Lining up at the start
Sara Reed, Chris Dillow & I before the race.
The finish line inside J. Fred Johnson stadium
Yesterday afternoon I entered the Bays Mountain Mountain Bike Rally, a race that's been going on longer than I've lived in the tri-cities put on by our local bike shop Larry's Cycles. Even though the course consists of all gravel roads the competitive side of it still makes it fun. There is not much in the way of flat terrain at Bays Mountain so some of the roads have eroded pretty bad during heavy rains. One section in particular is a steep downhill that is rutted out so bad there are no good lines and I'm surprised the section has not been eliminated from the course due to safety. At one point during the descent I thought I was going down when I tried to take a line too fast, the gravel was deep causing my rear wheel to slide around sideways. I manged to steer my bike out of the gravel and off the road in order to slow down. By the time I reached the bottom my arms were shaking from all the bumps and hard braking. After the race we learned that someone did take a spill on the firetower descent and broke their arm. Maybe next year they organizers will see the danger in this and change the course.
Gearing up to ride.
Mike and I duking it out at the halfway point
Earlier in the year it was rumored that the new Chiquapin Trail that we built was going to actually be added to the course to make this mountain bike race actually feel like a mountain bike race. Well it didn't happen but they did announce it will be added next year. With all the great singletrack at Bays Mountain I'm surprised the majority of the course is not singletrack.
I'm looking forward to this weekend, the 1st Annual Dead Possum Ride kicks of Saturday morning with tailgate grilling afterwards and a backyard skills party that evening. Bikes, grillin', beers and more bikes, what's not to like about that.
whats this backyard skills party you speak of?
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