Tennessee Weekend

This past weekend team mates Eric Tiffany, Tige Lamb, Chris Locke, Carolynn Locke & Christopher Locke traveled down to Ducktown TN for the Cohutta 100 mountain bike race. We were joined there by Chris' brother Joey and his friend Selby. The day we drove down the temp was in the 80s and sunny. We did a little pre-riding over the first 10 miles or so and found out what this race was going to be about, alot of climbing. The race starts at the Ocoee whitewater center, where the kayaking and canoeing events were held at the 1996 Olympics. The start of the race is at the bottom of the mountain and starts with a 3 mile climb up the mountain to the singletrack. We had an awesome cabin in the mountains that was fully furnished including a hot tub. The day before the race we finished pre-riding and picking up our packets and went back to the cabin to hang out and get our bikes and gear ready.

I had signed up for the 65 mile event while Tige, Chris & Eric were doing the 100. The night before the race a thunderstorm blew in and dumped a ton of rain, it also drove the temp into the 40s. We got up very early in the morning and headed to the start, it was still sprinkling off and on and pretty cold. The 100 started at 7am and my race at 7:15. I watched the start of the race which was neat because all the top endurance pros were there including Floyd Landis. For my race I decided my goals were top 50 (about 170-180 people in my race) and to finish before the top pros doing the 100, so I lined up about 1/3 of the way back planning to pace myself because there are some serious mountain climbs on the course. The race started off and we headed up the 3 mile 2000' climb, I felt good and moved up a bit but still throttled back not knowing what to expect. We hit the single track and I was in a group that stretched as far as I could see, we basically yo-yo'd in the group for about 15 miles of single track, I felt strong and wanted to move up but there was no way due to the traffic and we had started catching the back of the 100s pretty quick. We got off the muddy single track and hit the fire roads. This is where the climbing started and continued for about 4 hours, it was unbelieveable trying to ride on the deep gravel and mud up these climbs, they just kept going and going and the decents were super fast and sketchy so there was no real recovery. The single speed guys had to walk alot of the climbs and my high gear wasn't really moving me much fastser but I continued to put time on them. This course made the Oauchita Challenge course look like a cakewalk, the easiest sustained climb was at least as hard as Blow-Out moutain as far as grade and length. My legs felt super strong, I was fueling well and climbing awesome for me, I pushed the descents but took the turns a little cautious becasue if you went off the side, they probably wouldn't find you plus I had a hard time seeing because all of the mud being thrown in my eyes. I don't believe I was ever passed by anyone I didn't catch after we hit the 15 mile mark. I finally hit a point about mile 30 where I road alone for an hour or so with nobody in sight at all. I figured I was up near the front or I would be seeing more people. Ocassionally I would see a rider up front, grab another gear and catch them. Anyway I finally hit the single track with only one big climb to go and the course marshall told me I was in 17th place and a couple minutes later a local rider told me I had like 9 miles left, feeling great and surprised by my place I decided to let it rip and give everything I had. I passed several more riders and after a while figured out that the rider was wrong and I actually had more like 15 miles left. I finally headed down the final descent and passed one final rider, I was in no way going to let him catch me, so as I was pushing it, I came to the end of the trail and one last wet wooden bridge, I ended up losing it on the bridge and had the hardest wreck I have had in a long time. Along with the normal scratches I smacked my face hard on the rocks and busted my helmet up. I got up quickly but very dizzy and finshed the final mile strong. I finally finished in 5:57 and 23rd overall (the course marshall was wrong about my placing earlier but it gave me that extra push anyway). The results were just posted and it looks like I was 50 minutes off the winning time, I felt like I went too easy, if I had gotten into the single track ahead of the mid pack I could have finished top 15 or maybe better. My crashed left me pretty bruised and scratched but hopefully nothing worse, I have a rib on my LH side that hurts when I breath deeply, my guess is at worst that I cracked it mabye just a bad bruise but I was able to continue the rest of the weekends activities anyway.

The next day we all went down the Ocoee River to do some whitewater rafting, it was a blast but very cold, temps around 50, party cloudy and partly windy. My rib hurt quite a bit during this but it was worth it, we got some good pics that I will post later. After rafting we rode probably the best flowing single track I have ever seen, we raced a portion of this but it was muddy and I was in a pack so I didn't really get to enjoy it. We finally finished up and headed to dinner that night. We got up early the next day and headed home. I can't wait to hit the bed. This was a great weekend and a race, hopefully more trips like this are in my future.