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Norba #7, Snowshoe & SSWC |
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Written by Adam Craig
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Monday, 22 August 2005 |
Chris Sheppard swore it was dusty at Snowshoe Resort in the mountains of West Virgina on Monday, I definitely don’t believe him. Keeping with the theme of random summer thunderstorms at the last four NORBA’s in a row, WVA didn’t disappoint. Unfortunately, the ground back east doesn’t exactly dry out, at all. It just gets mixed up by a full slate of hardy amateur racers and then left for us to slog (or slice in our case with the amazing ol’ skool Michelin 1.75” Wildgrippers) through in Saturday afternoon’s XC race.
Fortunately for the turnout, the skies cleared and it was a standard southern afternoon, hot and sticky, and plenty of people showed up to check out the XC action.
The snowshoe ski resort is upside down, meaning we start the race with ten minutes of burly east coast descending instead of the standard fireroad climb, very nice. At the bottom I was slightly off the front thanks to the skinny tires but a group of five containing Kabush, Bishop, Wicks and Wells quickly formed on the fireroads leading to the climb and heinous traverse to the top of the mountain. Decker was settling into his second day of a very nice head cold and was amazed to be around tenth after the first lap, at which point the prospect of ripping down the muddy descent on the skinnies instead of resting up for SingleSpeed worlds the next day tricked him into doing another lap before abandoning in favor of napping and not waking up with Pneumonia. Good cal! l. The group at the front basically finished lap one together before splintering on the descent on lap two. Since I wasn’t too smart in my decision to enter the descent last, I came out the bottom at bit off Kabush and Jeremiah but in contact with fellow Oregonian Barry Wicks. I figured it would be more entertaining to rip around with Barry than try to catch the duo up the road, so that’s what we did. Until Wicks cracked on the last lap and left me to roll in alone in third, cold. We did a quick cooldown spin, loaded up the minivan and set off for the exciting part of the weekend.
State College, PA played host to the Singlespeed World Championships this Sunday. A good time was had by all, especially us. After arriving at 1am to some random motel, hopefully close to the race, we learned how to turn on the A/C at 4am and were able to commence sleeping. We knew the race was at 10:30am, and figured an appearance at the continental breakfast in the lobby would garner us some directions from fellow racers. It did and we were on our way to the site. Once we arrived all type of taping commenced in order to fasten tools and spares to our bikes in case the r! umors of a brutally rocky course were accurate (they were). This taping was made necessary by the fact that Carl and I were racing in cutoff jean shorts, and that was it, which had little available pocket space. A couple Gulp n’ Go’s in the back was about max capacity due to the “performance” fit… Sometime during our preparation everyone started leaving the parking lot for the remote starting location at the state forest boundary, we followed the masses, over 400 people were “racing” to the actual start site.
After some milling around, hidden bike threats, and a one mile long LeMans start run, it was ON! I could see the bare back of decker way up the road after my little legs got cold smoked in the run. I caught up and the game of figuring out where we were going (easy thanks to lots of hunter orange clad volunteers) and how to get there (harder due to the very techy nature of the terrain, although most of the rock gardens, impossible on first inspection, turned out to be rideable). Decker and I settled into the lead with Jesse after mechanicals by T. Brown and Ariel Lindsley took them back. I commenced riding like a blind hooligan on the first proper descent and abrubtly came up short on a mandatory rock gap, smash! ing all the air out of my rear tire. Decker took over and disappeared down the beautiful ridgeline singletrack while I started assessing my options for repair. Lots of stopping and reinflating didn’t work the Stan’s Magic so I picked out a scenic shady spot and set about the task of changing a disc brake and bolt on axle equipped rear wheel. Twenty minutes later I was back on track and having a great time passing all the other random racers in creative manners. I didn’t know that Decker was busy building a four minute lead somewhere up the road with his extremely aerodynamic bare chest and aviator glasses. This lead continued until his chainring bolts (installed on Friday when his custom tensionerless XTC Composite gear matched single was built after much gear ! ratio trial and error) fell out on the trail somewhere and resulted in his amazing power output folding the ring… After a couple miles of scootering technique he borrowed some replacements and rolled in around 10th place. I was busy feeling really good and having a great time railing blind trails in the sunshine. These good times had me passing lots of people to ensure I got back into the top 20 for the go-kart racing later in the day. I actually ended up coming in fourth I think after the race abruptly ended on a random singletrack junction and that was that. I was only a few minutes off the winner, Jesse so that was kind of amusing considering my relaxed tire change..
The actual Singlespeed world title didn’t go to the proper winner of the “bike” race, it went to the winner of the post race Go Kart event with the top twenty and ten randoms duked it out in some of the most ghetto karts I’ve ever seen… Decker and I were in the first heat, meaning we didn’t know which cars sucked and which railed (sort of). My pole position kart wouldn’t even start for a couple minutes, and Decker’s turned out to be the infamous #22 that everyone avoided the rest of the day. We got 4th and 5th in our heat, top 3 advanced, so that was that. I didn’t want a Tattoo anyway, leave that for the local boys.
In all it was a thoroughly good time to check out a different type of event and see bike racing through the eyes of some people outside the world cup and NORBA circuits. Everyone was fired up on the venue, alternative format and the simplicity of airing up your tires and heading out on a sweet ride that happens to be a race. Very refreshing, sounds like we’ll have to make the trek to New Zealand next year and check it out again.
Adam Craig, Team Giant |
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