Friday ~ 10:45 pm we arrive to weather that is soo cold that you can only think of hopping into bed fully clothed and with the covers up to your neck. Basically, it was pushing all of 40 Deg with a wind chill of 35 or so. Luckily for us we had a nice room reserved at the Holiday Inn. I was looking forward to hitting up the trail the next morning but you know Shit happens.
Saturday morning and hell I was feeling thirsty so we roll over to the Lynchberg, TN Welcoming Committee Center
So on Saturday afternoon we went out to the Chickasaw Trace and cruised the trail before hand. I have to say that this trail was bad ass. Small berms in strategic locals made haul'n ass simple but the rocks and roots acted as speed bumps. I was really feeling the course it was surely one of the fastest trails that I have ever been on. It consisted of a nine mile loop with around 600 feet of elevation gain in miles 6 n 7. Basically you cruised balls to the walls for 6 miles then suffered for a while up a series of short leg breaking climbs a few long climbs and another up hill towards the finish line. This course was made for me.
So Sunday morning rolls on in I go out and snap a few great shots of the course and then it was 12:30 time to roll out. We start the race which was fast. The suffering began early with a 1 mile open road effort to the woods. Guys were all over the place jockeying for position like it was the Kentucky Derby or NASCAR. We immediately started to shell guys and other guys kept pushing the pace. We cruised down this hill which was promptly followed by a short series of surges of the pace by the strong arms of Tenn and mainly GA. Just as soon as we hit single track I realized that I was too far down in the group and the strong guys had just gaped a person several spots up in our little MTB paceline. So someone from behind me see this happening and decides that he is going to chase them down or al least hop onto the back of that group. He is the person that messed up on this section here:
This was followed by a pursuit mode chase back to the lead group. Sure enough just as we catch back up to those guys the same fart high tails it around me and is sitting in front of me going slower and then the guys start to gap the group again. Well shortly there after he is cruising on the right side of the trail when the trails width decreases from 2 feet to 4 inches. He slams his breaks and shoots the gap just in time to clip my front wheel and cause me to shake my existence to the core. I was so dazed and confused that I could not think well enough to get back into the race for at least 15 min. Then it was too late to fight back to this group of guys. I was out of it. After finishing my first lap I realized that my hip was feeling really tender, and not like love me tender, but rather like don't touch me tender. I ended pulling out half way through lap 2 and never looked back. Hey at least I have good legs again. That is all I have to say about that. Till Next Time: Keep The Rubber Side Down, Jr
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