In anticipation of the beating I was about to induce on my body/bike plus the fact that I'd never ridden this course before, I started off at the back of the sport pack (my usual place anyway). We went into the first right hand turn and the pack bunched up getting on the singletrack. Despite the fact that we'd been warned to stay on the singletrack, I took it into my head to go down the road and maybe pass a few riders. BIG mistake. The moondust on the road was at least 4 inches thick and even deeper in some spots. After a couple hundred yards of wading through that stuff, I decided to rethink my race "strategy". Picked up the bike and carried it over to the singletrack and waited for the end of the line to get back on. So much for that. Since I was at the back of the pack, I decided that the best I could do was just try to pick off as many people as I could and not worry about it.

Olympia Street isn't really technical or steep but the constant pounding and the very loose trail conditions conspired against me. I caught up with a couple of people on the climb and bided my time until I could find a place to pass. This race was different for me in that I could see people in front of me for the whole race and so had something to chase. At Finley Hills, I pretty much rode by myself the whole time.

Got to the top and started to descend (if that's what you call hanging-on-for-dear-life-as-my-bike-gets-thrown-around-and-my-body-gets-beaten-to-a-pulp). I quickly realized that while I could catch people on the climbs, I'd just as quickly lose touch with them on the descents. Not for the first time, I wished for a suspension fork and some Avid brakes. Made it through one loop. WHEW! Only one more to go.

By now, I'm all alone near the end of the sport class. Nothing unusual. I can see one person way ahead of me and what little competitive juices I have left kick into gear. Nope, nothing left in the gas tank. How come at every race the words to the song "Running On Empty" permanently imprint themselves on my mind? I thought that if I could just catch him on the first climb that I might have a chance of staying in front for the rest of the course. As usual, the inevitable happened. I reeled him in on the climb and just about the time I'd get close enough, the course would take a turn for the downhill and he'd jet away. This happened three times.

Finally we hit the last downhill on doubletrack back to the start area. I realized that he was taking it kinda easy. AHA! MAYBE, just maybe, I can catch him! He turned onto the road and I wasn't too far behind. Hit the road and started frantically shifting up trying to gain speed cause he's still unconcerned. I'm gaining ground but I'm running out of room! Cumon' legs! Pedal!!

Well, if you've read this far you probably realize what happened. Just didn't have enough room to catch him. To top it off, when I went to get off the bike and put my tag on the board, my legs were like noodles and I fell over in front of everyone. At least I finished as hard as I could.

See you all on November 9 (ACME).

Ingredients

• Pasta
• 1-2 Passila or Ancho dried peppers
• Olive Oil
• Mushrooms and any other vegatables that you like
• Garlic Powder
• Chicken Broth
• Options: Fresh diced tomatoes, pepitos (raw pumpkin seeds), pine nuts, grilled chicken breast, balsamic vinegar, ...

Preparation

1. Cook up some pasta (I like linguini), drain it, pour cold water over it to stop the cooking process. Leave it sit.
2. Get these dried peppers called Passila or Ancho, should be the same thing. They are not hot (some may think they are a little) but REAL flavourful. They have the consistency of leather but not as thick. Cut (julian) about 1/4 to half of one (no seeds). Put some olive oil in your WOK (or in my case the pan I cooked the pasta in) and cook for a while to flavour the oil.
3. Now you can put in mushrooms if you want and cook them or any vegetable you want that may need some cooking (if the veggies aren't handy, I will forget them most of the time). Throw in some garlic powder.
4. Now throw in the pasta that you had draining and toss. I then eat it from the pan.

The neat thing is that if you screw it up, you can throw it out and start over because it doesn't cost that much. Do taste it as you go along. Add salt to taste. Garlic powder to taste. You can always splash a little more oil on. Something really different and good is to splash on a little GOOD balsamic vinegar in lieu of the chicken bouillon or throw caution to the wind and do both. :-)

My Ordeal

I want to write this account down while my mind is still fresh, both for you guys and for my own benefit. As of right now (10:32pm Friday night), I've been up since 8:30am Thursday morning.

Over the last 36 hours I have had one of the worst experiences of my life. I have a friend who works at my LBS, Kristi, and a friend of ours, Patrick, that decided to go riding in the Pisgah National Forest. The plan was to leave Thursday morning and be back about 9pm. We got off ok, with maps in hand, which the maps later turned out to be incorrect. We arrived at Pisgah ... it was about 58 degrees and sunny. Patrick donned a short sleeve jersey, I put on a light wind breaker, a short sleeve jersey and shorts, Kristi put on a vest and tights. We parked near the horse stables. The first part of the trail (called Claw Hammer) was uphill -- about 5 miles of uphill. Kristi has been sick with a medical condition. She and I realized that we were lagging way behind Patrick and told him to go ahead. Pat gave us his keys and told us to meet him at the car when we were finished riding (2:30pm). We walked most of the way up, when we saw another female mtber named Bonnie. We decided to ride together. At the first fork in the trail, we took Buckhead Gap down the mountain. The downhill single track was great! At this point, we would later realize, we should have turned off Buckhead and onto a creek trail. We continued down the mountain until we came to a point where the trail split. We knew at this point we were going the wrong way (4:30pm), but we saw horse tracks, so we knew that they must lead to the stables. We followed them across several river crossings (one in which I twisted my ankle) and about 5 miles. At this time, (7:30), daylight was out and we found a tree stand to rest for the night. The temperature quickly dropped from the upper 50's to the lower 40's. By the end of the night, the temp would be 35 degrees. We huddled together in the "spoon" position to keep warm, we also threw leaves over the exposed areas of our bodies to keep them warmer. The leaves worked well. About half way through the night, Kristi lost it ... she was nervous about not getting out. I think she was going into hypothermia about then (3am). We tried to keep her as warm as possible. Near dawn, the temp. started to warm up. Someone had to keep a calm head, and by default since the other two were near hysterics, that was me. (not bragging ... I'm just good at taking charge in stressful situations) Somehow we got through the night, through the pain of sleeping in awkward positions freezing parts of our body while other parts were warm. About 8am, we started to walk back the way we came. Bonnie had a great idea for a short cut from a ride that she had done several months previously. Kristi and I insisted that we use the trail that we came in on. Kristi and I won, so we continued the way we came in. (Keep in mind that we didn't know if Pat had gotten back to the car or if he was out somewhere on his bike.) We followed the trail the same way that we came in, including several river crossings, which soaked our bodies and our bikes. My toes were freezing at that moment, and all I could think of was Taco Bell and how good a bean burrito would taste. The first hour back was the worst. It took a while to work out the kinks. We thought a couple of times that we heard people or cars. We shouted out HELP! HELP! but no one answered. We continued up the trail hoping that someone would come for us. The temp rose to about 50 degrees but soon it started to rain, and the temp dropped to about 45. We were freezing! After another 2 hours of walking, we reached the mountain summit. (During this time, we never saw a rescue vehicle. Finally we saw a note posted to a trailhead sign that said they were looking for us.) Kristi and I flew down Clawhammer at about 20 mph right through the camp of the rescue squad, calling "Patrick, Patrick!!!" Pat found us, we threw down the bikes, and melted in one large teary hug. (Bonnie went right on to her campsite after riding down the hill, not bothering to hang around). All we wanted was clean clothes and a toilet. The media was immediately in our faces, even filming Kristi as she was changing, until several sheriff's officers stepped in to let us have some privacy and a moment alone with our friends. What a wonderful moment having the 3 of us together again!

Pat, as it had turned out, got back to the car about 4:30pm. About 6:30 he started to worry, and by 9pm he called the emergency room and the sheriff's office. By 10, they had people out looking for us along the trail that we were supposed to have taken. By morning, there were almost 60 people looking for us all over the Pisgah national forest, including 15 local mountain bikers and several mounted police patrol units. The had searched everywhere for us, and there was a horse patrol on the trail where we had spent the night. Had we stayed there til about 10am, they would have found us. All I could think about part of the time coming back was what the sight of a Ranger mounted on a horse would look like so that he could walk my bike and I could ride the horse. My legs felt like, and still feel like Jello. After we dried off and changed clothes, we were debriefed on the effort to find us. We have a huge thanks for all the volunteers who helped with the rescue effort.

Poor Pat! He stayed awake all night worrying about us and crying, and at one point the police had him as a suspect in our murder (standard police prodedure). Pat is a true friend!

I can't say enough of how lucky it was that no one was seriously injured. Kristi's doctor put her on a couple of days a bedrest, we don't know how Bonnie is, and I have some bruises, a twisted ankle, and some cuts but am otherwise fine.

If you are going to go in an unfamiliar place, BE PREPARED! Take along a survival kit including a thermal blanket, lighter, extra water and food, map, jacket, bike tools, pump, tubes, and compass. It is better to carry an extra pound on you than to have to freeze through the night.

The equipment we had besides the bikes: 5 Powerbars, 2 Powergels, 2 Camalbacks of water, one water bottle, various tools and tubes. We ate and drank conservatively in order to make it last longer.

Guys, I'm lucky to be ALIVE right now! The rescurers had already called in the Bloodhounds when we came down the hill. Had we not come down, they would have started the search for our bodies. Now that is a scary thought.

Both Kristi and my bikes were trashed. I left it at the shop tonight and will see what needs to be done with it tomorrow. The bikes went through mud bogs and about 15 river crossings.

Greg Turpen and John Limbaugh were working on clearing brush from the trail that runs alongside the river. We were in the west end of the Chamna park. I wasn't even aware that this existed here. I thought all the trails here were just doubletrack. The ice and snow from last winter had brought down a lot of the trees and limbs onto the trail. You could still get through but you'd be doing a lot of bike limbo. At the entrance to the trail where I caught up with Greg and John, a tree had been pushed down across the trail to where you had to get off your bike and scootch under it. We thought about taking the tree out (Greg had a chainsaw) but decided that that best thing to do was try to reroute the trail around the tree since it still seemed to be living. After some judiscous cutting, we were able to clear a dogleg trail around the edge of the tree. We reinforced the downslope edge of the trail with logs, rocks and even a piece or two of discarded concrete that we found.

After we got that section done, we continued on down the trail clearing brush. Only had one more spot where we had to do any more major cutting and there again, we just cut enought so a tall rider could get through without bashing his head on a limb. By the time we got done with that it was almost noon and I had to get going. Just before I left though, Rich Hallen rode up on his bike (complete with machete and loppers in his backpack). Another group of bikers had been further downstream from us and had been working on clearing the trail down there. We probably had 10-15 bicyclists out working on the trails!

A lot of good work was accomplised and I'd personally like to thank everyone who took time out of their day to put work back into the trails. Let's not make this a once a year event.

Off The Back in Othello writes:

"I see that you have a moaning mojo on your mountain bike. Which mojo will help me to go faster?"

Dear OTB:
I'm not really a superstituous rider so I don't put much stock in mojo power but I have noticed one thing after spending some time at Starbucks.

The mo' joe you drink ...
The mo' faster you go

Sincerely,
Rooster