Bad Idea Racing" where Dicky explains what Mike and Ray meant by "not screwing around too much" on Day Seven of TSE:
http://teamdicky.blogspot.com/2013/06/2013-trans-sylania-epic-stage-seven.html



 



Rolling out from camp one last time on Day Seven. 

The Epic, Continued...

 A Novice Mountain Biker's Take on Surviving the Trans-Sylvania Epic, Part 2.

Stage 5:  R.B. Winter State Park [Soreness, Snakes, and Wrong Turns]

By Day Five of racing, much soreness had moved into the quad department after the downhill scrambling on Enduro Day.  Scrambling downhill kills your legs more than riding, and I had controlled my fall downhill using my feet instead of the bike.  Weenie-level descending skills can hurt in more ways than one.

Matt and Anthony shuttled me to and from the remote start in R.B. Winter State Park so we wouldn't have to wait for the shuttle. Sweet.

We drove through a green valley dotted with Amish farms; women hanging laundry, men working the fields behind horse teams.  This sparked a discussion about degrees of Amishness and different levels of Amish technology denial/acceptance.  I tried not to think about the heat predictions for the day or how much my quads hurt but my denial ended abruptly when we got to R.B. Winter State Park and I realized my Camelbak, fully assembled and filled with ice water, still hung on my bunk bed back at Lower Eagle.  Greaaaat.  Anthony offered me a spare to borrow and I took it to the park bathroom.  It was uh, green inside. Uh, no.  No bueno.  Think fast.  I had planned to use the Camelbak only to the day's main checkpoint, with a Perpetuem fuel bottle, then leave it in my drop bag and switch to bottles for the second half of the race with the option to get more water at the water stop later in the race.  I had the Perpetuem bottle and a big bottle of Nuun I had brought to sip, which I topped off with more water and another Nuun tablet.  That would have to do.  I had a small amount of extra food.  And  my timing chip secured in the leg of my shorts.  Just in case sudden enduro machismo took over (doubtful).

Not only did I feel tired and sore and dumb for having left my Camelbak, but when we rolled out I saw fellow racers Jordan and Karen working hard up the first road climb on our way to the singletrack and I had a feeling they were out to get me.  Possible heat-induced paranoid delusion.  But up the hill we all went (oh seriously legs, COME ON, work for me, guys, remember?).  Into the narrow singletrack with shoulder-high shrub walls on both sides and the trail ahead trended uphill, smaller rocks studding it like chocolate chips in a cookie.  Except these chips didn't melt in the heat.  I felt immediate need to get ahead and away.  Why?  I just did.  I forgot how much my legs hurt or maybe the increased blood flow brought enough endorphins because they started working again.  Or maybe working the rocks distracted from the soreness.  I scraped into the bushes to get around Karen and Jordan and went after the next few jerseys up the trail.  Matilda the Trek skipped over the rocks and boy, those 29-inch wheels really work.  We gradually entered shade in a forest and the rocks got bigger.

I couldn't shake that feeling of "they're after me!" but it meant I had some gas in the tank. Once you hit empty you stop caring who is in front or who is behind.  Moving on into the second singletrack section, the rock gardens began.  I remember Mike, one of the Stan's crew, standing in one of these telling me to ride it.  I hit it with a lot of momentum but it looked a mile long and a mile wide and I saw no path or line.  I tried anyway and got a little into it, then lost the momentum.  I heard Sue Haywood cleaned the whole thing.  Maybe someday Bob and I can go back to session it a bit.  I remember a second rock garden about as large and I only got maybe a third of the way through that one.  Eventually the rock gardens got uh, a bit smaller and you alternated between good flowy singletrack and intermittent rock cluster problems.  I finally built some momentum and really enjoyed myself, dropping some folks and picking up a few followers who latched on after I passed them.

At one point early on in the race, I remember pausing to make a decision about an odd course marking that pointed onto a fire road then redirected quickly onto a different track diverging from the fire road.  I concluded the markings intended to make you avoid a hole and some debris.  Chris and Libbey tried to tell me I was going the wrong way...then decided I was right and they followed me.

In the day's enduro segment, a descent as scary steep as upper Wildcat from Stage 4 but less rocky, I got a little brave and rode some steepness, intermittently walking when my brain short-circuited then getting back on and riding when I thought about wasting time and how the women behind would catch right up if I leisurely sauntered down everything instead of riding.  I saw other people ride down whooping and hollering.  I rode more.  I rode out the end of it and felt pretty good.

How bad was the big scary old descent?  Well it was like this but about 20 times longer...

And it was ALL saddle-to-the-stomach steep.  Like this.

Climbing up to the main checkpoint of the day I rode along with Derek Bissett and Zach Adams, intrepid enduro contenders riding the course at a more conversational pace.  Conversational for them.  I kept working along but chatted a little when I had breath.   The heat scorched but at that moment we had some semi-shade on the gravel road climb.
Derek:  "Did you know you might be in second place right now for the women?"
Me:  "Um...hahaha.  Nah."
Derek:  "No, seriously.  Most of the pro women took a wrong turn."
Me:     "Well, I can't go any faster" (trying to go a little faster).

We talked of other Transylvanian things...then suddenly:

Derek:  "WOOAAH SNAKE!" (while abruptly veering toward Zach and I).  A four-foot black snake cheerfully cocked its head up at Derek and flicked its tongue inches from his rear wheel. Zach and I found this hilarious.

Kaarin and Lawrence had climbed up behind us and not quite a minute later we heard Lawrence..."SNAKE!" "SNAKE!" and Kaarin shrieking, "LAWRENCE DON'T F$#KING RUN ME OFF THE ROAD!"  Still funny.

The snake enjoyed much notoriety that day.  Perhaps as much as Eagle Lodge's resident rattlesnake that came out to meet us on day one. 

Meanwhile I reached the 13-mile checkpoint and as always the volunteers ran to fetch my drop bag STAT.  They didn't waste a second.  Happy to get my new bottles, I rolled out again wondering about this whole pro-women wrong turn rumor.  Rich O'Neil said, "Go get 'em!" as I left the checkpoint.

Singletrack singletrack singletrack and hot hot hot sun.
Long climb up a grassy narrow track toward the sky a few miles later and I slowly but determinedly tried to keep pace with Kaarin and Lawrence, better climbers, up the trail.  Seven miles to go, read the GPS.  Give or take a bit, knowing the TSE promoters' creative interpretations of distance.  I looked over my shoulder for some reason, and here came Amanda Carey and Sue Haywood charging from behind, looking like serious business.  Oh my.  Derek wasn't pulling my leg.  So where were the other pros?   I moved over to let these two by.
Sue dropped  a few words of encouragement in passing.  I looked back again.
Nobody else coming yet.

Kaarin, Lawrence and I trailed Sue and Amanda out onto a road hitting a fast descent on loose gravel (loose gravel was default for road descents all week) and we all tried to keep them in sight as long as we could.  The road turned up and they flew uphill, where I lost sight of them, but could still see Kaarin and Lawrence.  Climb climb climb.

Into the next singletrack section, and more forest and rocks.  I enjoyed myself, but thought that any second the other pro women would pass me.  This felt dirty.  But it sure made a hot day interesting.  The next singletrack trail proved to be the last and I climbed hard as I could.  Still no women behind me though I kept thinking:  any second now.
Out of the woods and onto the road going downhill.  I rode in maniac mode all the way down to the finish line, where I got a bit loopy and vague while talking to Kaarin and Lawrence.  Being kind souls they got me some cold water and electrolyte tabs.  Thanks you two!
After that I joined everyone wading in the ice-cold lake at the park until I couldn't feel my legs.  Total numbness, ahhh, the best sensation I'd had from my legs in days.  I didn't want to get out of the lake even though I couldn't stand to go in over my waist.  Kaarin on the other hand said, "I'm from Nova Scotia.  This isn't cold."  And she jumped right in and paddled around.
I had sneaked my dirty, no-good cheating carcass into fifth place.  Andrea Wilson and Sonya Looney had NOT made the same wrong turn as the others and came in first and second, not finding out till after they'd finished;  Amanda rolled in third, Sue fourth, me fifth, with Vicki and Sara finishing RIGHT behind me. 

Finally finishing Stage 5!  Dracula watches from the road.

Kaarin and Lawrence laughed off the Snake Encounter after the stage.  Although the Bridge Incident of Stage 6 would further test their resiliency.

Matt and Anthony remained frustrated in not regaining their third-place GC spot from earlier in the week.  Unfortunately Anthony had taken the same wrong turn as the pro women and he and Matt lost more time on Stage 5.  In addition, Anthony's back continued to hurt for the rest of the race.

That night Mike and Ray (the promoters) reviewed the next day's course with us as always.  40 miles, 5500 feet of climbing, temperatures forecast for the 90s and sunny.  Neutral rollout from camp at 9:30am.  Kaarin raised her hand to ask if the stage would actually start at 9:30 OR 9:10 as it was listed in the printed race guide.  The decision was made:  stick to the time printed in the race guide.  Many people booed Kaarin and she quickly seized the DOUCHE bag and put it on her head.  
Back story on the DOUCHE bag: one of the singlespeeders decided that if you missed your podium at awards (like Dave Yacobelli did just one night), someone would stand on your step of the podium in the DOUCHE bag, a paper bag you put over your head that said...yeah, you get the idea. Now, Dave Yacobelli is NOT a douche, and made sure not to miss his podiums after that, since he spent days holding onto 3rd place in GC after WINNING the stage on Day 4.  I apologize for not mentioning that in my Stage 4 writeup.  It's almost as hard writing up a report on a race like TSE as it is racing for seven days straight, and if Dave missed one night's GC podium, it had to be due to sheer tiredness.  

As it turns out I don't think anybody thought Kaarin was a DOUCHE either, because on a day forecast to be that hot, early starts are good.  

But...5500 MORE feet of climbing?  In 90-plus temperatures?

I thought I'd dug myself into too deep a hole and would come out dead for the last two days.  If any of you have read Mike Festa's blog on "How to Be Awesome at the Transylvania Epic" I can tell you right now that I was NOT awesome there.  I wasn't even moderately cool.  I wish I could have stayed up later to enjoy Upper Eagle's night life and drank more and hung out more with that awesome Pisgah crew that totally had it going on, but heck I was too damn tired at night.  Maybe next year I will have better endurance.  Although next year maybe I can't come.  I will have put the money toward getting a mountain bike of my own that can take this race on, maybe for 2015.  Poor LiLynn probably lay awake late every night wondering if her beloved Matilda would come back to her in one piece.

I know just how hard a choice I made to race Transylvania instead of buying a new bike, but I'm not sorry.  I know now that the bike I did want (the Cannondale F-29er), being a hardtail, would not have gotten me through a mountain bike stage race as tough and rocky as this one.  And when come back I think the Cannondale Scalpel 29er would be my weapon of choice, with Reba my 26 full-suspension as the backup and possible enduro bike.

But I digress.  I fell asleep that night almost immediately.  I know.  Not awesome.

  Stage 6: Rothrock Tussey Mountain [RockRock Fun in the Sun]

The "Queen Stage" promised the most amazing views and superiorly awesome singletrack of the week.
The heat began building during breakfast for another scorching day of racing..
Early in the race, after the pack broke up in the first few miles one of the other women, I'm not clear on name, really seemed to want to beat me uphill.  Even though I'd gotten up feeling MUCH less stiff and sore than the day before, I still needed to get some blood flowing.  It took another mile or so of climbing to find my legs and get some breathing room from my antagonist.  Maybe if I opened some room up right away she'd leave me alone for a while.  I wouldn't go any harder than I needed to with such a long hot day ahead, and knew that to ride through the most technical sections as fast as I could I needed to keep the pace and momentum consistent.  The climb continued onto grassy doubletrack for a long time and I picked up and dropped a few small groups of people. 
LOTS of climbing today.   Nearing the very top of Tussey Ridge, I rode through a long section of rocks piled on each side of the trail and more rocks scattered in the middle.  A groundhog stood in the middle of the trail and saw me coming.  He slowly ran up the hill, stopping about every ten feet to look back and check my progress, almost like he wanted me to follow him somewhere.  Like the scene with Mr. Beaver in the Chronicles of Narnia.  We proceeded together up the trail for maybe a half mile together, before he finally left the trail.  Which is good, because nobody saw me talking to the woodchuck.

Tussey Ridge:  Gorgeous, yet hot enough to fry an egg on the rocks.

More rocks.  I ended up riding along again for a long, long time mid-stage without even a woodchuck to keep me company.  This usually happened to me mid-stage every day but gave me motivation to find someone to ride with.  After plenty of quality time sheltered in forest shade during the stage, Tussey Ridge's views didn't disappoint.  The more open sky welcomed a few more flying insects than I liked (especially the stinging type) and while I passed one rider shortly before topping the ridge riding alone in this remote area kept me moving fast as I could.  I LOVED the trail on Tussey.  Very narrow between the tall grass with plenty of rocks hidden in the grass to make life interesting if you strayed from the path.
The day's two enduro segments came nearly back-to-back descending Tussey Mountain and for a while I thought I'd been transported back to Sidewinder Trail in Raystown Lake, with the looping switchbacks.  SO MUCH fun!  We also got to ride the Three Bridges again coming from the opposite direction on a very rocky section of trail.  I rode a stone bridge heading downhill toward the Three Bridges that would have looked awfully big and scary to me a week ago.  I think my brain had a lot to process every day after each stage but in the moment it's so much easier not to think or worry.

Descending Tussey Ridge in the endless fern forests.

Later in the stage the heat started to wear on me a bit, especially with the gravel road climbs in the last few miles, and the miles got long.  I rode behind Devon Balet heading toward the finish and on the last sections of gravel road and trail.  He had a huge backpack on full of camera equipment and still it seemed like he could ride away from me easily.  Devon took my current profile photo during Stage 5 and posted that one plus many others on pinkbike.com.  Nearing the finish the Garmin had ticked away almost 4 hours and FINALLY after a short unfamiliar stretch of grown-in track I recognized the trail leading down to the finish (the same finish location as Stage 3).    Massive relief.  I wanted to sit in the shade with all the other recent finishers and hang out but feared if I sat down I'd stiffen up too much to get up.  So I mixed and drank some Recoverite from the table of Hammer-provided goodies, chased it with cold, COLD water, and rode straight back to camp with John Williams.  If you believed in showering and freshening up before nap time (which I did), best to get back to the lodge early.  I had plenty of time to shower and lie around for a bit before dinner, but I decided to lie in the pool for half an hour before showering and then I went back to Buck late that afternoon and had him work on my dead quads and take some of the painful kinks out of my neck.  I told him he needed to fix me so I would survive one more day.

I held onto seventh on the stage, having opened up a decent amount of time on whoever had been chasing me earlier (maybe Beverly Richardson).  If I could stay seventh through the end, I'd be SO happy with that.  Remember, I came into this race worrying about time cuts!

Kaarin and Lawrence had a really funny story to tell about The Bridge Incident.  Here's Abe's photo sequence.   Perhaps you can piece together what happened...

One of the most wonderful aspects of Transylvania is that you don't just race and go home.  You spend the day with the other racers on and off the trail.  You all share the day's epic trail stories of what happened over a beer before dinner, and then again during dinner.  That time you went over the bars.  The SNAKE!  That time we fell off the bridge.  That time you almost ate it REALLY badly but kept it up.  That poor guy who overcooked a loose gravel downhill, fell down into the woods, unsuccessfully yelled for help for about an hour then crawled out of the woods on his hands and knees with a broken foot (this actually happened and he couldn't finish the race).  You make fun of that one guy at the lodge who's ALWAYS working on his bike and it's NOT broken.  If I was riding a Cannondale Scalpel I'd give that sweet thing some love every day too.  You ask if anybody has seen the Eagle Lodge rattlesnake lately.  Yes it did come back and was seen several times by Eagle residents.

And then at dinner, after results and podiums, you watched Abe Landes' double show:  first a slideshow with the day's photos set to music, and then video highlights from the day.  People laughed, hooted, cheered and clapped.  Great way to end dinner before you headed back to the lodge with your buddies and talked some more while getting your bike ready, laying out your gear for the next day and planning your checkpoint/drop bag strategy.  Maybe you had a beer, or a small shot of rum or bourbon, in the case of Allen and I.

Sue Haywood gives a textbook cornering illustration

Stage 7:  Bald Eagle Little Poe [The End, Already?]

Mike and Ray warned us the night before that although many people opted to party on the trails on the last day, we shouldn't "screw around too much out there" because it wouldn't be considerate to the volunteers.  SO while they encouraged a BIT of screwing around, beer-chugging, and whatever other shenanigans might happen, they said they WOULD be enforcing time cuts.  Jordan Salman had also asked me if I planned to race or "just ride."  I wasn't sure.  I felt pretty tired but still wanted to see just how fast I could finish the whole thing, and what my time would be for the entire week.  But I didn't realize how I really felt until the next day.  Besides, I came to challenge myself and "screwing around on the trails" wouldn't be a challenge.  I know what Mike Festa would say.  Definitely NOT awesome.  Lame.  But you wouldn't you know, a couple of those other girls wanted to race anyway so things got interesting around the end of Stage 7.

Of course first we had a whole day of racing to get through.  But not TOO long a day.

After leaving camp and getting into the first singletrack of the day, I just had a blast playing on the rocks.  I heard Kaarin pipe up behind me letting me know she and Lawrence were behind and she might want to get by but wasn't sure yet..."You're good for now."  I was having THE TIME of my life on the rocks that day and just going at them, motivated, unafraid, making a plan and sticking to it, and trying my best to FLOAT over them.  Kaarin laughed out loud behind me as I lunged at and over another group of rocks.  "YOU'RE no roadie!" she said.  I had confessed to Kaarin very early in the week that I probably had no business doing this race.  I said to her after stage 5, "At what point do I get to stop thinking about myself as a roadie posing on a mountain bike?"  She said, "HA! About three days ago."   Once we got to a real climb though, I pulled to the side and let Kaarin and Lawrence by then tried to hold close to their pace uphill with my tired legs.

Making my way down a short gravel descent.

Climbing up to the day's main checkpoint I got to spend a little time riding with Matt after passing Anthony early on in one of the rock gardens, whose back pained him enough that he had to walk some of the biggest rocks.  Matt and Anthony had been penalized an hour the day before for not staying within one minute of each other during the stage, since they were competing in the men's duo category.  So Matt rode easy with me until just before the checkpoint, where he hung back a bit to wait for Anthony.  Then I continued on back into the woods by myself.

There were numerous Dracula sightings in the woods today and he gave out beer handups.  Yes, Dracula.  It's Transylvania.  Of course Dracula's there.

My Lower Eagle buddy Matt getting a cold fresh PBR from Dracula.

In the last few miles of the race leading back to camp, Karen Brooks caught up to me.  Okay maybe I had slowed a little, maybe I felt tired after 7 days of racing (DUH) but then it was ON.  I let her pass me, she got caught up in a tricky little uphill rock bit and had to unclip, blocking me riding it, so I jumped off, passed her running, cyclocross remount and then I took off at cyclocross pace.  NO Karen I like you a lot and I think DirtRAG is an AWESOME magazine but I am still racing and you have to catch me again now and maybe you will but I'm not going to make it too easy for you.

You know it really didn't matter, but maybe I like this cat-and-mouse game stuff.  So I rode hard hard and recognized that we only had four or five miles back to camp.  The course had a "balloon on a string" look on the map, and we were onto the string and heading for home base.  For camp.  For the end of the race.  The END.  Better to finish with a BANG.  Matt caught up to me just before a short very steep climb that had been a descent for the time trial stage.  He said gleefully,"Just so you know there are two women about 45 seconds back and they're chasing you."  I said thanks, ran up the hill, remounted and tore off again as fast as I could, gasping.  I may have heard him chuckling as I took off.

And back to racing in maniac mode, I took corners and rocks and everything as fast as I dared, convinced Karen would be on me in a heartbeat if I bobbled, just like I jumped her when she dabbed in the rocks.  Ducking and weaving I finally came out of the "newly cut" singletrack and saw the lake, the camp, the finish line.  One more last loop over the footbridge (and I heard the Stan's NoTubes women and Sonya cheering for me).  Around the lake, down the concrete stairs by the campfire circle (remember how the concrete stairs surprised me on day 1?  And scared me?  No more).  Back over the creek and down to the finish.  

And that was the race.  I'd finished the whole seven days.   In seventh.

Karen and Jordan--yes Jordan was the other woman--finished a few minutes later.   AH you foxy ladies thought you'd get me on Day 7.  Karen and I laughed at each other.  Matt rolled in laughing at me.  "Did you like that?  Yeah?  I just had to tell you that because I KNEW you'd take off!"  

Sue demonstrates important technical skill for Stage 8.  The crutch belongs to (I THINK) Jon Stang, the unfortunate racer who fell down a ravine and broke his foot (in yellow shirt on left).

There was an early dinner that night.  There was much drinking of beer, and laughing, and after final awards we all filed in to receive our finishers' prizes (a custom multi tool).  Damn.  I wanted a hatchet.  Oh well.  There was some sadness realizing it was over.  But the great news?  Everybody pretty much stayed over that night to party.  We had one more magic night with our new mountain bike friends.

We were all invited to Stage 8.  Stage 8 involved many things including the Stans' NoTubes pro women in costumes, beer, brooms, bicycles, the lake, beer, Sue Haywood in a Batman costume, fireworks, traffic cones...beer.  I posted a Facebook video.  You really just had to be there, though.

This is the end of the race reporting, but I still may have a bit more to say about Transylvania.  Stay tuned.

Thank you again, Abe Landes, for your gorgeous photos.

Back to reality: some thoughts on going back to normal life, post-TSE.

And EPIC, It Was. Part One.

A Novice Mountain Biker's Take on Surviving the Trans-Sylvania Epic

I miss the singletrack.
I miss the people.
I even...all right, I'll say it--I even miss the rocks.

As I left Seven Mountains Scout Camp behind, after the most challenging race of my life, I felt a deep sadness at knowing that amazing week had finally ended.
Yes I had dead legs.
I hoped to learn something about how to ride a mountain bike.  Well I THINK I did.

I didn't expect to meet SO MANY great people all brought together by mountain biking.

I didn't expect that the food would be as good as it was.

I didn't realize that borrowing Bob's daughter Katie's KHS 650B hardtail wouldn't quite get me through this race.  Granted, the bike itself seemed to be up to the task.  My body, however, tightened and cramped and ached from the pounding it took on the rocky descents.

I didn't foresee that my own bike, a 26-inch full-suspension Titus, would stop holding air in the rear shock and that the FreezeThaw Cycles mechanics at the race would diagnose the entire brake system as suffering from old age and needing replacement, and that the combination of these two rendered my bike out of commission for the duration.  Had I been a more experienced and savvy mountain biker, maybe I'd have figured these out sooner, but I haven't been doing this that long.

I couldn't have known I would learn so much and so quickly about riding rocks.

I didn't foresee that making the time cuts for each stage would NOT be a problem (one of my biggest worries before the race).

I didn't expect to find that time flies in the singletrack sections, and the miles pass faster there than on the road.

I had not expected to finish seventh in the Solo Open Women category.  In fact, I wasn't convinced I would finish at all.

Bald Eagle Prologue [Please Don't Make Me Ride the Tractor Tires, I'm Just a Roadie]

 Hanging out with Bob, before the start of the Prologue.

I hoped that because they called this a "prologue" and a "time trial," that I could handle this part of the race just fine.  If anyone could TT, well, I could.  I do own a Cervelo P3 TT bike.  My aero position is aggressively dialed and I have a sperm hat (TT helmet).  Oh wait, this isn't a road race.

The Prologue stage, listed at 11 miles in the race guide, had somehow evolved into 14 miles that included 1400 feet of climbing.  We started at 30 second intervals onto sketchy gravel, a few quick turns, an intentionally awkward little singletrack piece involving weird off camber turns, prominent roots and awkward rocks, some fire road, gravel parking lot, singletrack singletrack singletrack...rocks dirt rocks, lots more singletrack, and an enduro segment.  Also the course featured some motocross trails including a permanent obstacle made of giant tractor tires, and [awesome!] a mini pump track.  The sign next to the deer fences lining one of the singletrack sections warned that these fences, mere inches from the trail, were electrified.  Whoah, better not go off THAT line.
 Let's talk briefly about enduro segments.  These became one of the few thorns in my sidewall all week.  This year the Transylvania Mountain Bike Epic featured not only an enduro stage but an ongoing enduro competition all week long.  Course segments that trended toward downhill plus technical had been marked with special signage and timing devices.  The fastest times through these segments won the most points in the ongoing enduro competition.  If you wanted to compete in the daily enduros (no obligation) you simply "chipped in" by swiping a small computerized piece of plastic on the timing device, it would beep, and then you raced hell-bent for leather through that section until the course markings notified you the end was near.  Whereupon you would slam on the brakes and slap that timing chip to the computer, it would blink red and beep, and you rolled on to continue racing the rest of the stage.  Unless like me you got a timing chip that didn't work, and then swapped for one that did, but didn't want to really race the enduros. Because downhill plus speed plus technical plus me isn't a good idea yet.  And eventually I lost the chip wading in an ice-cold lake at R.B Winter State Park after Stage 5.
Okay so no enduro competition for me this stage, but I still had to ride through the enduro segment.  After finishing the prologue I had to check to make sure all my teeth were in place, since I got knocked around pretty well by the enduro rocks riding that hardtail 650B.  I did get treated to a front-row seat as Vicki Barclay and Sarah Kaufman blasted past me there while I focused on not rattling the fillings out of my back molars.  After the enduro segment the trail twisted and turned into somebody's backyard motocross course.  All of the somebodies and their friends had come out to hoot and holler at us.  I gunned it up the ramp onto the giant double stacked tractor tires, looked down, and promptly punked out.  So did the guy riding right behind me.  We looked at each other, dismounted sheepishly and jumped down, then realized that a) the big scary tractor tires didn't eat mountain bikers and b)  DUDE, if you had ridden the tractor tires you would have been set up perfectly to go MUCH faster through the pump track.  The pump track was sweeeet.  Okay, lesson learned.  Don't look down next time and things won't look so big.  Just GO.  I am ashamed, looking at the photos online, to see just how not that big those tires really are.
The singletrack leading back into Seven Mountains Scout Camp had been "newly cut" for the race [interpretation:  it's bumpy and VERY rough around the edges].  It wound around through the woods in endless serpentine patterns then led back to the loop around the lake.
Through the whole prologue I rode like a mental case, accelerating and jamming on the brakes because I'd temporarily forgotten what little I knew of cornering.  Moment of "WHAT?!" as I realized the little lake loop at the end of the prologue led us to ride down some concrete stairs.  But too late, I was already riding them and then they were behind me.  Hopefully, after finishing this first stage, I'd left my nerves behind me too with Day One in the books.  Seventh place.  Well okaaay then...

Stage 2:  Rothrock Cooper's Gap [Oh Look, Rocks!]

We rolled out from camp with a neutral start that morning for Stage 2, featuring 37 miles and 4700 feet of climbing.  After a washy fire road climb and bone-rattling descent that knocked many bottles loose, the first singletrack section started out civilized, but then turned into a long brutal death march of a climb, cut into the side of a huge hill (mountain?).  Rocks piled upon rocks upon rocks.  Loose rocks slipping under your wheels as you tried to ignore the drop-off into the woods on your right.  The climb became steeper and steeper and more technical, on the edge of rideability and once the riders ahead began walking, room to pass was practically nonexistent.  We all dismounted and trudged, one foot in front of another, eyes up and ahead.  This went on for a few years.  I don't remember the transition into the next singletrack segment but found later this rock pile climb was called "No-Name." After a short road transition we serpentined up through the woods onto a long technical and rocky section called Chicken Peter.  After about fifteen minutes of stop and go, awkward pedal-whacking sudden stops and a few physical encounters with the odd tree, I got mad.  The rocks silently sat and looked at me, hiding their smirks.  Wearing team kit and in the midst of lots of other racers, I bit back the torrent of "trail Tourette's" trying to leap from my mouth and just wordlessly roared in rage through clenched teeth after the third painful pedal whack to a preexisting wound on my left shin.  I began attacking the rocks a little harder, a little faster.  Plotting my approach and exit, I started to commit to my plan for each section and push harder to get it done.  I began yelling when I succeeded.  "SUCK IT ROCKS, SUCK IT." Okay, not too profane.  A few snickers came from the other racers but we generally cheered each other on. "You got it, you got it!  Go GO!"  The scorecard started to tip more in my favor and I left a few people behind.  Finally I had some momentum and some positive energy.  Winning over the rocks became a big, big goal and every time I cleared something I laughed or yelled.
Halfway through the course the singletrack transitioned from the rock gardens to pine and laurel forests with the occasional rock here and there, and more and more tree roots.  But it flowed beautifully.
I finished out the stage in seventh place.

Me and my silver "jet pack" Camelbak.

Stage 3: Bald Eagle Coburn [It Rained.  A Lot]

It poured as we grouped at the start line in the center of camp.  But we were all ready to take on our 42 miles and almost 5000 feet of climbing. We took the first road climbs out of camp pretty hard.  Or maybe my legs just wanted to cry over the cold and the last two days.  I worried, thinking about five days more of racing and wondered how I'd survive.  But eventually legs do warm up.  I sported my metallic silver Camelbak for the second time and got even more laughs out of it.

"Is that a JET PACK in there?"  

"Yes.  I'll turn it on when I get tired."  

"You look like an astronaut."

"Well, that's one small step for man...woman..."

The first singletrack section we hit was a very narrow channel of greasy peanut butter mixed with rocks and very quickly I found myself slip-sliding around like everyone else.  Time to adjust to the slipping.  It's really scary until you get accustomed to it.  I got through this first section okay though it got a bit hairy as it turned downhill.  The second piece of singletrack brought far worse--a faster descent, just as slick, with additional larger rocks.  I felt trapped realizing braking had very little point even though I had to control the speed somewhat.  At one point I built up way too much speed, lost control and went over the bars when my front wheel took a bounce off line and ponged onto something hidden in the tall grass next to the track.  A small tree or large bush cushioned my landing but knocked the mount for Bob's Garmin to the narrower part of my handlebar, where it dangled for the remainder of the stage, which fortunately had more road and fire road than normal.  It was a long day in the saddle, and my body hurt badly after three days on Katie's hardtail.   I wound up in...seventh place.

Fortunately Bob made the trek all the way back  to Seven Mountains Tuesday night to bring me LiLynn's bike.  He had also traded some favors with Buck Reich, one of the massage therapists at the race, and so Buck had given me credit for a free half hour massage.  That night, I needed it.

I realized that night I wouldn't see Bob for a few more days, after he brought me the bike.

 Thank you Lower Eagle residents for keeping me entertained.  I couldn't have stayed with a better group of people.  Kaarin and Lawrence, the co-ed duo from Nova Scotia who took home the GC win, and Libby and Chris who took second in the co-ed duo, were two great pairs to hang with.  Libby and Chris's son, only fourteen (?) rode the entire race in the Experience category.  Also we had the comic pair of Matt Johnson, chiropractor from Indiana, and his pal, former Marine Anthony Sanson ("I'm just a guy that does all kind of odd jobs.  I like riding my bike though.")  Matt and Anthony's misadventures kept me entertained all week, especially since their bunks were "next door" to mine.  We gave each other crap at mealtimes and we had fun picking on Christian, their teenage sidekick, who had come along with them to train for USAC Mountain Bike Nationals.  Most of the time Anthony hogged Matt's Podium Legs when Matt wasn't wearing them, but let me use them once--in fact he insisted, "They're like crack.  You have to try them."  In true manly style, Anthony graciously blamed me whenever he farted.  Matt and Anthony held on to third place in Men's Duo GC until Stage 4 of the race.  Alan Avis, whose gluten allergy kept him from drinking beer like just about everybody else in the lodge, traded drinks with me, a little of his rum for my bourbon.  I'll mention more of the Lower Eagle characters in Part 2, but I miss them all.

Still smiling, just dirtier.  Still wearing my jet pack.

Stage 4: Enduro [Endure the Enduro without Endo-ing]

All right, time to reveal my true lack of experience and nerve on this stage.  Better yet, I decided to try and film some of what scared me, so Rich O'Neil helped me set up the videocamera on my handlebar.  The night before, somebody said, I don't remember if it was Ray or Mike, "There's nothing here that's over anybody's head."  Uh, think again, buddy.

My timing chip, freshly replaced and working, I took my place in line and waited to "bomb" my Enduro Segment 1 like everyone else.  People left each other some room to avoid needing to pass.  I didn't leave the guy in front of me any room, knowing NOT ONE person there would likely descend slower than I would.  I fumbled my way through the first section without mishap, and came out at the end to see Justine Lindine having a crack put back on.  Immediately I thought of checking my tire pressure.  My rear had dropped 6 PSI from that morning and I found the sidewall cut in the tire.  The support mechanics had a tube put in before I could say "boo."  And I trundled off to climb up to Enduro Segment 2.  Enduro 2:  Not too bad.  I hardly remember it, actually.

Enduro 3:  Coyle Run.  Okay, faster faster and getting a little sketchy.  New and unfamiliar:  the feel of going fast in a VERY narrow track dug in, with chunky rocks everywhere.  The front wheel took care of itself and rode up and over things softly but the back wheel got shunted left, right, up down, everywhere and you had to just stay loose and let it.  Once I got a feel for that weirdness, I let the bike go more and the rest of that segment worked itself out.  Not at warp speed per se, but I rode it and figured out how in the process and felt pretty damn good about that.

Enduro 4:  Wildcat Run.  Holy [bleep bleep bleep bleep].  No WAY.  Hike-a-bike time.  How could you call this mountain biking?  To me, it looked like a slightly slower way to fall down a slanted cliff.  No, I walked for a while.  Enduro timing be damned.  This was way over my head.  At least I got to see HOW other people did it, and see it could be done, but no, not for me.  Maybe in a few years.  The huge rockpile at the bottom?  Insane.  Of course the race doctor stood hanging out right down there.  

Big sigh of relief, swiping my card at the end of that segment.  Hell, I felt stressed just LOOKING at it.

Enduro 5: Old Laurel.  Nah the beginning scared me.  Lots of rocks to fall on and it didn't help feeling pre-wussed out already by Wildcat Run.  I ran a little, rode some, and as soon as I chilled out and the trail seemed to mellow a little I got back on and rode the rest.  It ended at the bottom in the Three Bridges, which I rode confidently after a short pause to line up just the right way for that first one.  And then I went to the parking lot, heaved a sigh of relief, and waited for Matt and Anthony to come in.  Another woman, Sandy, seemed near tears describing to me how much she'd walked.  I said, "Hey, come on now Sandy, I did more walking than riding today.  You're not alone there."  And she said, "OH THANK YOU, I'm so relieved to hear that."

Anthony had crashed hard on one section and rolled in suffering from a tweaked back, but trying as always to put a heroically manly face on things.

I found after getting home that I had somehow failed to record a single thing on the camera.  Oh well.
I don't want to talk about where I finished on this stage.  Close to last.  Almost last.  Not quite last.

Here is Wildcat Run.  I decided to do THIS...

...So that I wouldn't do THAT.  By the way, the camera flattens this out, it is REALLY steep.

ALL photographic awesomeness here is brought to you by Abe Landes.  You can see more of his great work at http://www.aelandesphotography.com/

Stay tuned for Part 2...