NCSU (RR)/ WF (Crit)

Another 1,000 miles of driving over the weekend.
This was an intense weekend, Sean C. and myself departed Morgantown around 5pm on Friday. After close to 7 hours of driving we arrived at Hannah's house, and were greeted by her roommates. Equipment was unpacked and sleep was acquired.
The first race of the day sturday was the Men's A, Sean and I both were ready to roll, and after our coffee, we were ready to go. We found our staging at the Lee County Air Port. It was a cool day and a light base layer was all that was required. In the first mile of the race a 9 man break away went up the road. 3 PF riders, NCSU, and NAvy were in the break, VT was left out. After 3 laps (30 miles) the break had almost a 5 minutes on the field. I had attempted several attacks and wanted to create a second break away, unfortunately PF, VT, and Navy did allow me to go up the road.
Sean dropped out after approx. 50 miles. I hang on in the race and placed 8th in the field sprint. 2 riders dropped out of the break away and I placed 15th overall.

The Sunday Crit, was miserable for all riders.
It felt like playing Mario-Kart but on bike, as random obstacles appeared on the course from grates to cones, water bottles and carnage from a wreck. Every field was shattered due to the hard gusts of wind. A wreck occured in Men's C with a few riders going down, and a major wreck in Men's A with about 10 riders hitting the asphalt and two riders one PF and one VT breaking their forks. Only about 15 riders finished the Men's A race, and only the first 3 actually knwo how they finished, as everyone finished the race on a different lap. Sean dropped out, and I finish someplace.

It was a long weekend, and Sean and I both learned alot in the A fields.

Saturday Training Ride

Zerbe was nice enough to loan Elliott his whip for the weekend, so leaving at noon, Liew, Elliott, and I headed out 100 to Ft. Martin for some base training. From Ft. Martin we pounded out Taylortown road. Around 20 miles out, a mutt frothing at the mouth sprinted off a nearby embankment to eat us alive. I was nearest, and it wanted blood. With the fear of god to drive me, I sped up to 25 mph in about .2 seconds. When the dog decided its snack of choice was too quick...it eyed Elliott. Elliott had the exact same reaction...whether by fear of the dog, god, or of not returning Zerbe's bike in one piece. When it decided Elliott was too quick, it took one look at Liew and just stopped. Liew didn't even break cadence. Guess it didn't like chinese food.

With adrenaline now pumping, we pounded out about another 10 miles. Near Mt. Morris, our second dog attack occurred. Running head-long into the road, a border collie intercepted our group. It missed taking out my back wheel and Liews front by a few inches. Elliott gave it a battle cry to scare it off.

To cap the ride off Liew showed us the T.T. course WVU will be using later this season. It starts at Mt. Morris Gospel Tabernacle and makes a pretty quick loop. Then we pounded out 19 back to Star City and Morgantown.

3 hours 17 minutes. 46.5 miles. Good times.

Race update, Day 1

Good day overall today for the team, or at least Brock

-Brock won the mens B race with a nice move at the end to pull past 10
riders and sprint for a 3 bike length finish

-I placed mid pack in the D field, Brandon flatted at mile 6 of 18 and
got a Zipp from someone, he passed 7 people from that point.

-Ryan manned up and raced C. He finished near the back of the pack
after a hard attack from the main group. James did some awesome
acrobatics around mile 6 in the C race when someone tangled bars with
him. He managed to get his rear tire higher than everyone head that
was around him, a rather impressive feat. His face missed the pavement
and his hands and leg took most of the impact. His bike also took a
lot of the impact, but it did not crack OR fail.

-Jimmy pushed around 30mph and was still getting shelled off the A
field. He held strong till around mile 50, then had a lovely group
ride with himself until the end. It's okay though, I later appeased
him by saving him from a speeding ticket by getting it for myself.

GPS from D race: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7621124

Good times.

-Chad

Cooper's

Lemma and I went hiking out at Cooper's today, and the trails seem to be in pretty good shape, though there is some debris from the recent wind, fallen trees, branches, etc.

The logging that has been going on there doesn't seem to be too terrible, however, this "modified" sign was humorous to me:

Last Weekend's Girls Ride!

Soooo I'm a little late with this, but it's better late than never. Last Saturday in the sunshine(!) seven of Morgantown's finest female cyclists headed out on what ended up a 32 mile ride. Lemma, Siera, Laura, Janna and I, along with Sarah Souther, Tricia Lewis, Auvid Momen (you guys may or may not know them) headed out on the "Longhorn Cow" loop-- out 100 to Taylortown Rd., down the super-nice Bigfoot Rd., past the cows and the "biggest flag ever," into downtown Taylortown, and back home via Taylortown/100. Janna and I split off and headed home through Star City, and the rest of the girls went to Blackbear for some good food. I skipped the food and took the liberty of using the hose at the bikehouse to clean my bike (none of the residents knew that until now). It was a great ride--it's always fun when you don't have to try to "hang with the guys" and hear them complain about how slow you are! haha.

here's the map if anyone's interested.

I'll add more pictures later....right now, it's time to ride!

-Amber

Racing!

Good luck to those going down to NC State this weekend! Represent!

"Recovery Ride"

Liew and I were still feeling sick-and Steve claimed to be sick aswell-liar, but it was far too nice to not ride. I ended up getting to the ride 15min early just because it only took me 2 minutes to get dressed instead of the 20 I've gotten used to. I enjoyed the views in front of the 'Lair, but was greatly distracted by the frat boys selling roses. I'm pretty sure the whole frat got a bulk deal on hair cuts.
We opted to climb Snake Hill, hoping to avoid traffic, but I think all the cars had the same idea. We held a pretty good pace, much faster than I thought my phlegm filled lungs would support.
Not much more to report other than Jimmy isn't really that fast, it's just his Zipps, and the road from Masontown to Summer School Rd is quite muddy and deteriorated, however the large potholes towards the end give the opportunity to thoroughly wash your bike. Total distance:35miles, and total time:2hrs30min

Fast ride

4 peeps set out for this mornings 9:30 fast ride, Me (Chad), Erik, Janel, and James. The plan was for 30 miles or so. Temps were around 50 when we set off and peaked around 65, great weather! Looked a little rough this morning, but it really did turn out great. Up 100 to mile climb and back, hammering all the way. 100 was good, we pulled 17-20 mph for the entire thing until we hit the climb at the peak. Pushed pretty good to mile climb, but my muscles started burning so I slacked off a bit on Big Shannon. We hit mile climb and Janel and James took off up that, while Erik and I climbed a bit more conservative. After topping mile climb we hooked right (whoops) and headed down what we thought was Little Shannon. So after a 10 mile detour and a moment of thinking I looked at the GPS and realized we were going north, just a bit west of Kirby. We then threw away our man cards (the 3 of us that posses them, though I do temporarily loan mine to Janel on climbs) and asked for directions from various locals. After backtracking and finding Little Shannon we started making our way back. Erik had a class to attend, so he pushed really hard all the way back. James had work to attend, so he rode pretty slow. We pushed nice down Big Shannon and hit a recovery pace down 100. I was out of food and on the verge of a big bonk, but James came through with an extra power bar.

A good fast ride overall. We were averaging 17MPH until we made our screw up and took a right at the top of Kiger Hill. The roads were pretty gross too until the sun really came out, so riding a wheel wasn't an option. When we got home we all looked like we just finished mountain biking. 30 miles turned into about 55, and it was great.



GPS LINK

Breaking the virginity

Before




After

Turns out, it wasn't a short cut

A few of us decided to go to Blackbear today. We heard it was better if we took this other route, as University and High Street might have traffic.
So 8 of us left the bike house headed 119 to Cheat Lake. Shawn Waters wanted to show off how bad ass he was so he brought his single speed. A few hills crushed his hopes.
We opted to separate so people could get better training, and our group went to 6. Bala was all stoked about riding on a highway, so we 1 upped that and rode on the wrong side of the road.
Liew and Shawn took the rail trail back from Pt Marion while 4 remaing headed towards Mt Morris with hopes of riding part of the RR course. A few hills later we gave up that endeavor and took 100 home.
If anyone is looking to paint a 2" black line up thier butt and jersey, I'd highly recommend hitting up 100. You can even speckle the front if you draft someone.
Nearly 50miles later we go to Blackbear, only to find out the girl's had beaten us there! Then they all bragged about how there were 9 of them and only 8 of us and all this crap about how they're going to race and look pretty while doing it.
I'll believe that when I see it. I think they just took University to High Street to get to Blackbear.
Oh ya, the food was good.

Ryan

View Larger Map

Continue from Liew and Shawn.W side of story, after the split at Pt.Marion, 2 of us headed out to rail trail instead of going up Stewardstown rd, we thought its gonna be an easy and fast escape road. It's turn out not! Have you ever ride a whole 7 miles stretch of icy rail trail? I think we does. When I got home, I also realized that we took 4 hours to do the whole 30 miles loop! 30 miles! Good ride Shawn.

Liew