2012 Gran Fondo Garrett County

The Garrett County Savage Century is truly a no-joke, no-frills, bad ass ride through the mountain sides of western Maryland.  This was by far my hardest road ride I've tackled at 8hours 32mins.  102 miles with exhilarating downhills of up to 51 miles per hour, miles and miles up very difficult climbing, and a little bit of rolling countryside along Savage Creek and Deep Creek Lake.  If the elevation profile below doesn't scare you, then layoff the liquid courage.

Mom has become a frequent participant, camper, sherpa, cook and volunteer on these weekend extravaganza's.  We set off Friday afternoon and had camp set by early evening.  Crab cakes were the meal of choice for my pre-ride meal from Springfield Butcher.  This was the first trip where we really did the camping right.  

 

Wake up call was at 5:30am.  A cream cheese muffin, banana, and OJ served as the "Breakfast of Champions".  A 10 minute drive over to Adventure Sports for packet pickup, then a drive up Wisp Mountain to reach the starting point.  We saw two crazies riding up Wisp mountain, and I can only guess their car must have broken down.

There were around 1300 riders combined for all riding options.  The craziest is the Diabolical Double (125 miles) of pure pain.  We'll have to wait until next year before tackling that.  At the starting line, I ran into Dan Wolfe, my frequent riding buddy on centuries.

The beginning of the ride is a few miles of downhill.  Couldn't go all out due to volume of riders, but after the first few climbs the pack thinned out and then the training wheels came off.  I'm not sure which downhill I reached 51 miles/hour, but I'm guessing I was pretty close to that speed on plenty of them ... pure exhilaration.  

Where's Dan Wolfe?  Lost him at the first decent climb.  Turns out he just needed a jump start to get the blood flowing.  He did fine for the remainder of the ride.

Mile 25 up to Morgan Town Road was long and what exactly were those girls implying by passing me on the way up?

Mile 36 and still climbing.  The combined totals of one hill after another makes one cry for one's Mommy.  Unfortunately, mine was resting at the campsite about now.

I stopped for a panoramic shot of the country side and a good view of an upcoming hill.  I did zoom down that hill, went through the woods, and slogged it up what you can see in the video.  Perhaps I was overcome with delirium, but I could swear a 70 year old lady passed me on the climb.  For the record, I did pass her at the top and never saw her again.  Perhaps she was just a big fan of tanning booths, remember this lady?

Bowman Hill is more sinister than Silent Hill in many ways, minus the demons.  This road doesn't seem to  have been built by educated engineers.  Someone far more sadistic created this ridiculous climb.

Nice of this farmer to let us ride through his property ... NOT!  That climb is longer and steeper than it appears.

Mile 55 is called "Killer Miller" and guess what, "It's hard, really really hard."  There's another little bump to get to the Eastern Continental Divide.  The bonus side is there is a really long descent to Savage Creek after the divide.  

This rolling terrain is the first part of the ride you could truly relax and enjoy the ride.  100 miles of this kind of riding would really be a popular event.  

And here we are at the finishing line, 8 hours and 53 minutes later.  The last hill up Wisp Mountain is cruel.  I was gearing up for a tougher climb, but in the end it was just another bump along the way.  Riding up the hill after 101 miles is an accomplishment that should be shared by all .. who's with me for 2013?

And here comes Dan Wolfe slugging it up the finish line in 9hrs 51mins 36secs.  I agree Dan, this ride really was ridiculously hard.

Back at the campground, here's a post-meal recap.  Rib-eye steak's from the "Springfield Butcher" were incredible over the open fire.  Good thing for GroupOn's, we got a two-for-one for purchasing the steaks and crab cakes.

The best part of this adventure was easily the camping, as usual.  The weather was beautiful, very few bugs, nice facilities, almost makes me think about tackling this ride again next year.  I asked once already, but who's with me for 2013?


Garmin statistics: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/192635790

2012 Garrett County Savage Century - Check!

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2012 Mohican MTB 100

The Mohican mountain bike race is a 100 mile loop consisting of 11,000+ feet of climbing along mostly singletrack, doubletrack or dirt roads, spanning 4 counties through some of the most remote and scenic areas in the rolling hills of Mohican Country, Ohio. Climbs of nearly a mile, with elevation gains of 300+ feet, rock gardens, streams, and more!

That's the description of the race from the official website's perspective.  My description of this ride is a brutal, technically challenging, bruising, difficult and crazy hard 100 miles through Bigfoot country.  My hopes in entering this race was to improve upon my finish time from the Wilderness 101 last year.  And I barely did, with a time of 12 hours 44 minutes.  Hey, that's an improvement of 19 minutes!

It's a long day in the saddle.  This ride I felt was much more of a mental challenge than a physical one.  I've been riding a lot leading into this race so physically I wasn't ever hurting.  However, after the first 42 miles of this course I was not sure I wanted to sign up for another 60 miles.  Fortunately, the real demanding riding was behind me, mostly road, gravel and little single-track was ahead.

As is customary on these rides, my mom came along for shotgun.  We had an easy 7+ hour drive out to the Mohican Adventures campground.  We had a good Friday night dinner at the local Sojourner Cafe on Main Street. Here's a couple shots of our campsite.

Race day started with a wake up call around 5;45am.  We had a "Breakfast of Champions" at McDonald's that provided all the calories one needs for a 100 mile bike ride.  Bikes were streaming in from all over the place toward the starting line in Loudonville.  Here's a few shots of the starting line.

 

The riders in front are the ones trying to win the race.  I'm more of a "completer" than a "competitor".  So I took my spot near the tail-end.

Here's the good news as heard in this video.  There will always be someone behind me.  

Around 600 riders started this race, not all of them finished.  One guy had a dislocated shoulder, others just couldn't make it.  I saw numerous people stopping with cramps and this was within the first 32 miles.  

Watch the video and to the left you can see where we had dinner the night before.  The last building on the right is Kim's Bike Store.  I talked with these guys about the ride, and met up with them at the aid station at mile 80.  

Just like the morning commute in DC, here we were all standing around to merge.  The initial road segment is not very long before going into single-track.  As every second passed, it was getting harder and harder to catch the leaders.  I'm sure this is where I lost the bulk of my time :-)

At Aid Station 1 (mile 20) I was feeling pretty good.  Not a lot to report here, just smooth sailing.

Here's a shot of a particularly nasty part of the trail.  I walked less of this course than the Wilderness ride and pretty much only walked where everyone else was walking too.  

One of the nice portions of the trail.  Unfortunately it didn't last too long.   I did like riding in small packs through the first ~40 miles of this ride.  It was later in the ride that I was out there in the woods on my own.  Which is very peaceful.

Aid Station 2 is 32 miles in, and took 4 hours and change to reach.  It was at this point that I was wondering what I had gotten myself into.  Any one read "Fablehaven"?  If so, check out this video.  I'll never look at a butterfly the same again.

This was a crazy ominous sight of a hill around the bend.  For the record, I did ride up the hill that many weren't.  And check out the video below for what I found at the top!

This was the sight of my biggest wipe-out.  When one gets tired, everything gets more difficult.  I was coming down this little hill negotiating the rocks when all of a sudden this log jumped out of the woods at me.  I hit it dead-on and flipped right over the handlebars.  Fortunately it was a soft landing.

Debate time.  I stayed at Aid Station 3 for almost 25 minutes. All the smart people were going left, very few of us nuts were going right.  Check out the video to see what the big debate was about.

Bigfoot Country if there ever was one.  This is 78 miles in, extremely remote, and I hope there's no one out here but me and fellow riders.

The finish line never looked so sweet!  Catered BBQ ribs, chicken and all the extras were waiting for me.  I was glad the other riders left me some.  And of course Mom was waiting right there for me (she must be very patient).

Mohican ride - Check!!!

Official Results: http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/national-ultra-endurance-nue-series-mohican-100-2012/results

Garmin results: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/185549213

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