PMBAR, Cohutta and other Racing

Its been a long time since we've updated the blog. I just know our devoted readers have been sitting on the edges of their seats waiting for the next update...

The Dode has tied himself up in 8 hour exams and now that he is finished is probably poking his brain with a Q-tip. I've been focused on road bike racing. The season has gone well I'll spare you the reports on all the rides and racing that has gone on while on the pavement. The past two weekends are two of the biggest events I do each year and with the focus being on the road I did not specifically train on the mountain bike this year, but I did finally get all the mechanical problems worked out in time to put about 45 miles on it before the Cohutta 100.

We stayed up at Turner's house again this year before the race. We finally got Turner to commit to the 100 mile event as well! We woke up to a slight pre race drizzle and headed over to the start. We rolled up to the line just as the gun went off and the rain stopped. We had pretty good conditions on the trails, the rain made them tacky for the most part with the exception of a few spots of slime over clay. The bridges on Old Copper Road were another story and one was the site of my second wreak of the day. Everyone rallied out to the back of the course and at about mile 50 or so the weather moved in; rain, cold winds, and fog were the order for the day. I believe it was soon after this point Todd G's derailler hanger broke and he jumped in a car to ride around the course with some Brits and Euros. I caught back up with Bell and we descended through the ghostly fog as shapes would suddenly appear and then quickly fade out of sight as we rallied down the mountain.

By the time we got to the last section of trails they were a pig wallerin' mud hole. I went down hard on Quartz Loop landing on my rib on a log and rode the rest of the trails like a bitch, probably loosing up to 30 minutes of time as daintily descended and walked around the technical stuff. The final pavement section was made horrible by 20-30 mph gusts but it was good to be done at near my 10 hr goal: 10:00:54 I easily spent that 54 seconds laying in the mud on quartz loop. It was one of those wrecks were you get up while the adrenaline is still flowing, move your bike and carcass off the trail and then lay back down. Alex killed it with a time of 8:50:16, Nate and Blake came in a bit under an hour and twenty after me after dealing with some mechanical issues in the mud.



Once back at Blake's Alex regaled us with stories of his run in with Michigan Jack who's fuck it all attitude helped Alex along and inspired us all when Alex told of how he had dropped Jack only to have Jack ride up to him later and tell Alex of how when he fell back he had crashed and broke his collar bone (showing Alex his swollen shoulder and collar bone) but he caught back up and rode strong to the finish.

One week of easy spinning on the bike took us into PMBAR, Pisgah Mountainbike Adventure Race, this race is the reason I do Cohutta because you have to do some long easy miles on the mountain bike before tackling the hills and mountains of NC.
Pisgah is tough. This year Alex and I were determined to ride well. We were already committed to all 5 check points having done it the previous year and just barely making it in before the time cut off, Alex picked the worst route imaginable so this year I held the map.

Nate, Bell, Chris Young and Daniel W, Alex and I headed up early on Friday, set up camp and headed to Dupont for a warm up ride. We told Daniel, " This place is awesome huh?, Pisgah... nothing like it!" I got some new chainrings and some Mexican food and we headed off to camp. The next morning we woke up and got ready, going a bit slow and just making it to check in before the cut off. Checked our gear, got our map, bought some raffle tickets and then we were off up Black Mountain. Alex and I checked the map and decided to go for the westernmost check point first then traveling the route to the other 4 counter-clockwise. The other teams with us followed suite. We lost the other guys as Alex stopped to change a flat on the first descent and I took the opportunity to but in some new brake pads as my pads were metal on metal already, I was hoping to get at least one more ride out of them. Alex and I caught and passed the other guys we were with and began our quest knowing that we were riding stronger than last year by far and determined to keep up the pace. We felt great through our third check point in part fueled by our positive attitudes inspired by Michigan Jack. The climb up 5000 to our third check point flew by and we hollered and encouraged everyone on our way back down.
We caught a group we had been seeing all day on the climb up Yellow Gap and felt like we were racing again. When we got back into the trails to pick up the final two check points the pain and fatigue set in. I battled cramps and went into tunnel vision mode trying to keep the pace going that we had maintained all day. Alex channeled the Michigan Jack attitude and kept us moving along. There were some dark times once we reached Squirrel Gap and our positive banter ceased and we rode on in silence. We saw Chris and Daniel at a creek crossing and just grunted at them as we rode by.



We both dug deep knowing that we were "doing something special" ,as Alex said, and I think I pushed myself to near the brink. We knew we were on the way home but had a long way to go. The final descent of Black felt good but I focused on not crashing and making it in safely. We got back with all 5 check points putting us in 7th place. I forced down as much of the burrito as I could but really felt like puking might make me fell better. I sat there and drank a beer and watched my leg muscles squirm as I was sitting still knowing that any wrong movement would produce leg locking cramps. I won a shock rebuild which was hugely needed as I was almost forced to ride single speed due to shock issues between Cohutta and PMBAR. We headed to the Sagebrush for dinner and then I laid in my tent to tired to sleep but happy all the same.

mc

{despite the lack of photos this is going up to keep the news from going stale, will edit to add photos later, Taste It}

I used to think I was a grill master. I grilled all the time and could nail all types of meats prepared to various gradiations. I always cooked on charcoal only. Lately I've been cooking on gas and have had inconsistent results (although one may expect the opposite). And so it goes; sometimes you nail it, some times you come out ok, and others? well, you heal to come back and do it again another day.

Field reports have been pouring in with the rain from Raven Fork and Henderson Creek at juicy flows. When the weekend rolled around we did a road ride which was nice until Mark suggested that we climb Robert's Mill Rd., a notoriously steep section of road that climbs Walden's Ridge. After a few $1 tacos we headed over to paddle Suck Creek a couple of times and grilled up some dirty bird to perfection.

Another front rolled through early Sunday morning. We slowly rallied and met up at the takeout just downstream of the confluence.
The creek started off narrow and busy. The water level was a little high for a first decent and probably a little too high in general. Aside from portages due to wood and water levels the creek was pretty good quality and there were lines on all the rapids. I think it could become a gem; for a first decent found about 15 years after the gold rush on The Ridge it is of great character. It is most certainly class V, not the anticipated Class IV slides that it was sold as. Rock creek after the confluence had tripled in flow since we were first at the take out jumping from 1.5' early morning to 3' while setting shuttle and 6.75' at the end of the day.

JR found Middle Creek after pouring over some topos and online maps. He later went in and did some work cleaning out the creek and made a couple attempts at checking flows until the fronts aligned and provided enough water for this creek that doesn't even appear as a blue line on most maps. The small drainage and lack of blue line status is likely what led this to being overlooked in the past. The access, of course, is of tenuous nature and bit of diplomacy gleaned from the example set by our teacher Ron Stewart allowed us in that day. The likelihood of this being repeatable and consistent is slim, just as all access seems to be in this area of the ridge.
[Caveat: There have been several instances of people not in the know doing things such as riding around the top of the mountain with a bullhorn yelling out the window and telling lies to a landowner's wife with whom access had been negotiated, that shit won't be tolerated and will be met with consequences. In the instance of the lies we talked the landowner down, next time we may just point out which car is yours and look the other way.]



Turner missed the takeout and ran a huge hole that sucked him out of his boat. He Spitz'd it over to the side and grabbed a tree. Coming through a yard on the side of the river a man stepped up and handed him his paddle. After making fun of Turner for a minute he drove the group of three back upstream to the takeout they had missed where he told us all that the hole Turner swam out of wasn't that big. He suggested a couple of locations that we might spot the boat floating downstream. We arrived to the boat ramp just in time to see the boat float around the corner, just a second later it'd have been out of sight and never seen again. Turner stripped off his dry clothes jumped into my boat and took off around the corner into the fading light.

Another group of charges were a little late to the party and opted to explore a different creek for what is very likely another first decent: Clemmons Creek, They put in below the mini-gorge (which was not cleaned of wood and is reportedly nasty looking when there is no water in it) for the CO style creek- boogy, no eddys, large holes and waves and unexpected wood. They reported very high water and expect that at normal flows it would be class IV. Due to the high flows they completed the run in about 20- 30 minutes.

Today as Burrow ran the second drop of Stairway switch he crashed. He hiked out of the gorge spitting up blood. A trip to the doc revealed broken ribs and a broken clavicle. Sometimes you have to put the meat back on the grill and sometimes you have to eat it well done.

Surf and Sportaging

I knew it was going to be a good week last Monday when I opened up my bookmark for the National Weather Service infrared satellite image to see three major low pressure systems with solid cyclonic swirling lined up from the Pacific Coast to Arkansas.  As the three vortices ripped across the states they drew moisture from the Pacific Ocean, dropping the annual rainfall of many southwestern states in a matter of hours.  Tornado warnings in downtown Los Angeles reminded me of that movie "The Day After Tomorrow" and as the atmospheric eddy-line whipped its way east, the moisture from the Gulf of Mexico was pulled north in millions of acre-feet and dumped across the gradient rich drainages of The Southeast.  

Last Friday I left work a little early and headed to the Tiney Piney with my surf boat.  We arrived at the Whites Creek takeout and the gage read 3 feet.  JT, Vagina Boobs, The Red Barron, Badams, and Taylord joined me for what is without a doubt one of the best surfing runs on Walden's Ridge.  Mankind is at a loss for good descriptors of waves this good, but let me throw a few haphazardly into the cyberspace: "epic", "sick", and "huyage".

Though the surf was good, it left our vertical addictions with somewhat of an itch, and Saturday we woke early and headed to the home of the Scopes Monkey Trials for some marginar on the mighty Morgan Creek, aka "North Pole".

North Pole has some really classic portaging, and this keeps a lot of people away.  In fact, after adjusting for the Portage/Paddle ratio, it might be better described as a "sportaging" run.  Above is the first falls, or rather, the portage around it.  I think Clay gave this one, somewhat unsuccessfully, back in the day.  The maps call it "Snow Falls".

After Snow, there are a few booby rapids that terminate into a sieved out log jam.  A quick jump around these to the left brings you to this little cave slide shown below.

Immediately following the slide above is a small slot into this slide:

Bankfull. The human, not the run.

Then it gets good...  the portaging, I mean.  Here is Taft "Vagina Boobs" Sibley having fun on the lesser walked side of this portage, just above a little clapper drop that goes, sans the current wood situation.

This portage was awesome!  All the technical aspects of a classic:  ankle breaker boulders, sketchy down climbs, and slippery slopes.

The hard work doesn't go completely unrewarded.  With boats and shoes full of detritus, Vagina Boobs lines it up on this little spout:

No portaging required between the drop shown above and the slide shown below!  Don't get too excited.  The days is only half way over...

Nice form Caleb, I can really read those sponsor logos perfect, but next time let me see a little more "claw".

Then comes the innocuous looking drop (emphasis on "looking") that almost snuffed Crazy Hayes.  Merlin of the lowlands made it look quite runnable.  Most portaged.  Below is the next rapid in the gorge; a sweet and sour little boof to boof.  I guess we were really fiending for the portage, because most of the group portaged back up this one to give it a second go 'round.  Double, double boof.

Time for a hike with your chosen craft?  The hemlocks on the next spectacular portage are quite lovely.  This is followed by a couple of photogenic low angle slides.  These will make you wonder why we don't come in here with at least twice the flow. 

A few booby rapids mixed with a little portaging lead to another big ass portage.  You can run a little sneak slide right up to the lip of a mammoth horizon line.  Walking on the right will lead you to the lip of Decapitation.  The scene of Tim Williams running this one in Vertical Addiction always stuck in my mind.  I think it flipped his brim up for him.  Below, Merlin considers testing out his full face:

 and JT approaches the guillotine:

Decap is followed by this.  Its got a kick for sure.  You might remember the scene in "Local Hero"  where Bryan Prince gets knocked out.  It happened here, at "Chili Pepper".  It goes better than it looks, just don't try to run it on the right.

A low angle slide flows into one of the highlights of the run:  a thirteen footer that doesn't land on rock.  Vagina Boobs hates his back, and drops that land in deep pools.  He decided to take the ultra-sib rope swing line:

JT raced him to the bottom:

Sib's Splash can be seen in the lower right quadrant.  Winner: Team Vagina Boobs!

There is one more big portage after this.  The runnout of aforementioned portage can usually be run.  Tree branches in the landing prevented us from having this much fun.  The are some more low angle slides, a couple booby flops, and an eight footer on to terra firma in the runnout.  Richland Creek feels like a back massage when you get there.  Hike up and paddle down for a happy ending.  The next morning I awoke to the sound of a small stream in my basement.  The Captain should be reporting soon with tales of high water first deez, and stairway carnage. 

Unicoi Ride

Tellico- Bald River- North River January 2010:

Alex and I met up Saturday morning for a 5 hour ride around the Tellico River. Alex assured me that this would not be as difficult as our previous ride which kept dropping us into hanging valleys only to have us climb 20 % grades to get back out only to do it all over again.

Our previous ride in late '09 gave us a pretty good tour of the hollows (pronounced "hallers") and the culture that resides within.

This ride through the Unicoi Mountains encountered less development, more consistent and longer climbs and with the closing of the Tellico River OHV area little to no traffic other than the usual bear hunters.
We climbed for the majority of the ride time through sticky mud and then had one long descent from near Stratton Bald back down to the car at the lower Tellico.
53.5 Miles, 6,105 feet of climbing, 5.5 hrs total time.

The Ghost of Mayhem Part II

or: odds and ends from 2009

The drought of aughts is officially over here at the end of aught-nine as we find ourselves in a rainfall surplus by a monster 20 inches in Chattanooga and 13 inches in Knoxville. The deluge after deluge of Fall aught-nine will live long in the hearts and minds of the jib jedi masters, for the gratitude and appreciation to the great wet blanket is amplified following such an arid beast.

The month of May held many good festivals. Below is the Burrow amidst the ill will of drunk tank on the Beast of the East: Linville Gorge.

It was a fine day in the dramatic canyon. Warm temperatures, good vibrations, and Taylor even found some leftover libations near Cave. Here is Mr Adams dropping out of Cathedral Gorge. What Majesty!

It was discovered in a previous year. Below the 2009 Jimicup Champion fishes with Gandhi while a few zombies await their turn in the depths.

The heat of the summer boiled our brains and our resin. Below is the grand master of Ragnaroks wiring up the first of six new glass stallions.

Behold! I need no stinking respirator! Mikey laying it down while gettin up.

Beware! Gualey 2010. The riders of the glass apocolypse shall be released from their lair. Blinded by the intense blaze of metal flake, the people will paddle helplessly into the shores to escape their wrath. The suns rays will be blackened by the submersion of the world in dark waters. The battle of the doomed gods will commence:

"Brothers will fight

and kill each other,

sisters' children

will defile kinship.

It is harsh in the world,

whoredom rife

—an axe age, a sword age

—shields are riven—

a wind age, a wolf age—

before the world goes headlong.

No man will have

mercy on another"

The Grand Canyon is indescribable. Here are 1000 futile words:

Though it hurts to remember, I will not soon forget the spiritual power of the river and its canyon. We laid to rest a true jedi master in the waters of Lava Falls. Forever he remains in our hearts and minds, and he is immortalized in all that he has left behind.

A Christmas Miracle

We awoke from our slumber to find water flowing through Sitton's Gulch.

We headed up to get in a quick run before getting back to spending time with our families. The Dode was a bit ahead of us but we had high hopes of catching up with them. We didn't quite make it in time to set shuttle with them but tricked Burrow into waiting on us at the take out. We got on our gear and Broiler realized he forgot his helmet. He rode up the mountain with us to drive the car back to the bottom when low and behold what should he find in the back of the truck sitting at the put in? A helmet! We all got on the river met up with Dode, Full Throttle and Adam just below Big Bang and had a great Christmas run on Bear Creek.

Mach 3 with your hair on fire:
A Dode Throwback

Slayin'

Lack of updates... but not for a lack of doing. There has been pedal biking, squirting, creeking, deer slaying and working going on.

Ocoee Squirt Gathering from LVM 32 from Lunch Video Magazine on Vimeo.

Read about this trip and see photos at Full Throttle
This has been a great season for Bear Creek, arguably one of the best creeks in the SE if not the nation.

Race Report or "how to attempt to sabotage your own race"

Joe, Javid and I keeping the race moving along.
photo from thepurplewing.com


I haven't done much pedal bike racing this year. PMBAR, a SERC event at my local trails and the BMW River Gorge Omnium (Road Race, Time Trial and Criterium).

The interested reader can scroll down and read about our epic day of riding in Pisgah during the PMBAR event.
My friend and now pro mountain bike racer James Williams came into town for a visit and urged me to race the SERC event at Raccoon Mountain. I did my best to sabotage my own race by 1. racing in the single speed class, 2. changing my 20t cog for a 19t cog before the race 3. converting my tires to tubeless the night before the race. 4. drinkin' brews
None of these efforts resulted in a mechanical allowing me to leave the 96 degree F race course for some shade, water and more brews. I finished the race in 10th place. I think it took about 3 hours of solid water consumption before I could pee and probably a good week to get re-hydrated again.
I continued NOT training by sleeping late, staying up late, working on my house and drinking throughout the rest of the season.

As the River Gorge event crept up on me, I tried to increase my riding but it was really to late to accomplish anything other than to convince myself I could at least ride the race course without having to stop for a break. The Grubbs brothers, Corey Hall and I went for a ride on the course. We pounded out the first 2/3 rds fast, when we hit the stair step I fell off the back. This was enough to realize I need to upgrade my fitness. After resisting as best I could, using my poor performance as an excuse, Javid and Joe got me to sign up with promises to pull me the whole way to the base of the big climb up Racoon Mountain. Instead we were at the front of the race, driving the pace some and making poor attempts to attack on the flats. Big bad Randy was even going to pull us through the flats but I never saw him again until the Crit on Sunday.
At the start of the final climb I got out front and held as long as I could, finally a group of 10 passed me and slowly widened the gap between me and them. At the second to last steep pitch I picked off a rider. Joe caught up with me on the short down hill but I was able to accelerate past him up the last pitch to the finish for 9th. The time trial started about 4 hours later, we had some time to relax. The brothers Grubbs and I went back to my house to eat pizza, drink some beer and watch Army of Darkness, the third movie in the Evil Dead series. I think I read somewhere that this was the proper way to prepare for a time trial.
After we finished our beers we headed back up to the mountain for the time trial. I was the first one off. My legs felt weary from the road race and I thought it would have been nice to have a TT bike to allow me to utilize some different muscles, but it also gave me strong sense of pride to be one of the few racing cannibal style. Just as I started a storm was starting to roll in, there were some good winds in front of the storm as rolled in. I like to think that being slower than last years time was a result of the winds but it could have been the Evil Dead or maybe the beer. I missed 10th place by about 1 second. Joe was wearing his funny helmet as he passed his 30 second man, Javid, for second place.
Sunday morning was the criterium race. It was mine and Javid's first race of this kind. I was concerned that some sketchy bike handling CAT 5 racer was going to take me out, but for the most part everyone raced smooth. There were a few fresh legs out there, mostly Team Krystal riders who looked like they weren't the type that would have enjoyed the climbing on the road course. The pace was good, throughout. They had enough primes to keep the sprints going. Joe won at least two of them. I got out in the front after one of the primes because the pace was slowing too much and pulled the group around . I think Randy got away with 1 or 2 laps to go and Team Krystal slowed the pace down effectivly blocking, I didn't even realize he was away. I was caught up in the middle of the pack. I should have been up front for the last 3 laps, then I may have been able to do something. I came in with the pack and sprinted for 9th place, almost being taken at the line but was just able to hold the other rider off.

Eight Days in the Middle Kings

Leisure Tour '09



Gambling on the dates that the water would be good we bought plane tickets to Fresno (shizblarnigan #1) to set out for the Middle Fork of the Kings. We almost got the flow right this time. After paddling the river at high water in 2005 (the flow peaked at 2200 cfs on the Roger's Crossing gauge) we were looking for a low water descent. Hoping to put on at 1250 and have the river drop, we ended up with flows holding steady around 1350cfs, I think this would be considered medium flows. Our plan was to take our time and enjoy being in the canyon as long as possible. Three groups passed us while we were on the river. The first came through with those wild eyes on a mission to get out quickly and be somewhere else, the next we juggled back and forth with as they spent time patching boats but a well planned day off allowed us to get behind them by a day. The final group came upon us while in Tehipiti Valley and only taking an extra long lunch on the Garlic Falls section allowed us to fall behind this group. You may be thinking "Wait, I thought to be a bad ass kayaker you have to bomb the run and be the first ones off the water, training for the green race everytime you paddle." Sure that's fun, but what are you missing?



Getting ready, practicing "HighFive!"



Bryce in front of the Inconsolable Range



LeConte Canyon



Product shot: I show off my Pyrahna Burn and Werner, Tim grabs his nuts, Broiler shots the bird. These are the photos that can get you free gear.


Some early mank





"Meet my right and my left"


As we appeared to the other groups kayaking the river, sitting on the bank in Arab fashion, although Tim is sporting more of the mammy look here



Domes


While the other group repaired their boats, we did this:




Where I got hammered in '05, which is just below where The Broiler was hammered this year, and right above where Helms and DeLa were hammered several years ago.


Some Class III in the Bottom 9
More Leisure Time




Previous high water trip in '05


Notice how much more sunny and happy this trip was...




Team Jib's exclusive California Highway Patrol escort into the fire zone... no shit, I'm serious.



Just like the Little Dutch boy at the dyke Bryce plugs the hole in the tire with his finger... The Broiler, with his hands on his head, wonders if the shizblarnigans will ever cease.

for a great summer read