Jim311

Man, what a blast. We arrived Saturday afternoon at Helen and went for a ride. We rode a loop that was a 1.5 mile climb, then about 2-3 miles of downhill on the trail, then another 3 miles down the mountain on the road... sweet. Then on Saturday night we smoked some stogies and had some beers to commemorate my birthday. Sunday morning we ate breakfast, and warmed up a little before the race. I had the jitters and so did my friend. It was our first race. We all lined up, and it was a sprint to the nearest hill climb. It had been raining all weekend, and literally the first mile or two was so slippery with clay and mud that it was practically impossible to climb even on foot. The entire course was rediculously muddy. My friend broke his chain a few miles into the race and didn't have a tool, so he ended up running like 5 miles.. he was extremely disappointed. I rode pretty conservatively (I figured going a little slower around the slick corners was better than crashing and wasting time) and still managed to finish pretty well. I won't know the official results until later when they're posted on the website, but somebody who finished behind me told me that we were in the top 15! Not bad for my first race. I didn't get too many pics, just a few of after the ride. I had a damn fine birthday. One couldn't ask for a better birthday present in my opinion

Wait

Is everyone down there washing there bikes? .... lol Congrats on the first race, I'm sure you had a blast... on that note, how many people where in your category?

Jim311

Yea, the river became the bike wash... it was running orange from all the mud we were washing off. It felt damn fine to swim in the cool river after a rough race, too. In my class there were at least 25-30 people.

Wait

Wow, that is a lot. The races around here that I have attended so far have only had 16-18 men in my category.

Jim311

Yea, there were quite a few. I noticed a lot of guys who looked like sandbaggers that totally shouldn't have been in beginner. They should deffinitely have been riding sport, and were DEFFINITELY not beginners. But.. oh well. Whatcha gonna do

fubar5

Coolio!! I should have gone..Never let money make your choices for you.

Jim311

You should have come down man! You could have at least ridden with us a few times, or had some brews with us! We were bored out of our minds at night when there was nothing else to do!


The run we had set up was sweet. We took the trail head in downtown Helen and rode the recommended direction back to the trailhead at Unicoi State Park, and then from the park we got on the road and got to ride downhill for 3 miles! It was sweet! We averaged 40 MPH on the way down! All total I'd say we got to ride at least 6 miles of downhill, and we only climbed about 1.5-2 miles to get there.