ZaskarLE- Two wheeled pursuit of happiness: DSG 08

Updated Bling photo

12 Hours of Bunny

Impressive Results for K town folk on the weekend:
Dave: 4th Place SS Pro
Josh, Mike, Jacob, Andrew: 1st 4 man open team
Abby and Derek: 3rd coed duo
Judy Wallace: 34th Solo men

After my first serious spin at a solo 12 hour race last year here, I was eager to try my hand yet again at DSG. Unfortunately an unanticipated heavy semester and stagnant bike activity as a result of injury have kept me from getting in “good” shape this year. A fresh dose of antibiotics to combat an infection on my left testicle left me both demoralized and weak. I don’t know why I’m posting this but I think it’s important. Yes that’s right for 2 weeks prior I was worried there was something more to the lump and it hurt so bad I could barely walk much less sit on a bike. So what I learned here is never be too proud and check often. The Dr. said testicular cancer usually doesn’t present itself with pain like I was experiencing, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, especially if you have a family history. Quite scary

We arrived Friday evening with the threat of severe thunderstorms and tornados looming. Fortunately 3 of us had gotten one of the last rooms in Fayetteville to crash in and it turned out to be a fortunate find. The rain started coming down hard enough to wake me in the hotel and man was there lightning! Of course this was once again all Dave’s fault. If you ever need your yard watered just ask him if you want to do a ride there in advance. The forecast for Dave races generally goes from partly cloudy and sunshine to something like this….

Cloudy with a Chance of "Dave"

And for those of you who did the Cohutta…yeah Dave was there too.

My planned eating for a 12 hour period...

Race morning the rain had tapered off to an annoying drizzle that was beckoning us to stay in our tents/hotel rooms. Somehow seemingly by the grace of an almighty power, the rain subsided with about 30 minutes till race time. Little did we know that this subsiding of precipitation was a cruel joke from the Gods themselves.

As the gun of the hillbilly started the race, Derek, Dave, and I all managed to make it to our bikes unscathed in the mad rush. If some may recall last year Dave decided to step in a prairie dog hole that went straight to China and he disappeared from view for a brief instant. The course in the opening fields at least appeared to be ridable and but slick. I caught on to Dave’s wheel and held on as people were falling all around us, including Mr. Hendershot who took a nice fall on a banked corner and stood up with a face full of mud. So overall first impressions were yeah it’s wet, but this will still be fun.

The last time I would see Dave before he dropped my ass.

Jahn likes the mud!

Fear the bling...

Then we went into the wooded single track…this is where the fun rather immediately stopped and the slop fest began. Words cannot describe how thick this mud was. I can only tell you I felt like a pot being thrown on a wheel in a bad 80’s movie about the supernatural. Riding on the brink of control, it was absolute mayhem. People were sliding off the trail left and right into trees, shrubs, and other people that had already fallen. These impressive deviations from the trail could have only been more so if the bikes the riders were on had somehow blown up like a car wreck in a bad action flick. Dave and I were “working” traffic as best we could and then bam! An increasingly loud obscenity train taking the form of two riders slid into me just as I was crossing a bridge called BC bridge. I ended up off the right side with two other riders one of which I recognized by his twangy voice. Good Ole’ “JT” from last year had returned. And with a little help of some fellow riders had managed to mangle several people sliding across the bridge. From here my lap only got worse along with many others. The mud, which was already thick, became cement like, when mixed in with gravel from roads and sticks and leaves from the side of the trail people were riding on to avoid the “bad” mud, it became this impenetrable riding barrier.

Thanks Mr. Kerkove for the pic to show them how it was.

No bike was safe. Big wheels, small wheels, no wheels, it didn’t matter, your bike was going to clog. I can’t remember when so much suffering and walking was had. I even was stopped riding down a fairly steep downhill by the mud it was so bad. The best I could manage was to find a good “mud stick” and be on my way. I think a good idea for races like this would be a nice plastic trowel. My front derailleur starting working somewhere around lap 4. It was satisfying to see that even the pros were walking/running their rigs because they were clogged as well. The woods absolutely sounded like a mtn bike haunted house. Loud screams accompanied by the sound of grinding derailleurs and broken chains haunted us all for the entirety of the first lap. Spooky.

And then the Sun finally came out! The course dried up considerably in the next few laps and for those of us who survived with a sizeable chunk of our rides intact, the riding was pristine for the rest of the race. Conditions only got better as the day progressed and by the time the day was over I swear I saw a little bit of dust. By my third lap I realized I had about 1 bottle of fluids in me and the extreme hydration was setting in. Apparently I had been so hell bent on not dying the first two laps in the mud I forgot to eat or drink. I was bonking terribly and to make matters worse, my hands were screaming as the rocks had been pounding me through my dismally inadequate thin gloves. A long pit stop to think about quitting, some Goody’s headache powder, and now wearing two pairs of gloves made things much more bearable.

I carried on convinced I would quit after each successive lap. Towards the end of the day I saw someone I knew was fast in my group and he said I was leading. I couldn’t believe this because I had been aboard the hurt train all day and my whole body just plain felt weak. The next lap around in transition this was confirmed and I did the math that I had about 3 laps to go…keep cool and ride smooth. Somewhere in this frame of mind of riding clean and smooth for the rest of the race, a guy in my class came blowing by me on a hill like I wasn’t there. He was absolutely flying and when I came in off this next lap one of his friends told me to hustle because he was taking 15-20min a lap out of me. A quick round of math told me that this if this was the case then I could be facing him about the time for my last lap and possibly be doing an extra lap. I tried to step up the pace and it evidently worked, because I won my first 12 hr solo race and a big iron cog paperweight.

Despite the amount of suffering fun times were had by all eventually Saturday evening. We also had an encounter with two dumbasses from Yazoo bikes at about 4:30 am when these drunk and evidently high bastards began to crow incessantly like roosters. They wanted to fight and then wanted to make peace with us and the coyotes they had been “playing with”. Extreme will power was exercised by everyone’s part from K-town not to kill these primitive dumb creatures, but I think next year we’ll be bringing the potato cannon to administer justice should this situation arise again. Way to set a good example for your sponsor boys…

Where Coyotes and grown men "play"

Everyone from K-town did extremely well with Dave just missing the podium in the SS Pro group (Dave will now carry a tube as well as CO2 with him at all times, and possibly has the record for most expensive 29'er flat…ever), the dirt digglers destroying the 4 man field, and my very own wife and Derek taking third in the coed amateur duo group. Senior Wallace made the wise choice of riding for the sheer enjoyment of the course after it was dry, something I wish I had the will power to do.

Chandler/Jamison Dynamic Duo