So it has been forever since i updated this. I spent last month at chestnut ridge hospital. Luckily they did not admit me, but it was a great experience to see all the different types of patients. August started out with a double downhill weekend including timberline and the second race of the mid atlantic series at wisp. I went down to timberline on saturday with chris and johnny to check out the trails at timberline. The have a new mountain bike program that is working on reviving all of the old trails. It was a great day of riding. It rained and the trails were good gnarly. Sunday i was a little tired from riding on saturday and had a really crappy race at wisp. The cdourse had a flat/uphill section in it and i was too tired to pedal. Chris and johnny showed up after the race and we rode at wisp the rest of the afternoon. The next weekend consisted of a ride down to camp at seneca rocks from fairmont. After 90 miles of a little rain the skies opened up over the last mile and it rained/hailed and the temp really dropped. It took forever to finally get warm after that experience. The next weekend was the Wild 100. I being the broke college student who just had to pay tuition couldn't justify $140 for a race. The whole WV niteclub crew was down there for the race. I showed up at the start on sat morning planning to ride until i was tired, then head back to the finish since i didn't pay to race. I fell off the back of the lead group heading up the first climb-it was like 9 miles. At the top of the climb i ran into Morgan who had completely ripped off his derailler. I stopped and helped him to fix is bike into a single speed but it is hard to get it perfect not being able to adjust chain tension. Heading to CP #2 i ran into Chris, LB, and Andy heading back. They said the checkpoint was right there and since i didn't need to check in i turned around and started riding with them. It turned out to be one of the best races ever because we rode together the whole race all the way to the ultra checkpoint and the finish. I think our time was around 10 hours 15 minutes. The next day the crew headed over to snowshoe for some of the best downhill riding on the east coast. I met up with chuck, johnny, lb, andy, and chris and we didn't stop all day. Probably close to 20 runs. Big props to chuck and johnny who I convinced to hit the road gap. It is one of the biggest things i've ever hit, but it is a load of fun and is so addicting.
Hitting it in race #2, got my head cut off:
Chuck hitting it:
After this i took some time off to recover. I felt tired over the next couple weeks whenever i tried to ride, so i figured some recovery time was needed. Labor day weekend i went to snowshoe for the final race of the series. I showed up late on Saturday and only got 1 run on the course, then it started raining and they closed practice. After it stopped raining in the evening i convinced amber to drive shuttle for me and i did a couple of extra practice runs. MEt up with chuck in the evening at silver creek campground. The next morning brought fog and overcast early that opened up to sunny skies. The course was super slick and sketchy fast. Which is good for me, but if you crash its going to happen quick and hurt, so i was a little nervous. By the time my time came around to run it had almost completely dried. I had done runs all day so i knew it was drying up. I took off for my run and felt that it was clean and semi-fast. I always have a clean run at snowshoe and finish middle of the pack, so i was expecting the same. I finsh at 5:45 and am waiting for others to finish watching the times since the higher seeded riders go last. I saw a time of 5:43 come in and i knew there was still a couple more riders. As they came down the hill I watched the seconds tick by. I couldn't believe it, could i have really gotten 2nd at snowshoe. It was the first time in 3 years that i have ever got to be on the podium at snowshoe.
Reality quickly set in after the race as i had to head to petersburg for rotation #3. I have a really nice place to stay here and the riding is awesome. I am wondering if i will be able to cover it all in a month. Good thing i am coming back in november. Here are some pics from a ride and the town.
This is from a road ride near moorefield:
The hill in the background is the start of a 2 mile climb right out of town.
View of town from where i'm at:
This weekend is the big bear ultra and WVU home races at wisp and big bear. I gotta work on saturday so that makes that decision easy, Sunday i plan on racing at big bear at the wvu race. Hopefully i can get out and ride some local trails this week.
Gravy
View from the top of redman on nfm trail. It is raining over on Dolly Sods-glad it stayed over there:
Looking over at chimney rock:
Some of the milder singletrack:
Looking out along the rock face on the final downhill:
Last chance at an overlook before the end:
