Brevard College Mountain Bike Weekend

Adventure Village in the Appalachian Mountains of South-Western North Carolina was the backdrop for the Brevard College home race on September 13 and 14. I raced short track and cross country placing first in the men’s B short track and second in xc.

We stayed in some cabins in the park and spent all weekend racing bikes ands enjoying the natural beauty the area.

The girls on the team made us pancakes for breakfast both mornings.

The cabins may have been a little too comfortable. Some people had trouble getting out of the sac.

The team getting ready for short track. They are clearly extremely focused on the race.

Dane looked very stylish.

Lees-McRae had another dominating performance. In my race, we got the top four spots in short track. Big Nate (I’m little Nate) finished fourth to complete the sweep.

It was an intense course. I started and finished on a short flat dirt road section that lead into a very tight right hand turn up a very steep, fairly long climb. After the climb was a tricky single track decent with a very steep, treacherous dip covered in slippery mud at the bottom. Coming into the first turn, there was some serious bottlenecking as half the field seemed to wash out. I remained clipped in and upright but was slowed way down. Midway up the climb, I passed nearly everyone who had gotten in my way through the corner and almost tacked on to the back of the lead group which included three of my teammates and one or two others. I bombed down the decent, very nearly wiped out on the slick mud, and was right behind the leaders by the next assault up the hill. Mt teammate Ben decided to ride a single speed and had to attack the hill hard just to keep his pedals moving. I stayed on his wheel and we dropped the pack. We then caught the guy in the lead who apparently started out way too hard and was crawling up the hill. I dropped Ben on the next flat section and took the lead. I widened the gap on the hill every time around and rode the rest of race by myself. I nearly crashed on the dip at the end of my first four laps but barely held it together each time. Once I realized that I had a good lead, I descended a little more cautiously and just tried to squeeze as much pain out of my legs as I could on the steep uphill. I weaved through lapped riders the rest of the way and won with a fairly comfortable gap after nine laps. My teammate Sandre made up for a slow start with his climbing ability and ended up second. Ben got third on a single speed.

Sandre came to Lees-McRae all the way from Norway. He couldn’t catch me in the short track, but he proved to be too strong for me in the cross country race and beat me quite handily.

Aaron was one of the few riders that didn’t crash on the super steep, slick downhill course and won the race.

There were some great battles in dual slalom.

The xc race began Sunday morning. Some people decided they could cheer better with no clothes. Check out that cycling tan!

Others watched fully clothed. Scott (the guy in the green shirt) dominated the A race in which he lapped over half the field in a six lap race.

The team here is a little strange… this is what I had to look forward to coming around on every lap.

The course had numerous extremely steep climbs. There was two sections that were too steep and slippery to even ride, one of which was followed by the steepest climb in the race. We had to start it at a dead stop and it was so steep that I had trouble keeping my front wheel on the trail. It made for a very grueling race. My teammate Ben somehow got third on a single speed. I, on the other hand, made full use of my granny gear.

Lees-McRae women also took victory.

The course began with a long, steep gravel road climb before some steep twisty single track downhills. By halfway up the first climb, Sandre had already opened a big gap on the field, and I was right on his wheel. He was setting a very hard pace so I decided to back off a little near the top. He is a good road racer but pretty new to mountain bike racing so I figured that I could catch him on the decent. His skills have vastly improved in just a couple of weeks, however, and I wasn’t quite able to get back on his wheel by the next hard climb. I couldn’t handle his pace up the hills and soon he was out of site. I spent the rest of the race alone aside from a few stragglers that I lapped and finished in second. Overall it was a great race and fun course with some ripping single trackand jeep road down hills and several brutal climbs. The venue was excellent, and we had a fun weekend full of great mountain biking.