MOM Bavington

Bavington MOM It's finally here the Annual Month of Mud the series. This is great local series the only bad thing about it is that it usually marks the end of the racing season and with that winter is just around the corner. This year there's only going to be 4 races in the series. The first one was the MTB time trial at Bavington. This is the only MTB time trial that I know of.

On Saturday I made the trip to Smethport PA for the Wheel around the hub race. I really wanted to go because I planned on this being my last road race of the year. Plus I thought it was pretty cool that this race started in 1890 which was ten years before the first Tour De France. After about a 3-1/2 hour drive and a nice warm up it was time to go. It was a 53 mile 7 lap circuit race with about 60 starters. It was a pretty flat and fast course and our avg speed was about 25 mph after the first lap. Not much happened and before I knew it, we were on the last lap. I wasn't able it get in the small breakaway of 5 riders and finished 9th in the field sprint and 14th overall. wwwrunhigh.com

Now biggest concern was to get home and try and relax and get ready for the Month of Mud race the next day.I decided the night before that I was going to race it on my single speed for a couple of reasons. The first is that there's no big climbs at Bavington. Second is that Bavington's more about carrying momentum than hammering. Not sure how the order was picked but I was going to be 4th. But I was glad not to be going first. I started out and it seemed like I had a nice pace going and was riding pretty smooth. I managed to catch everyone that went out in front of me, and was first to finish. But in the end it wasn't enough I finish 2nd and was happy that rode as well considering I raced the day before . Here's the full list of results http://www.westlibertycycles.com/mom/results_sep21.htm . Next week it off to Brady's Run for round number 2.Justin

Peanut Butter Festival

As fall approached it was time for the annual pilgrimage to New Bethlehem PA for the Peanut Butter Festival Mountain Bike Race. This is a pretty small event but it's fun and it was one of the first races I ever did and so I always try to go back. It's called the Peanut Butter race because New Bethlehem is the location of the Smucker's plant that makes their awesome peanut butter. Some people think it's called that because when it rains the mud is like peanut butter.

The weather the day of the race was almost perfect. But the weather a few days prior to the race was another story. It rained a lot on Thursday and Friday but even with that there was over a hundred racers... a new record!! Knowing that it gets muddy I decided to race my Single Speed hoping that it would be better in the mud.

The start is about a half mile on a blacktop road before you hit some trails. I did everything I could to get a good start and was about 5th going into the woods. Then about 10 minutes into the race Sam Morrison, Shane Gouldthread, and I managed to get a small gap of the rest of the field. The three of us stayed together for quite a while. After about 45 minutes Sam and I pulled away from Shane. To my surprise, the course really didn't seem muddy at all like in the past, just wet and slippery. So the Single Speed was more of a disadvantage than an advantage. With about 3 miles to go Sam passed me on a short road section and I never caught back up to him. I managed to hold Shane off and finished second.

Ruth really likes this race a lot because it was her very first mountain bike race. She's won it in the past and had a good race today but finished third. I'd like to say thanks to all the volunteers and sponsors for the great time. You can check out the http://www.smileymiles.com/for all the results.

Justin

Roaring Run

This was a great weekend for some racing for a couple of reasons. The biggest being that the races were nearby over the weekend and the weather was great plus there were races both days. Saturday started off with the 20th Annual Tour De Strongland offroad races at the Roaring Run trail in Apollo. Entry this year was up a lot from previous years with 123 racers total between the three races.

The expert race started off at 10:00 and had about 30 plus racers. It started off fast with about a mile and a half on the rail trail before hitting the singletrack. I had a great start and was first into the singletrack. Then after only a small section of singletrack we crossed the stream twice. That's when we started back into the singletrack. Everyone was pretty close at this point with Gerry Pflug being the closest and the Sprengs not too far behind. Near the end of the first lap I thought that I had built up a nice lead. But as I looked back I was wrong. Henry Spreng was right on my tail. I tried to drop him on the second lap but he stayed close.

The course was pretty spectator friendly but to my surprise I saw Ruth cheering me on. It was nice to see her but wondered what happened. After finishing the singletrack all that was left was the rail trail back to the finish. I looked back and didn't see Henry anywhere. I crossed the finish line first and was waiting to see Henry come in. But the next person was Jared Babek, then Steve Cummings, Rob Spreng, and Gerry Pflug but no Henry.

Finally I saw Henry, but he was running and not riding. What happened was near the end his rear derailleur had a confrontation with a rock and lost. Ruth suffered from the dreaded double flat and wasn't able to finish.
Here's a small story from the Valley News Dispatch about the race.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/mostread/s_586949.htmlI want to thank everyone for the great event.

Justin