backcountry shenanigans.

the ss assault brought us to a new region of the us this time, tn. w/ a late wed arrival we prerode on thurs. the course was a good one. lots of singletrack w/ jeep roads connecting. some fairly rocky sections, in fact, there was nary a smooth section on the whole loop. all we knew about the race was that there would be three rounds. some riding a bike, and some not. we met up w/ the tn fisher rep, will, and hit some lunch, filling him in on what to expect of the fish himself.

friday arrived and the rain had held off. a bit cloudy but that only helped the acclimation to the summer  climate weve heard so much about. at noon we lined up for the race. two eight plus mile laps. w/ a bit of trickery they had everyone facing the wrong direction at the start. jesse and i moved the the front where dj was plugging along. jesse put the hammer down and i followed suit. we opened up a sizeable gap by the end of lap one. heres where the first twist was thrown in. before heading out for lap two you had to stop at the refreshment table where nat and yuri were handing out cold beverages. either pbr or root beer. we avoided the heckles by downing a pbr each. jesse downed it like nothing were i took a bit longer. i closed the ten second gap and we headed out for lap two. the hammer stayed down and jesse opened up a small gap w/ a mile to go. the last section has a bugger of a climb and i started closing down the gap. we sprinted in, both missing the finish.  we whipped a u turn and jesse took the stage by a second.

after another pbr and some intercom interviews the rest started filing in. dj in third. lee unwin in about fifth. 29er crew teammate dave holmes was in the top six or seven. about a half hour and it was round two. this one was a hill climb. we ditched the jerseys and went bibs only. two minutes but straight up. jesse again took the win with myself in second. we advanced to the final round w/ five others.

this is about to get interesting.

Comments

[kent]

never thought about working on the joust in the off-season did you??