killthedarkness

after last years mud fest, treadfest was a course i was looking forward to. tight twisting singletrack, some serious climbing, the rock garden. with no regard for the fact that i was racing i hammered out consecutive five hour days in the middle of the week, first on the ss roadie and next on the ss mtb. the days leading up had me nervous from the lack of pop in the legs.

sunday rolled around and i felt at least somewhat decent. the fast uphill start coupled with the cool air wreaked havoc on my lungs. that burning/bloody/phlegm feeling lasted two laps. in that time i managed to get out in second behind jesse, fall over on a tight turn, regroup to jesse, take a wrong turn, and fall off the back about ten seconds. i finally got my wits about me and put the hammer down. got my tristan, then ben and chased jesse for three laps. i heard gaps of forty five seconds at times but with no regard for my own well being i managed to close it down to fifteen by the finish. another 29er crew 1/2.

fully wooly.

never a dull moment.

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.

DSG.

wild course. apparently clay, the race director, owns all the land. according to jesse's garmin we did something like 1200 feet of climbing on the lap. kind of a mix between la crosse and state college. very twisty and rocky. race tomorrow at noon.

dont call it a comeback.

off to tn for ssusa. stories from the road to come.

plastic fantastic.

i can get used to this mountain biking thing. with the sun blazing and temps close to eighty,  jesse, t-da, aom, and myself headed over to the kettles for the first time this year. other than half the blue loop being closed, the trails were in great shape. after four or so hours we called it quits. it was good to blaze the trails again. hopefully i can get back on the once a week plan i was on last year. its tough to get sick of riding there. a weekend off is on tap in preparation for SSUSA down in TN. ive heard tales of much climbing. might be time to bust out the surly 22t. we may be releasing the super secret bikes down there as well.

bpw slayers

new race bikes showed up on friday and it was a mad scramble to get em built up before race day. in fact, the bigger scramble was to find some replacements to fill our slots at the shop on sunday. we inadvertently asked off for the do the rock rain date, rather than the actualy race date. we hoped for rain but it appeared as if the race would go on. thanks to pete, shaw, and dan, we made the trip.

all the bits i had procured went on the steel darkness 2.0 without trouble. its always the small things you forget about though. chain, seatpost clamp, tubeless strips. it came out to near the exact weight of the darkness 1.0. a couple of newbies to try out for the season. xtr 960 crankset and some hayes stroker carbon brakes. had no issues. the maiden voyage was about an hour after work on saturday night. the main goal was to make sure everything was tight, working, and stretch the chain.

sunday came too early as we headed to rockford bright and early. we had failed to check the travel time and arrived way too early. after sitting around we finally headed to warmup. they had warned of some muddy spots and a few that were soft. after two miles on the trail it was apparent that it was gonna be a mud fest. mud nests formed around the crank and rear stays. we had a hunch the sixty five and a half gear inches was a little too steep. we were right.