MOUTH FULL OF DIRT : Super D's Blog: Island Hopping

Upon our return from Gateway Cup, we found a real mess in our part of Tennessee. Hurricane Harvey was arriving as we left home for St. Louis after it had slammed Houston and Louisiana. The storm was still packing a punch with winds and rain when it passed through our area. Fortunately, we were clear of it by the time we got to Illinois and were gifted beautiful weather all weekend long in St. Louis. We returned home to find our garden hit a bit worse for the wear after the storm. Our taller crops were all smashed down, especially the corn. This was our first year trying corn and it has not gone well. Between this storm and the raccoons that find our corn very tasty, we have not actually picked a single ear for ourselves. Our peppers were also smashed to one side, but the ground was still soft enough when we got home that we could push them back up. I spent a whole day staking them as the ground was so soft that it couldn’t hold up the weight of the peppers that were hanging off the plants.

Our corn looked very sad after Hurricane Harvey came through.

I didn’t realize that we also had a gas shortage over the Labor Day weekend. I headed off to MOAB Bikes to pick up the bearing kit for my Epic that would fix my creaking main pivot that is worn out. I didn’t have a lot of gas and was shocked to see every station between our house and Nashville was out of gas. I didn’t have enough to make it to Franklin and back so I was going to have to turn around if I couldn’t find gas in Nashville. Luckily, there were a few stations in Nashville that did have gas and I was able to fill up, although it was at a high price. Gas supply issues lasted a few more days before things started getting back to normal the following weekend. That's twice in the past few weeks where all of our local stations ran out of gas.

The weekend after Gateway Cup was free from racing. I had planned to get in some final race prep for my last target race of the year, which was the Tennessee State Championships being held at Montgomery Bell State Park in White Bluff, TN on September 17. I haven’t raced a state championship in at least 10 years. This one finally fit into my schedule and was at the trail where I ride best at so it was a target for me from the day they announced the date.

We took advantage of our free Saturday to go visit with some friends who had been inviting us up to their lake house for many months. Taylor and Linda Kay Clark are good friends of my family and were the ones that rented us the farm house we lived in before we bought our own home last year. They have a small house on Kentucky Lake near Paris Landing, TN that they visit a few weekends a month and have a pontoon boat they take out on the water. They invited up my entire family and some of our neighbors for a relaxing day on the water. We had a big lunch and watched some college football before heading out on in the boat. Taylor drove us around the lake and through the river channel, passing by the big Hwy 79 bridge over the Tennessee River at Paris Landing. He also took us along the western side of Land Between the Lakes, where we stopped by a few islands to explore.

Huge tree down in the road on our drive up to the lake

On the boat with the family and neighbors

Hwy 79 bridge

The main island, apparently called Hot Dog Island by those who visit frequently, is an island I had seen many times while camping at LBL when I was younger. I had always wanted to go check it out. It's probably been 15 years since I last saw the island, but I finally made it over to it! We walked the shallows and found a bunch of mussels and shells, then took a lap around the island to check out the cypress trees and swamps that were separated from the lake by just a few feet of earth.

The biggest island in the part of Kentucky Lake.

Welcome to Hot Dog Island

Shannon found a mussel, a freshwater bivalve to be exact.

I found one too

Colorful inside to this shell

Swamp in the middle of the island

Walking around the shore

Small animal skull we found on the beach

During the boat ride, my Dad was telling us about the Ben Hawes Trails in Owensboro, KY. I had heard of Ben Hawes, but have not ridden the trails yet. He and my Mom went to ride them about a month before and had a lot of fun. He told me there was a race there on Sunday and he wanted to go. My performance on the bike has been up and down lately, so practicing an XC effort one more time before State Championships didn’t sound like a bad idea. By the time we got back to shore we had made plans to head to Owensboro the next day and do the race, which had actually been postponed from earlier in the year due to heavy rains and flooding issues.

Sunday morning we had a truck filled with people as Dina and I met up with my parents and headed north for Owensboro. One of the reasons I wanted to do this race is that I have a lot of friends in the Owensboro area, many of which I have not seen in several years. Larry Myles put on the race. He helped me into cyclocross back in 2009 and 2010 when he brought me onto the Ohio Valley Velo team. I really enjoyed racing with all the OVV guys and still can’t thank Larry enough for all he did for me. Some of my best cyclocross results were during that period and I learned so much from all those guys. It was good to see him again and help support his event.

Since I had never ridden the trail at Ben Hawes before, I took a full lap before the race. It was a loop of nine miles that was very fast and very dry today. There was a lot of flow and also plenty of spots to lay down some power. The climbing was not overly difficult, with only a few hills along the loop and most of them are gradual and drag on more like a false flat. Very few areas of this course were even remotely close to being classified as steep. It seemed like another good trail for me, much like some of the DINO courses I did so well on this season.

We had four riders in the Pro/Cat. 1 class, including Anthony Slowinski, who would be the man to beat today. He is always fast. He was a dominant rider when I was first getting into mountain biking and someone I have looked up to since my Junior days. I have learned so much from riding with him over the years. He was another person I had not seen or ridden with in quite a while so it was good to catch up with Anthony before, during and after the race.

Pro/Cat. 1 and Cat. 2 Open start at Ben Hawes

The race was three laps long for a total of 27 miles. We had a start loop to spread things out before starting the first lap. The start loop began with a downhill dash in the grass, then a right turn onto a long, wooded climb up a wide, grassy road. There was another sharp right turn at the top before a fast descent on doubletrack through the finish line and Feed Zone before we entered the singletrack to begin lap 1. I had a fair start, topping the hill in fourth and then was able to get past Mark Myles for third before we came through the finish line. The Cat. 2 Open class started with us, but the Cat. 2 age groups started a few minutes later, just as we came down the hill on the start loop. The start loop climb crossed the first part of the main loop, so of course we all managed to get there at the same time. The age group riders were going up the hill as we came flying into the intersection. People scattered everywhere, but amazingly nobody hit or went down. Nothing like a little chaos to get the race going!

I entered the trail in third and just tried to hang on for the opening section. I had done a lot of riding this week and my upper body was feeling it. I had some major burn going on in the shoulders as we went through one section where there was a lot of pumping over humps in the trail. I struggled to hold pace the first two miles, then the leader dropped his chain and that gave the lead to Anthony. He was much smoother and I began to settle in on his wheel. While I was far from comfortable, I was starting to get into a good rhythm on this flowy course. Mark managed to hang with us for most of the first lap. The main climbing section comes about six miles into the loop and that is where we dislodged him. Anthony put the hurt on me, but I held his wheel and we ended lap 1 together. I fed in the woods just before the end of the lap as the Feed Zone seemed too fast to get a bottle without giving up a lot of time. Anthony took us full-steam into the Feed Zone and opened a gap up on me as he didn’t take a feed this lap. It took me a full mile to close down what was just a gap of a few bike lengths.

Anthony leading at the end of lap 1

Me just off his wheel in second

My legs started to get better after that effort and suddenly the climbs didn’t seem so bad anymore. Anthony led the entire second lap. I went from thinking I couldn’t hang for much longer on lap 1, to sizing up a passing spot on lap 2. And it wasn’t because we slowed down as our lap time was just a few seconds off lap 1. My feed tactic paid off as Anthony took us fast into the Feed Zone again and missed his bottle. He had tried to grab it off a hay bale, but we were just going too fast.

He began to fade at the tops of the climbs early in lap 3, maybe from not taking a bottle at the end of the first lap and then missing his feed the next lap. I had to be patient as passing spots were few on this course, but finally a chance came and I took it with about six miles remaining in the race. I had the lead and began to push the pace. I slowly pried open a gap over Anthony. He fought hard for a few minutes, but I finally broke him just before the halfway mark of the loop. I went all-out on the longer climbs in the second half of the loop. My legs were burning, but I was still able to push hard all the way to the top of every climb. I gave everything I had the rest of the race and ended up pulling away to win by 1:52. My lap time only slowed three seconds compared to lap 2, so I was very consistent all day. Just about every time I ride a mountain bike race that consistently I win. I was pleased to feel strong at the end and have no cramps whatsoever today. From past results I have seen from this race, our finish time was the fastest ever for three laps on these trails. I feel like I am riding really well right now when I have a good day, and it also helped that I go the new bearings and bushings put into my rear suspension pivots and got rid of the slop and creaking that has been bugging me the past few races. A happy bike is a fast bike.

Pro/Cat. 1 podium

Dina also won her age group in Cat. 2 Women and my Dad won his Cat. 3 race! It was a heck of a day for the Greer clan. Three riders and three wins! My Dad and I went back out for another lap on the course right after his race, giving me a total of five laps for the day. I really liked this trail and couldn’t pass on a few more miles of fun. It was a good confidence booster going into the State Championships. More on that in the next post.