Beech Mountain

Saturday morning, three other Dirt Divas and I packed and headed up to the mountains with our four bikes.  We were planning a little girl time, riding a new mountain trail, and a fun race Sunday.  Our cute little hotel had a beautiful view.

The entire area was gorgeous.

We arrived at the trail for our pre-ride at around 1pm.  After unloading all the bikes, we adjusted seats since they had to be moved to fit in the rack.  I set mine, tightened it a bit and went to test it, thinking it felt a little low last time I road.  When I got back from my little test ride, my friend had the tool, so I continued to get my riding gear on.  Then as everyone was ready to lock the car, I grabbed the tool real quick to tighten my seat post camp just a bit more.  In my haste, I wrenched a little too hard and stripped the screw.  UGH!!!

I rode to every bike shop tent set up at the race and no one has a seat post clamp my size.  I finally decided to go throw my seat back in the car and pre-ride standing.  As I rode into the parking lot, I scream at the top of my lungs, 'does anyone have a 36mm seat post clamp?'  And guess what I was offered one by a guy in the car across form me.  He took it off his wife's bike and it worked great.

So about a half an hour later, we began our pre-ride.  The course started up a long fire road, which I would normally be so slow on.  But after the whole seat post fiasco, I was so ecstatic that I flew up the hill.  Then we entered the single track, which was odd.  It was super narrow, mulch like, with tiny little roots everywhere that seemed to stick a few inches out of the mulch.  Just weird.  But fun and challenging because it was different.

Maybe 20 minutes into our ride, a loud wind swept through the trees, followed by...you guessed it...rain.  And like any first rain fall while riding, this rain felt good.  It was chilly, but so refreshing.  But unlike most trails, where they wouldn't become mud for a while, these mulchy trials became mud in just minutes.  I loved it.  In Charlotte we're not allowed to ride in the rain.  This was new, and so much fun.  The others didn't seem to think so though

As we popped out onto the road we were met by a truck that took us off the course because they were calling for hail.  So we only got to ride about half a lap.  Of course the hail never came and the weather actually cleared up in the evening.

We shared a sweet bottle of wine at a wine bar before dinner and then enjoyed a second bottle with dinner at a fabulous steak house with an amazing mountain view.  I had an awesome filet mignon.  And the apple strudel I ordered was actually served with bacon.  Really?  Yes, bacon dessert.  Ahem, this is a bike blog.

Okay, so the next morning, my two sport class friends left before I woke up because their race was at 10am.  As I opened my eyes, there was a huge storm overhead.  Ridiculous wind, rain, thunder, lightening.  The weather postponed their start till 11am.  They had a very muddy but at least dry race.  A little after 11am, the storm passed and we even got a little sunshine, well maybe I'm just remembering it with rose colored glasses. 

Only one of my sport friends raced.  The other decided to spare her bike the mud.  The expert race was scheduled to go off at 1pm.  My other expert friend and I were both undecided about racing.  I was okay with skipping it because I was worried about slipping unexpectedly and landing on my shoulder.  But I also felt like the weekend was a waste if I came all the way up and didn't race.  I mean I missed father's day and so miss my little Jackie.

Fortunately, my other expert friend decided to got for it!  About 12:20pm, we started prepping.  We each downed a Red Bull, ate a bagel, and got changed.  Then of course it start raining.  And raining hard.  And then the temperature dropped, a lot.  Brrr!  I actually asked a guy with an umbrella to walk me to the restroom since I was hiding under the tent staying dry.  All the other girls were riding around, warming up.  I stayed dry till the last second when they called us to the line.   Even then the umbrella guy escorted me to the start line and covered me until we went off. 

I stayed with the pack up the hill, but they dropped me in the single track, I mean slop.  It was 6 plus inches thick of just soupy mud.  Crazy, soupy, mulchy mud.  It was awesome.  It was laughable.  Really it was hysterical.  And of course I loved it.  On the first lap, I felt like I spent most of the time off my bike.  Lucky for me, I like to run.  So this wasn't so bad.  After just a few minutes I caught up to my friend who is much, much faster than me.  She was ready to DNF.  I was kind of having a blast so I tried to be supportive.  She offered to ride together.  But I new there was a long downhill switchback section coming up and I wasn't willing to risk riding it.  So I told her to keep going.  I walked most of it, fell down the rest.

But still it was so fun.  I was smiling and yelling and really, really happy.  At the start of the second lap, I felt even better and I finally started to get the hang of riding/sliding in the slop.  I went faster, crashed more, and got into the mud wrestling with myself thing. 

During the second lap I was able to ride the long downhill switch back section and that made me proud.  I only fell once.  I also made it up a lot more hills.  It helped that I wasn't in the big ring like on the first lap (DUH!).  I realized that every run up the unridable hills brought me closer to my super fast friend.  She walked, I ran.  At one point as she stopped to get mud off her bike, I ran past and opened up a nice gap.

As if I didn't love my bike enough already, it turns out it sheds mud and gunk really well.  All those full suspension bikes seemed to hold about 10 extra pounds of mud.  It was kind of funny.  I love my hardtail.  Can you tell?

About ten minutes from the end, I had my worst crash.  Not sure what happened, but I landed hard of my back and then hit my head.  I wasn't hurt, but my helmet broke.  I wanted to finish the race and not get disqualified.  So I tried to keep my helmet on my head as well as I could.  Here I am entering the last section of single track beore the finish.

This is one of the drier, less muddy, easy sections.

And then it was over.  I was happy, full of joy, accomplished.  It was a great race.

My finish?  I came in 5th our of 6 pro and expert women.  But only two of us were over 30, so I won  my class.  And I was only three minutes behind the teeny boppers.  So nothing to be embarrassed about.

It was a great girls weekend in the mountains, I mean MUD!