The Devil's Bathtub

     We had a nice breakfast on Monday morning after mountain bike Nationals in West Virginia and then hit the road for home. We had all day to get home so we planned to see a few sights along the way including the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank. That giant dish telescope receives radio waves put off by celestial bodies in space. It moves and is constantly scanning the skies in order to map star and planet locations and movements. This part of West Virginia is in the National Radio Quiet Zone which clears the radio interference for the telescope. That means cell towers are few, hence the reason you have no service in this area. Internet is also restricted. We also saw a bear crossing the road just south of here.

National Radio Astronomy Observatory telescope

     Our main stop of the day was to be in Fort Blackmore, Virginia to hike to the Devil's Bathtub. This hike is becoming more popular thanks to social media. It is located along the Devil's Fork Loop, which is 7.3 miles long. Most people just hike to the Devil's Bathtub feature which is about 2.2-miles into the loop. The Bathtub is a deep hole in the rock where water pools. It's shaped like a bathtub. The water and rocks have interesting colors in them to add to the beauty. Parking can be hard to find so get there early on a warm summer day. It was crowded for a Monday with everyone searching for a swimming hole more than for a good hike.

Shannon on the hike back to the Devil's Bathtub

Virginia woods

     We didn't have time to hike the full loop, so we went out to the Bathtub and a little beyond in search of a private place to swim. The trail back there was rocky and gradually uphill, nothing too difficult as far as climbing, but you had to do some major rock hopping several times along the way.

Rock hopping

     The first big waterhole was full of swimmers. There are several "bathtub" features, but one is the main attraction. There was always someone there so we never got in the water. I just tried to get a good picture of it between swimmers. We hiked another 0.2 miles up the hill and ended up finding a side trail that descended a rooty bank to another deep swim hole. The water was cold, but very refreshing on a 90-degree day. We swam for a while with some crawfish, then scaled the rooty bank back to the main trail and hiked out. This hike, the mossy ride on Saturday and hitting Mountwood Park on Thursday really saved this trip from being a complete flop. Those stops made us enjoy both West Virginia and Virginia and have us both wanting to come back in the future.

The swimming hole

Deep creekbed

The Devil's Bathtub

It is a deep pool that is about the right size for a bathtub

Video: Water flowing through the Devil's Bathtub

Our swimming hole just up the trail from the main bathtub

It was cold, but I loved it!

Selfie in front of the small waterfall

Climbing back out to the main trail

Shannon on her way up

Flower near the parking area

     I didn't feel really great on Tuesday and Wednesday after we got home. I felt weak and didn't want to eat. It made it hard to get my things unpacked and tend to the farm. We only had a few days before we were going to be gone from home again, this time heading north to take a trip to northern Michigan with Shannon's sister, Amber, who was planning the trip for her 30th birthday. I struggled to pick some blacks beans and then work on two bikes for neighbor's who asked me to help them with maintenance. 

Praying mantis in the garden. Always good to see these predator insects in the garden. They will eat a lot of pests.

Bucket of black beans. Shannon wanted to grow black beans last year and we ended up with a small cereal bowl full of beans. This year we are measuring in gallons. We are learning!

     The cool thing about these bikes were that they belonged to my family years ago. When we first got into mountain biking, my Dad bought us all basic Treks. That was around 1997 or 1998 I think. We rode those bikes everywhere, which is amazing to think about now considering how primitive those bikes were. I did my first race on one of those bikes in 1999 at the Bald Eagle Challenge at Land Between the Lakes when I was 13. That bike had no suspension, flat pedals, bar ends and 7-speed grip shifting. I didn't know how crappy my bike was, I just had fun riding it. Our neighbors bought both my parents' bikes. I don't know what happened to mine, but we still have Dina's little 20" bike in my Dad's garage. It was cool to get to work on these bikes and see they are still going strong. One needed dry-rotted tires replaced, new shifters and new grips, while the other one just needed a tune-up. I was glad to be able to help get them ready to ride again and to be able to do it cheaply for my neighbors. I had tires and grips that I gave them. They were only out the cost of a few cables and the shifters.

These tires are toast.

My neighbor Steve's bike, formerly my Dad's bike.

June's bike, which belonged to my Mom back in the day.

     I knew I didn't feel right, but it didn't hit me until Thursday that I was sick. I came down with some intestinal bug that destroyed me. I have not felt that weak in a long, long time. I also was pretty nauseous. I spent Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday just lying around the house try to sleep and beat this thing. I didn't want to eat, but I forced things down, which usually just came back out a few minutes later. It was a rough few days. We were planning to leave on Saturday to head up to meet Amber, but the sickness left me in no condition for an eight-hour car ride so we stayed home until Monday when I was at least able to keep things in me for most of the day. It seems Snowshoe is still plaguing me! 

     More about our Michigan trip in the next post.

'Shoe Fly

    Sunday was the big day at Snowshoe. XC time! The course wasn't my favorite, but it was what it was and I was ready to hammer on it. We got over to the mountain in time to catch the U23 Men's XC race and the beginning of the Pro Women before it was time for me to get ready for my race. Chris Blevins won the U23 Men's race. Carson Beckett was the main rider I knew in that race. He had some trouble early in the race, but charged back to finish 16th. Kate Courtney got her revenge from the flat in the short track that took away her title. She was over four minutes ahead of Lea Davison at the finish. Erin Huck took third.

Pro Women near the village

Kate Courtney

     We had to go find an official to get a Tech/Feed Zone pass for Shannon. In a UCI event, you cannot feed without having a credential. We were supposed to get our credentials last night at the UCI meeting, but they changed the time of the meeting without announcing it on the PA and we missed the meeting. We found the official giving out the passes, but was a bit irritated to learn Shannon couldn't be in the feed zone without a racing license. What?!! He tried to say it was for liability reasons, but none of the other categories had to be licensed. So, I had to pay $5 for Shannon just to be able to hand me a bottle. Ridiculous. I know it's just $5, but it's just another stupid thing we are being charged for because we are Pros who "get everything paid for."

     The weather cooperated more today than any other day we were here. It was alternating sun and clouds with a bit of a cool breeze to keep you in arm warmers at first, but everyone seemed to be comfortable racing. It was far from the heat people from our region have been used to so far this summer.

     I felt great in my warm-up and was chomping at the bit to get on course. I got a better call-up for the start today as I have a fair amount of XC points in the USA Cycling Rankings System. DINO is not part of USA Cycling. If they were, my results in that series would have given me a lot more points and a really good start spot. We had a lot less starters in the XC than for the short track, which is kind of surprising to me. I would have thought most riders would be more focused on XC than short track, but with the XC being on Sunday afternoon maybe some of them could not stay. Spectator turnout was also low as it was the end of the weekend and mostly only people staying until Monday were there.

Back half of the Pro Men awaiting their call-up

     We had 47 starters heading out for six laps of the 3.7-mile loop. See this post for XC loop details. Instead of being on the back row, I got to start on the next-to-back row, so a little farther from the back at least. The whistle finally blew and off we went screaming through the village. There was a touch of wheels much like in the short track start, but this time everybody kept it upright. I got caught behind the slow-down and ended up next to last coming out of the first turn yet again. I bombed the left side of the first downhill until we went under the flyover, which picked me up a few spots. Then I just settled in and got ready for the first climb. I grabbed a spot at the bottom, then just tried to hang on to the rider in front of me. He started to make some passes, so I went with him. We took the left side up the steep pitch at the top and it gained us several spots, but right at the top I pulled my foot out of the pedal and it almost stopped me completely. I gave those spots back before I got back up to speed. We then shot down the pavement and into the first piece of singletrack. The rain had made this section a bottomless pit of mud. Almost everyone was running and it was basically a creeping parade at the back where I was. I managed to ride the whole section, but I think it took more energy to do that than to walk. The mud was so deep that you never had traction, just varying levels of spin. It was like riding rollers through a trail. I don't think I made up any spots in this section as there wasn't much room to go by anyone.

     The next main obstacle was the climb back through the venue area with the man-made rock garden toward the top. I hung better on this climb than I did in the short track. I even picked off a few guys just before starting the next descent. The next climb is the one that started to effect me. It was much steeper and I lost some seconds to the guys ahead of me, but held my spot. Once at the top and back into the woods, I made a lot of mistakes on the rocks from being gassed after the climb. The rocks didn't seem all that technical in pre-ride, but it was a different world when it was slick and I was red-lining with my heart rate. My foot came out of the pedal a few times in this section and kept getting progressively worse going into lap 2. By halfway through lap 2 I couldn't keep my left foot in the pedal under pressure. I was pulling out on every climb and couldn't stand up and pedal anymore. I focused on pushing on the pedals and being smooth to try to keep the foot stable and go as fast as I could. My goal was to make at least four laps before the 80% Rule caught me, and I wasn't going to back down because of my stupid pedal. I lost a couple of spots as I didn't have the control in the final rocky section of the loop and couldn't go quite as hard on the climbs as everyone else, but overall things were getting spread out and I was not giving up a terrible amount of time to those around me. It was just frustrating to have had those pedals hold up so well all week and then give out on me as soon as the big race began.

Howard Grotts out front on lap 1

Me behind another rider on the descent to start the second half of lap 1.

Ryan Woodall in the rocky section that ended the loop

Alex Ryan

Me in the rocks

     The second rock garden on the loop was scary to say the least. My foot was all over the place as I went down, but I kept the shoe on the pedal and made it through. Lap 3 was much of the same. My pedal got worse, to the point where I wasn't locked in at all halfway through the lap. Shannon was in the Tech Zone, but there was nothing to be done. If I had another set of pedals to change to I wouldn't have started on this set. I'm not sure if you are allowed to change pedals anyway. I took a feed this lap just to get some use out of my $5. This was the only bottle I got so that was a $5 feed. I survived the rock gardens again and I tried hard to make it to the end of the loop in time to go out on that fourth lap, but they pulled me. The official said I missed their time cut by five seconds! It sucked to be so close and not make it, especially when the time they chose was less than 80%. I definitely had time to make another lap, but oh well. It's not like I was going to catch anyone on my bum pedal. Again, I don't think the results were right. I made up a lot of spots on the first lap and only lost a couple after the pedal problems got worse. They credited me with 41st out of 45 finishers. Like the short track, it's not worth arguing over as you know they aren't going to change things, but it's still annoying to not be placed right at the National Championships.

Me going out on another lap

Me in the black chasing a rider on the first descent of the lap.

Ryan Woodall on the bike park section

photo by Bruce Buckley Photography

One working pedal is enough control to justify getting some air!

photo by PB Creative Photo

Me on a berm

Photo by PB Creative Photo

The second rock garden got somebody!

Photo by Bruce Buckley Photography

     It was disappointing to have a mechanical and have to limp through the race and then get pulled early, but I was happy with how I felt. I rode strong. The numbers were good. I was ready. My build-up program worked so at least I know I have something to go off of for next year's big races. I also want to thank my SERC friends who cheered me on before, during and even after the race. I caught a lot of slack after both races from people I would consider to be local to me. It seems all I hear these days is how I'm not very good and shouldn't be a Pro. I heard that again after the XC when people told me "I knew you weren't that caliber of Pro" and that I shouldn't be allowed to race National events as a Pro. It amazes me the balls that some people have to come up to you and say things like that. Sometimes it is really hard to maintain being a nice guy in those situations, but those comments are just tackling fuel for next year. It's better than sandbagging like some others I saw this weekend. I would rather be last place in Pro than 4th in Cat. 1 when I normally race as a Pro.  I think these same people who want me downgraded to Cat. 1 would be upset and say it wasn't fair the first time I won a Cat. 1 race. Give a guy a break for having a mechanical. I had every reason to quit, but I didn't. I worked my tail off all the way to the end to get everything I could get out of my race. I had a lot of people say I was whining when I posted my race report on Facebook after the race. Yeah, I showed the real side of Pro cycling. It's not all rainbows and unicorns for all of us. Some of us are out there fighting the big teams on our own dime and sometimes having to ride equipment that is not the best. That's just the way it goes. If I am a whiner for saying that and being honest with my situation then I guess I'm a whiner. Andy Reardon sent me a Facebook message telling me to keep my head high, that I shouldn't be ashamed for being out there working hard and doing the toughest races against the toughest competition. It meant a lot more to me than he will ever know.

     Howard Grotts took the win in our race. He had a big lead early and then flatted. He was able to ride to the Tech Zone and get another wheel, but his big lead vanished. Flats seemed to be a theme for the Specialized team this weekend, costing Courtney a short track title and could have easily taken an XC title away from Grotts. It makes me appreciate my Maxxis tires even more. Grotts pulled back away after the wheel exchange to take a sizeable win. He was clearly faster through the last rocky section in the woods, as you can see from the video Shannon got which is posted below. The course was tough and spread riders out with not many battles for position happening in the second half of the the race. Stephen Ettinger took second on the day with Payson McElveen getting on the podium in third. XC Results from Sunday are posted here.

Video: Pro Men XC

     Overall, my Nationals experience sucked. It was very unorganized at times. Communication and decision-making were worse than terrible. For a National Championship event, the way things were carried out was ridiculous and unacceptable in my opinion. I hope USAC can clean it up in future years. It makes me wonder if it's worth the time and effort to get to Nationals when the organization doesn't seem to care about the riders that the race is supposedly put on for. I was glad to leave that mountain and head back to Durbin for the night. We were able to get off work on Monday so we didn't have to make the 10+ hour drive home on Sunday evening. We had an adventure on Monday. More about that in the next post.

Sunset from our rental house in Durbin Sunday night