My weekend started off on Friday and I went to Cleveland to meet up with Lauren to ride Mohican state forest!  No matter how many times I ride this trail it never ceases to amaze me it is truly incredible and is getting better and better as the trail runs in.  Lauren did her  best time ever at 2:40 minutes about 20 minutes faster than her previous best.  She is riding really well.  After an amazing day on the trail we retired to my favorite restaurant MELT!   I miss it alot the food is awesome! 

 

This is where it gets totally crazy, I had to work at the bike shop at 10 am so I got up early and drove to Pittsburgh to work and asked my manager Chuck if I could get out a little early to race at Vultures Knob.  He said " Are you F---ing nuts"  but said if we were slow I could go.  At three it was slow and he told me to get out of there and that I did.  Back to Ohio I went and another 40 dollar fill up.  These gas prices are insane!   I am really glad my car is small and gets good gas mileage I average around 33mpg not bad considering how heavy my foot is.

 

I arrive at the Knob with about 20 minutes to spare and get suited up for the start.  It is kinda neat showing up to races where your not expected and seeing the reactions of your fellow racers.  There were some really fast guy's lined up for the start and the course was DRY!  This is the first dry race I did all season!  I was a little worried at the start about how hard I rode the day before at Mohican as I did not expect to get out of work early and get to race.  At the call we were off and Brad got an awesome start from a trackstand I fell in close behind him in second and we got to the single track in fast order.  I could not believe the speed Brad was going through the woods it was all I could do to stay on his wheel and in the first lap he got a little gap on me and never let up.  Steve was right behind me for a while and must of had some issue but soon after in this crazy new section I don't really like much he bridged back to me and passed me in the furnace.  I grabbed his wheel for the rest of the first lap but was already feeling a little tired from the crazy fast pace being set by Brad.  I was pretty sure Brad was on a mission to beat me from the moment I saw him at the start.  For lap 2 I decided to try to set a hard pace I could maintain the rest of the race and hold off the rest of the guy's back there, but that Whitney Jones who has been living in Colorado going to college there decided it was a good day to stomp me, caught me and let me know who was faster.  This all after he tried to tell us all he wasn't in shape at all.  All kidding aside Whitney is gonna be a really fast dude if he starts training for real.  He proceeded to drop me and I ended up in 4th place.  Not to bad after riding really hard the day prior.

 

I gotta give props to all involved in setting up this race series the turnout was awesome the trail was in great shape and the after party was a blast.  There was a huge bonfire and beer from Sierra Nevada and a lot of good friends.  What more could you ask for at a mountain bike race?

 

In the morning it was back to the bike shop in Pittsburgh.  Holy shit that was a lot of driving!  So I am at work and Brian Parker says he is coming up with an I- nine wheel to put new bearings in, cool.  We fix his wheel and he says " anyone riding tonight?"  sure I say why not.  So off to Frick Park we go 20 miles and 2400ft. of climbing later he asks if I want to go up to Kenerdale and camp out with a bunch of friends and ride on Monday.  What the hell why not?  We drive to Brian's about 45 minutes away and he drove the rest of the way up the the camp.  We arrive to a super cool A-frame cabin in the mountains and are greeted by a super bunch of guys and one girl all hanging out in the hot tub.  Jason the owner jumps out and takes us in to the giant pot of pasta and meatballs.  This stuff was so good I ate three plates of it.  I drank a beer and we all retired to bed to get some rest for the day of riding in the morning. 

 

We wake up in the morning and the gracious host he was Jason made and awesome breakfast eggs, pancakes, sausage.  From there it just got better the trail was less than a mile away and we rode to it in a big pack of giddy, silly mountain bikers.  These trails are absolutely beautiful, there is everything from the 12 creek crossings to super tech rock gardens, fast nasty downhills, mile long climbs, and logs lots of them not cut out of the trail.  How about that a real mountain bike trail, not a manicured NORBA course with a bunch of people complaining that it is to technical.  Anyway this place is super cool and I can't wait to come back and ride it again.

 

Four days of riding and close to 100 miles of offroad riding including a race.  Hope that sets me up good for the Mohican 100 this weekend

Another mudfest whats new.  It  rained all night before the race leaving the trail in bad shape for the race and it got real windy and sunny during the race so everything turned to peanut butter by lap two.  The kind of mud that sticks to everything and rips off derailuers.  Not mine this time thank God!  I got a good start and went into the woods about 4th place Walker was out front and got washed out in the mud and went down.  Ben took advantage of it and took off with me and Steve chasing hard but that 29er of his with those boggers was flying!  We got to a hard steep climb and I couldn't find traction, Ben's big wheels did though and he made the climb.  When Steve and I crested the top Ben was gone!  Dave caught us and I caught a pedal on something on a fast decent and somehow didn't crash but tweaked my back pretty good in the process.  The next climb Dave came around us and was on the gas hard I tryed to chase him but he was flyin and I couldn't match his power.  Shortly after that Steve came around me and again I couldn't stay on his wheel either.  I was sitting in 4th and figured I could hold on to it if I could keep a steady pace in the mud.  In the first lap the mud was thin and traction was decent but when we came around for lap 2 it was thick and sticky and trail was in really bad shape I found myself running alot of the climbs I made easily in the first lap and was thankful for my toe spike on my new Diadora shoes which by the way are totally awsome shoes, I loved my Sidi's but I think these are better.  With about 3 miles to go I saw Justin from Dirty Harry's behind me and tried like hell to hold him off but he was rollin on his 29er wheels through the nasty stuff alot better than me and I crashed hard chasing him.  I settled in and went into survival mode just hoping to finish, then about a mile from the finish I see none other than Brad Wilhelm and he was being sneaky of course!  So I went from survival mode to oh shit mode and had enough in the tank to hold him off for 5th place.  All in all it was not a bad finish for the conditions and the field of talented riders who showed up.