Crap it was hard.
Aaron, Rusty, Mike and myself left Mike's shop in Akron at 11PM Thursday night bound for Dalton, Georgia and the Snake Creek Gap time trial.
After ten hours of driving, we finally arrived in Dalton and all promptly passed out for a few hours. After getting up, we ate some Panera, unpacked the bikes, and got all of our stuff ready for the next morning.
Waking up Saturday morning, we were greeted by rain and temperatures in the mid 30's. Woohoo.
We make the 5 minute drive from the hotel to the race registration area. After suiting up and getting the bike ready, we all hopped into buses and vans, and the organizers put our bikes on trailers and drove us to the start about 45 minutes away.
Luck had it that our van was the last to arrive, so I was pretty much the last person to start the 34 mile ride. I was warned about a creek crossing within the first 3 miles or so, but nothing could have prepared me for it. Waist high and freezing! Yikes!
Only way to beat hypothermia was to keep on moving, so on I went. The trail was absolutely beautiful, but by far the hardest mountain biking I've encountered so far. 5200 feet of climbing in 34 miles, and since I'm currently without a geared bike, I was on the singlespeed pushing 32x19 in the mud. Ouch!
After some absolutely killer climbs and equally bad descents, I was along the home stretch. Everyone warned me that it'd be hard, and my friends and I actually hiked it the day before, but after 3 and a half hours in the saddle, I didn't want to deal with these huge rocks anymore. But all good things must come to an end, so after much mental anguish, I was treated to a 40 mph road descent, and I was done!!!
I rolled in at 4 hours and 4 minutes, which was only slightly above my goal of 4 hours flat. It was good enough for 5th in Singlespeed Open behind 4 locals. I'll take it. Hell of a job to Mike and Aaron for finishing that beast. The sport class won't know what hit them this year.
Rusty and I are headed back March 6th to do it again. Should be some good stuff. I've got myself a geared bike again, just picked it up yesterday. So the read question is, do I bring it, or the SS?!
