Bike-ation

As I mentioned in my last post, this weekend was spent road tripping and riding bikes. Wormy Worm, J-WAG, my self, and the Seb Rocket caravanned down to the Shenandoah Valley Bike Coalition’s annual mountain bike festival. I’ve been down to the area to help out with bike races but had never ridden there. This was going to be a much deserved and full-scale suffer-fest of epic proportions. I just wasn’t aware of how much suffering would occur.

We all took off work on Friday for the trip and, after a brief stop in Harrisonburg for some supplies and to visit some bike shops; we rolled into the Stokesville campground at about three o’clock in the afternoon. This left just enough time to get geared up and head off to the downhill race. It was a short bike ride and a mild (by Shenandoah standards) singletrack climb to the start of the race and then about five minutes to bomb down some fast and swoopy singletrack. I wasn’t trying to compete in this race but I did want to recon the trails. This would be my first taste of what to expect. It was challenging, but I attributed my lack of skills to the fact that I’ve been off the bike for a while and needed to get my bearings back.

Saturday started early as we had a big day planned. Since Dr. Worm lived in the area for a while he knew the trails and would act as our guide. The three of us started out with a larger group and I quickly realized how my day was going to end up. My account of the ride goes something like this:

Step One - ride (or attempt to ride) straight up a mountain for about two and a half hours while getting punched in the face by steep section after steep section.

Step Two - spend about ten minutes riding an amazingly flowy and smooth ribbon of singletrack down the backside of the mountain you just rode up.

Step Three – slum back to the campground and cool off in the river before relaxing and enjoying the sunshine and amazing fall weather.

Sunday began with some sore legs and slow movements but we broke camp early and began heading back north. We stopped off to ride some trails near the local ski resort that Jerome had worked on. This ride was similar to the previous day except it wasn’t as big and I was almost completely crushed by the time it ended. Fortunately this was only about two hours which was about all I could handle.

All in all, it was a great weekend with great people and amazing trails that humbled me as a mountain bike rider. It will definitely be something I put on my calendar for future years as it’s a really chill event. The only downside was taking a digger in the mud to end my Sunday ride and provide a little extra clean-up of myself, my gear, and my bike.