Sweeper

    Everything with our house seemed to be going smoothly in early April. We were hoping to close by the end of the first week of April, but it didn't happen and now we are playing the waiting game. I know the house needs some work before we move in so I am ready to get on it! It is testing my patience for sure. Combine that with the unrealistic demands of the mortgage company and my patience are really wearing thin. I love how they expect you to find some random document you have tucked away, like tax returns from three years ago, and have it scanned and emailed to them within an hour when you are at work, but then you contact them about something it takes them five days to get back to you. We were actually told we were not taking this seriously because it took us a few hours to send in one document because we were at work when they asked for it. They acted like it was normal for you to carry tax documents and check stubs with you at all times.

     I continued to feel like trash after Chickasaw. I had two solid weeks of feeling tired and weak. At first, I think it was just doing too much with the hard days I had at work combined with the racing, but the fatigue lasted longer than it should have. I finally traced it back to dehydration. With as many hydration issues as I have had in the past few years you would think I would be more aware of the signs and symptoms, but they always seem to slip by me for a few days and dig me into a hole, especially this time of year when it's not hot outside.

     I got rehydrated and immediately felt much better just in time for the weekend. We had a double-header on tap with the Sunny King Criterium in Anniston, AL on Saturday, then round 2 of the South Eastern Regional Championship Series (SERC) in Tsali, NC on Sunday. It was going to be a tough weekend with difficult races and lots of traveling. I was very motivated for both races, eager to make up for my sub-par performance at Chickasaw.

     Anniston is always a tough crit. The course does not allow for much rest each lap. It's really a tough place to race so early in the season. A basic course description is a simple rectangle with four 90-degree left turns. The front stretch is uphill and the back stretch is downhill. Most years there is a big headwind on the downhill and tailwind on the uphill. That held true again this year. Many laps we went faster up the hill than down it due to the strong wind.

Chris Cundiff in the Elite Masters race

Masters on the hill

Chris was one of many that came off in the closing laps

Cat. 3s

     The race blew apart last year in the Cat. 2 group, but typically it is a bunch finish here. The strong wind always makes it more likely that a break can succeed. It was a chilly day, but the sun was shining bright all afternoon. I got to the start early and got lined up on the second row. We had about 45-50 riders on the line, which is a smaller turnout than in the past. USADA was on hand for some drug testing for our group, which was nice to see as we are all paying that extra fee on our licenses now that goes toward testing. My Pro license is now up to $225 per year thanks to the Race Clean Surcharge that was added on this year. I want to pee in a cup at some point this year so I know they actually used my money for ant-doping.

     I didn't have the best legs, but I got a good start and was stronger than I have ever been at this race. I was able to move around the pack as needed, pull out of line to move up and stay toward the front. I did everything right the first half of the race, then drifted back a little farther than I should be.

Cat. 2 start line

First lap on the back stretch, me sitting 2nd

Breakaway

Me in the group heading into turn 3

Rider off the front

Kyle Tiesler had a good race finishing 6th

Two more riders on the attack

     The race that was scheduled for 45 minutes, which is already a short race for a Cat. 2 field, got shortened even more to 38 minutes for some reason. It made for a difficult finish as there were not many guys that were tired yet. I moved up to the front with four laps to go and was holding my spot until Turn 3 with two to go. I got rammed by a guy on my outside. His bars came into my bars so hard it lifted my front wheel off the ground. Somehow both of us were able to correct our shaking handlebars, but it cost us both a bunch of spots. The pace was too high to move up quickly, then I got blocked in on the final lap. When the seas did part, I had nothing left to move up with at that speed. All I could do was try to hold my spot in the sprint, taking home a disappointing 29th place. Positioning got me again it seems. I hit my highest heart rate value of the season at 181 early in the race. We averaged 26.0 mph which I thought was pretty fast on this course with such a strong headwind on the downhill. I often saw us running 20-21 mph down the hill and 32 mph up the other side with the tailwind.

More attacks late in the race

Late attacks on the hill

Me in the group with a few laps to go

     I had my GoPro on for this race. The highlights are posted below. There was a crash off to my left just after the start, which you can hear. The only other exciting thing was when I got rammed near the end of the race. My last lap was pretty sad to watch. Below that is a video of the various races during the day filmed by me and Shannon.

Video: Cat. 2 Handlebar Cam Highlights

Video: Footage of some of the Sunny King Criterium races

     After the race, Kyle Tiesler and I got asked by Frankie Andreu to sweep the course during the Kid's Fun Run. It was a fun experience. I enjoyed watching the kids and also getting to chat with Frankie. He's a nice guy and did a good job commentating today. After loading up, we stopped our favorite barbecue joint, Dad's BBQ, which is just a few blocks from the race course. We slammed a few pulled pork sandwiches and a cup of their delicious banana pudding, then hit the road for Tsali. We had way too much driving ahead of us to stay for the Pro races this year.

    Our stopping point for the night was on the Ocoee River in the southeastern corner of Tennessee, roughly halfway between Anniston and Tsali. Along the way, we stopped by Noccalula Falls in Gadsden, AL. It was not a planned stop, but I saw the sign and just happened to be ready for a break from the seat. It was a good stop too. It's an easily accessible waterfall that is pretty spectacular. It's about 90 feet high and drops into a gorge on Black Creek. The name of the falls comes from a legend about an Indian princess named Noccalula who jumped off the falls when her father ordered her to marry a man she did not love. There is a statue near the falls of her jumping, made from pennies local school children collected in the 1960s. We did not have time to explore the whole park, but there is supposed to be a covered bridge and a trail through the gorge that passes old caves, Civil War carvings, an aboriginal fort and an abandoned dam. Hopefully we will get time to stop by again in the future.

Noccalula Falls

Mist coming out of the Black Creek gorge

Black Creek above the falls

Video: Noccalula Falls just before dark

     The campground we had planned to stay at was closed on the tent camping side. We had one other option, which was Thunder Rock Campground near the Ocoee Whitewater Center. Thunder Rock would have been my first choice, but it is always full by Friday afternoon so a late Saturday-night stop seemed pointless. We had no choice but to try it or head back toward Chattanooga for a place to stay. Lucky for us, the first site in the campground was open. We hurried to get the tent set up and get to sleep. It was a calm night so we didn't stake down all sides of the tent or tie on the rainfly. That would just be more work to tear down in the morning. It was midnight when we got in our sleeping bags with the alarm set to go off at 5:30. It was looking like a short night.

     Not tying down the rainfly was a bad choice. All of a sudden at 3 am, a wall of wind came up the river. It lasted for two hours, beating our tent and thrashing around the rainfly. The fly stayed on, but at one point the wind lifted up some of our support poles and one side of the tent collapsed down on me. Then, as quickly as it came, the wind stopped promptly at 5 am. I know because I was awake, lying there covered by my sleeping bag and half the tent. Needless to say, we did not get much sleep. I'd say four hours max.

     We were out of the campground before sunrise. It was a cold morning with the temp sitting in the mid-30s. It was still in the 30s when we got to Tsali and started getting the bikes ready. I recently bought a Meiser Accu-Gage tire pressure gauge which I have been using to help set up my new bike. I highly recommend getting one if you like to be exact with your tire pressures and bike set-up. I've always gone by feel when setting tire pressure, but I wanted to be more specific now that I bought this new bike so the gauge has come in handy now. Meiser makes a low-pressure gauge that works great for mountain biking and cyclocross, and also a high-pressure gauge that would work for road bikes. Both models fit presta valves and are a fairly cheap purchase.

First race number on the new bike. Back to my favorite number, 13.

     Teri Berger had my number waiting for me. When I was younger, it seemed I got number 13 at every race I went to. It became my trademark number after a while. Most people don't want 13 because of bad luck, but I don't believe in that nonsense. I'm happy to take the reject number. Teri knew and had it set out for me so nobody else could get it. I felt very welcomed at the race from the second I got there. I had forgotten how much more friendly riders are at mountain bike races. Everyone seemed so genuinely happy to see me back on the dirt. It felt like coming home in a way, even though I never really stopped mountain biking.

     My legs were sluggish, but I expected that after racing the day before and sitting in the car so long. I figured they would feel better after the race got going. We had a $50 holeshot award on the start, which made for a little fun to get things going. I have been working on my starts so I figured I would go for it. I was a little disappointed to see only eight riders in the Pro class. I expected more for a SERC series race, especially one at a legendary trail like Tsali.

    I had a great jump off the line, but not even close to great enough. I was fourth off the line, then got pinched into a mud puddle in the first turn and came to the line for the holeshot award in 7th. I may have improved with my starting, but the Pro class at a SERC event is for real and I got smoked! It was a welcome back slap in the face to let me know I still have a lot of work to do on my mountain bike. There's a start video posted below along with some pictures of some of the classes in the Yellow Wave getting underway.

Video: Yellow Wave start clips

Cat. 1 19-39 start

Pro/Cat. 1 Women

Cat. 2 40-49

Cat. 2 Women

     I was still in 7th entering the woods. The group began to split on the first descent in the singletrack. Four riders began to break away. I was faster than the two ahead of me, but there was no room to pass. After the descent, we had to chase hard to get back to the front four. We rejoined them just as we reached the bottom of the first climb. My legs were not there as we started climbing. They were going much faster than I could go and I had to drop off the back of the group. I ran my pace to the top and managed to pick off one rider to move into 6th.

     The rest of the lap is faster and more flowing. I thought I had become comfortable on the Epic after a few rides on the backyard trail, but Tsali is much faster. I was not at all comfortable on the faster, sweeping corners on the Left Loop along the lake. The trail was dry and there was a lot of small gravel in the turns, making it that much more sketchy. To make a long story short, I struggled the rest of the first lap. I got caught by a Pro rider and dropped to 7th. Then came half of the Cat. 1 19-39 class by me on one of the climbs. They had made up two minutes on me already.

Chris Lessing

Bobby Jones

    I felt awful as I began the second lap of the 13.7-mile course. I just wanted to hang on to my 7th place. I didn't see me making up too much time with how my legs were feeling. I felt more like the course sweeper again today than a Pro racer. But despite how I felt I didn't back off, I just pounded away on the first big climb. Suddenly as I crested the hill, I started to feel better. I got into a good rhythm and started to gain time on the rider ahead. I caught him by the second main climb on course. Instead of losing big time up the climb this lap, I caught, passed and dropped him. I also caught another rider from a class that started behind us and hooked onto his wheel the rest of the lap. I felt much more comfortable on the bike this lap and did not lose time in the corners.

    I finished in 6th, which was not as good as I had hoped, but I was pleased with it considering how awful I rode the first lap. The crit. took much more out of my legs than I expected. But I fought all the way to the end and I got a solid result in a small, but tough group of Pros. It wasn't the way I wanted to start the SERC series, but at least it was a finish and got me some points. Also, I had no gastroc pain all weekend! I still need some work on my pedal stroke when I am going all-out like in the crit. I tend to revert back to a more pull-focused pedal stroke in those hard situations, but slowly I'm breaking that habit.

Seth Kemp wins the Cat. 1 19-39 class

Simon Lewis took 2nd in Cat. 1 19-39

Tim Zimmerman takes the Cat. 1 40-49 win

Dustin Burkeen and Kyle Ellis cross the finish line

Brent Graves took 2nd in the Cat. 1 40-49

Me coming to the finish of a hard day

     After the race, Shannon and I took a lap on the course. It was now a perfect day, warm and sunny. We took our time on the loop, stopping to take in the views that I didn't have time to enjoy earlier in the day. We played on some rocky points that jutted out of the lake. I rode to the top of one of the points, then we walked out to the third point where there was a memorial at the top. I'm not really sure what or who exactly the memorial was for, but it was interesting.

Shannon on a log

Nice view of the still-brown mountains and Fontana Lake from the top of the overlook climb

We aren't the best at selfies, but we nabbed this one at the overlook

We spied these rocky points long before we got to them

The water level was low enough you could walk (or ride) out onto the points

Video: Me riding out to the rocky points

At the top

A boat on top of the third point that was part of a memorial of some kind

Riding back

    On the drive home we stumbled across another waterfall. This one was called Rainbow Falls. It's located between Tsali and Fontana on Hwy. 28. I've driven by here many times, but never noticed the waterfall. It is literally on the side of the road. I guess maybe it has never been flowing when I drove by. It was flowing today and was very noticeable in the afternoon sun. We stopped for a few pictures and could quickly see where it gets its name. When you get close to it, the sunlight going through the falls produces a bright rainbow. Pretty cool. Nature can be really awesome!

Small as far as water volume, but still cool

Rainbow Falls

Sunlight passing through the water makes a rainbow near the bottom of the falls

     We also stopped by the Fontana Dam for some more scenery and another break from the car. It was a nice relaxing drive home to end what was a hectic weekend. I was fatigued and sleep-deprived. My bed felt very good when we got home this week.

Upper side of the Fontana Dam

Fontana Lake

Fontana Dam from the bottom