After going to bed Thursday night with my wrist swollen and not really able to hold onto the handlebars, I wasn’t really sure what Friday was going to entail. Then I woke up in the middle of the night to heavy rain…good..that’s going to make Pilot Rock a little easier….I was now about 18 minutes back from Evan and the first spot in the single speed class and with the way he’s been riding I would have needed some help to make that up. I decided I just needed to get out and do my best to finish and start building back my bike confidence after all the falls this week.
Stage 4
Stage 4 was supposed to be one of the same stages from last year and it’s a good one. It starts and finished up at the Cradle of Forestry near Pink Beds. We start with some gravel road on 1206 (Yellow Gap Road), hang a right on 476 (Gauging Station), left on 5018 (Funneltop), Right onto a great little descent called Horse Cove Gap, Left for a little climb/traverse on Squirrel Gap, Left on Laurel Creek down to the creek, up 5015 (Bradley Creek Road), then to the meat of the loop, Climbing the Laurel Mtn Trail up to Pilot Rock, Descend down Pilot Rock back to the gravel of 1206 and home. It’s a big boy loop and has on real long climb in it. It also has a lot of very narrow single track that can get a little treacherous when wet. The day was sure to be one thing…Wet.
I got up to the parking area and had some familiar company, Wes, Tristan, and a few others were all parked close. We had some fun banter but most of it centered around the fact that nobody wanted to get ready to ride in the pouring rain. After much debate and procrastination I finally got myself ready and headed over to line up. With all the gravel at the start, warming up wasn’t a big priority.
As we get lined up I’m hearing rumors that the Funneltop/squirrel/Bradley creek part of the course is going to be cut out due to more storms on the way and already saturated trails. So we would just take the gravel all the way out to Laurel Mountain and do the Laurel/Pilot loop. Sure enough it was confirmed a few minutes later. What was going to be one of the longest stages is now one of the shortest. However, now we had a lot of gravel road that trends downhill to deal with. For the singlespeeders this means getting stuck in the back.
We headed out and the main pack quickly left us, then some more, then some more, we were pretty far back just spinning away before things pitched up and we were able to start picking up spots pretty quickly. Unfortunately not quickly enough and we entered the woods a little further back than I would have hoped. Laurel Mountain doesn’t lend itself to a lot of passing either since most of it is a pretty narrow bench cut. Evan started making passes and I stayed with him for the most part. It was nice climbing up Laurel Mountain when I wasn’t already destroyed.
After a while we kind of settled in, he put a couple people in between us but I was close enough to see him. Then at the hike-a-bike I hiked up to him. We were together at the top of Pilot but I knew I was going to let him go. I wasn’t in a place to push it down Pilot, I just needed to keep it rubber side down. We were also riding with the Not-Brothers from Chattanooga and just before we started down Pilot, Nick realized one of his seat-stays (the frame of his bike) was broken. He asked me to let his partner know and he was going to try and nurse it down. I guess the other one broke not a min or two later and he ended up having to run it in. There is some pretty good video of them getting it rigged up on Matt’s back so Nick could run without the bike. The things you’ll do to get to the finish line.
Anyhow, I ended up the day a couple minutes behind Evan. I guess I was more conservative than I thought down Pilot. I did keep it together down the trail which was the real goal for the day. I also felt pretty good all day which was a good feeling after how the previous day had gone. Finally the weather was trying to break and things were looking good for the finish on Saturday.
Stage 5
The last day of a stage race is kind of bittersweet. You know you’re about to finish this thing up, which feels so good, but you’re about to finish up. This means you have to get back to real life and you’re not going to be racing your bike every day.
The last stage this year is a new one, the complicated shuttle is gone. Now, there is just a controlled “group ride” out to where the start is. The course will start out near the beginning of the gravel on Cathey’s Creek rd., come up Cathey’s Creek to Butter Gap, go down Butter to Long Branch, climb out Long Branch to FS 5095, hang a right on 475, pick up the Davidson River Trail, through the Hatchery, make the long climb up 475C, and head down Bracken Mtn to the finish.
The group ride started out and the pace was plenty mellow and the Dad jokes were flying. The mood was pretty friendly, everyone just kind of ready to get going and get done. Once we got out to the start area we lined up across the road, we got our speech from Todd, and we were off. The pace was quick but not outrageous, which was almost a little annoying. Things weren’t spreading out and it was getting a little sketchy with people jockeying for position. This was getting unnerving. Finally at the first big right hander where it pitches up someone attacked in the front group and we were off for real.
I put in a pretty big effort here, mostly just to get away from the madness. A lot of these folks would come back to pass me later when the road flattened out some more but at least it was more spread out at that point. When the road would pitch up I could make some passes and finally by the time we got to the singletrack everything had largely sorted out. I made a few more passes on Butter Gap, had Evan in sight and started down Butter. I’ve made the mistake of getting caught behind folks here before so I made a few good passes before the top and had a good position going down. When we hit Long Branch and that first pitch I let a few folks go. I still felt pretty good.
Then we hit 5095 which has a gentle downhill in it and the geared guys I was with decided to hammer, so I was kind of left in no man’s land for the ride down 475/Davidson River trail. The Davidson river trail always has the bacon handups and since I wasn’t in a huge hurry I went ahead and had them drop one in my mouth, not the fastest way to get a handup but fun.
As we started up 475C I caught Evan again. We’d ride the whole climb together. We chatted a bit, taking turns making the pace. Neither of us really pushing too hard, we kept it lively but I don’t think either of us was trying to punish the other at this point. Once we got near the top I did try to put in an effort which he matched pretty adeptly. Finally we got to the top of Bracken where the Whiskey shots were. Since we were together here, we grabbed one and toasted before the final descent.
I let him lead (not that I really had a choice he’d beaten me pretty soundly down every descent all week) and kept him in sight. After the main pedal/uphill section of the descent he made a pass or two on a few folks and opened up a bigger gap as I tried to deal with making the same passes. Finally I got to a point where I just needed to pass two guys that ride for Sycamore as well, one I passed really smoothly, the other was a little less graceful (sorry Andrew). I closed the gap down pretty far but couldn’t seem to get all the way there.
I came across the line about 20 seconds back. Another really good battle. Evan was the stronger rider all week and definitely deserved the win, I was hoping to steal at least one but alas it wasn’t meant to be. I did get to come across the line to Lizzie right there waiting for a hug, which really can’t be beat, so in that regard, I win.
That feeling of coming to the final finish line of a 5 day race is pretty incredible. Time for a beer…even though its only 11 am…
Final thoughts to come next time….
